Is Spanish hard?
So what’s involved if you want to learn Spanish… and is it hard?!
- Spanish is descended from Latin and is quite closely related to Portuguese and Italian, fairly closely related to French (a Spanish speaker can usually make out quite a lot of the other Latin-based languages).
- A lot of the vocabulary is quite familiar to speakers of English, as we also have many words of Latin origin. (What do you think these words mean: “difícil”, “interesante”, “universidad”, “decisión”?)
- Spanish pronunciation is quite straightforward: most of the sounds of Spanish also occur in English.
- The language is largely written the way it is pronounced – there are just a few clear rules, so it’s easy to read and write.
- The basics of Spanish grammar are not that hard – you can easily pick up enough for everyday conversations!
- Spanish becomes a bit harder when you start looking at some of the verbal constructions (tenses etc.), but once you have mastered these in one Latin-based language, you will find that the other languages are very similar.
- Latin American Spanish and European Spanish have become a little different over the years, but if you speak one, you will easily be understood by speakers of the other. You quickly learn to recognise the main differences in pronunciation.