# How long did it take you to learn proper English or proper Spanish? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 9, 2016, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355 "2016-05-09T01:40:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![yo\_han\_go](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yo_han_go/32/130_2.png) [@yo\_han\_go](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yo_han_go)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/21 "2016-05-14T07:27:50Z")
I my case, basic school education (roughly 8y x 2h/w) gave me some knowledge, but I was mediocre at best. To lift my English to college level and beyond took another 8y. That meant a lot of reading in English, and watching English movies WITH English subtitles also helped a lot. Born and living in Slovenia, FYI. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/22 "2016-05-14T07:45:23Z")
> [@robby](#): > > šŸ˜• Iā€™m not sure what the point is, here. Can you clarify this, **Nava**? Why was this such an epiphany? A lot of the Spanish we knew, we knew in terms of rules. Once you know which are the rules to form regular verbs, you donā€™t need to remember the conjugation of every single regular verb there is, just the rules and their exceptions. Alas, this was not applicable to English, we were told: English, just memorize it. Do not try to apply logic, there are no rules, there are no relationships to Spanish. No rules, no logic, just memorize it. For a class with an inordinate amount of future applied scientists, ā€œjust memorize itā€ was a splitting headache. Micaela didnā€™t merely teach us English, she taught us how to perform comparative grammar. HALLELLUJAH! English has rules _and some of them are just like in Spanish_! Kind of like being told that you can only poop in your pants and then being given access to the toilet, in terms of relief level. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/23 "2016-05-16T00:36:08Z")
Lot of problem with English are we donā€™t emphasize the ā€˜tā€™ sound in ā€˜littleā€™, it sounds more like liddle , idioms that actually make no sense. Orthography the relation between spelling and spoken sound - is very inconsistent. English is hard to learn since there are words that are spell the same but mean different things. :(:(:(ā˜¹ English has much more depths. which becomes harder for us to understand. :eek::eek::eek: words that donā€™t sound the way they are spelled and mean differently depending on the context. Synonyms, homonyms, homographs, homophones, colloquialisms:eek:šŸ˜•šŸ˜• People have problems with vowels because it sound alike.ā˜¹ Well Spanish has simpler spelling and fewer noun cases than English. Well Spanish is almost completely phonetic. The problem is English language is a morphing of so many other languages that we never simplified it. Also people accents are very different today than they where 100 or 200 years ago. The US English is very different than British English that is harder to learn and older British English and middle age English is even harder. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/24 "2016-05-16T00:50:57Z")
> [@yo\_han\_go](#): > > I my case, basic school education (roughly 8y x 2h/w) gave me some knowledge, but I was mediocre at best. To lift my English to college level and beyond took another 8y. That meant a lot of reading in English, and watching English movies WITH English subtitles also helped a lot. Born and living in Slovenia, FYI. It is really strange, but it easier to be nurse or doctor than to learn English. After all it takes 5 years of nursing schooling to be nurse and 10 years of schooling of medical schooling to be doctor. For surgeon or specialist add other 5 years after 10 years of doctor. Where you have lot of 20 oldā€™s in collage of speaking, reading and writing English every day from age one that is no better than 9th grader English. With some of them even worse. Well even a doctor does not take 15 to 20 years of learning to be at a basic collage level. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/25 "2016-05-16T01:34:32Z")
2 years in H.S. to gain the ability to read and write Spanish, another two years of mostly reading literature, magazines and such to expand vocabulary. I can speak it in the same way I write it, which is to say I mostly have to translate from English. I get lost trying to translate as people speak; they go too damn fast. Mas lenta, por favor. Spanish was always easier to me than English; the rules are a bit more logical, and the irregular words relatively fewer. (Except, of course, for speaking it.) ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/26 "2016-05-16T02:06:43Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > Well Spanish is almost completely phonetic. Listen to a Cuban or Puerto Rican speak Spanish, and then ask yourself again if Spanish is almost completely phonetic! Your point is well take, although Iā€™ll point out some obvious homophones, like echo or hecho, rayar or rallar, or in general for a lot of speakers thereā€™s no distinction between big B and little V (I see this misspelling on the street quite a lot). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/27 "2016-05-16T05:22:37Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > Lot of problem with English are we donā€™t emphasize the ā€˜tā€™ sound in ā€˜littleā€™, it sounds more like liddle , idioms that actually make no sense. The first varies by dialect and the idioms thing happens in every language. Some of them make sense once you realize one of the words is being used with a now-obscure meaning, or are purposefully ā€œbackwardsā€ (they say the opposite of what youā€™re supposed to understand). ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/28 "2016-05-16T05:24:28Z")
I learned English at ages 7 ā€“ 13 in USSR. Learning restricted language in USA was much more interesting. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/29 "2016-05-16T05:57:30Z")
About 16 years to learn proper English. Thatā€™s the only language I know. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/30 "2016-05-16T06:19:15Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > I learned English at ages 7 ā€“ 13 in USSR. Learning restricted language in USA was much more interesting. What do you mean by ā€œrestricted languageā€? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/31 "2016-05-16T07:31:17Z")
From what he posted in another thread, he means cusswords. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/32 "2016-05-17T23:17:27Z")
The 10 Easiest Languages In The World to learn. > **[Easiest Languages For English Speakers To Learn](https://theculturetrip.com/europe/spain/articles/the-10-easiest-languages/)** > > Interested in learning a second language? Well, here are 10 of the easier ones to master. And English is not even on the list!!:mad::mad: I think why English is so hard to learn and take 10 years to learn English is it is not a static language. It is very old and have some French and Latin similarities. If the country had strong nationalism with immigration policy and visitors it would been more pure English. Also over the years a person accent changed and English scholars did not changed the spelling and added words it would of been more of a simplified English over years of how accent change . And English has very high vocabulary unlike other Languages make it take a long time to learn. Look you guys have teens in high school and college kids that are 9th graders at English. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/33 "2016-05-17T23:44:39Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > The 10 Easiest Languages In The World to learn. > [http://theculturetrip.com/europe/spain/articles/the-10-easiest-languages/](http://theculturetrip.com/europe/spain/articles/the-10-easiest-languages/) > And English is not even on the list!!:mad::mad: From the web site: > [@](#): > > . . . these are ten of the easiest language for native English speakers to learn. In other words, they didnā€™t even consider English. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355/34 "2016-05-18T00:00:20Z")
Hmm about 8 years of studying English as a young boy (roughly from age 5 to 13), but i would say it was at least a couple years of actually living in America and going to regular Highschool classes before i was 100% fluent. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-did-it-take-you-to-learn-proper-english-or-proper-spanish/754355.md?page=1)