How long to learn a second Romance Language

I just started learning Spanish. This will be my third language after having learnt Japanese.

According to a website article I read they said it takes an English speaker about 600 hours of study to learn a romance language such as Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian. I was wondering how long would it take to learn a second Romance Language after learning the first one? Maybe 80% of the time, or maybe less? Has anyone done this? Just curious.

Hi KenF-obh6

I have been doing Italian and I do speak Portuguese, not Brazilian Portuguese. Am now learning Spanish. I find Spanish and Portuguese quite similar in some instances, but in other ways it can trip you up as well. Italian again is quite similar in some ways. I find this leads to some confusion as well. For example numbers. There are similarities, but then I question which is which. I think it does help, but not sure it cuts learning time. Be interested to hear what others say.  Well at least it will be very different to learning Japanese. How did you find the Rocket Japanese?  We may be going to Japan and am tempted to start learning, but have my schedule full with 4 languages at the moment.

I love the similarities one finds in so many languages. Intrigues me.

Enjoy your Spanish

Maxie

wow. Impressive both of you. Learning Italiano is challenging for me. But defintely making some progress. About 160 hours in. somewhere between A1 and A2 level.

Best wishes on you journies.

Maxie, learning 4 languages at once must be quite a challenge, and I could see how easy it could be to get mixed up!

As for learning Japanese, that was back in the days before the internet, so old school, using books. The hardest thing I found with learning Japanese was and is the writing system. You have to learn thousands of kanji characters and that takes years. I have read 5 novels in Japanese but it is slow going and I still have to look up kanji words all the time.

According to what I read online if one has learned Spanish it may take about half the time to learn Portuguese, but it is best to treat them as separate languages to minimize getting mixed up, and to solidify the whichever language you learned first for about a year or so before starting the next one.

Ha sido un gusto. Hasta la proxima vez!

HI KenF-obh6

Thanks for that. Actually decided to drop the Japanese. May do some book leaning of the wrtitng before I tackle the speaking. Can't say I am not intrigued. I have spoken Portuguese for many years. Lived in Mozambique as a young child and then moved to Swaziland and South Africa. So all in close proximity. So all our holidays were in Mozambique. We had family there and although I am not Portuguese am married to a Portuguese man. Not that I speak much Portuguese to him, as he is always correcting my grammar. We only spoke Poetuguese when we didn't want the kids to understand us :). I am fluent in speaking Portuguese, but have never learnt to read and write it. Weird I know. So it does help with Spanish and Italian, but also can trip you up. As for my Afrikaans that helps with German. 

So happy learning. 

Maxie

Hi I started to do Spanish a few years ago and I for some reason stopped. Then about two years   

ago I was playing the video game for the nintendo switch Splatoon 2 and I wanted to learn the

Japanese language. I started and at first I was a little shy to speak in front of any one but then 

once I started to learn It more and more I was capable of speaking. I know how the Japanese 

language is alittle tricky some times. I sometimes try to say long sentences and struggle with

pronouncing the words. My struggling point is not in the Japanese writing system instead its

trying to say some sentences in this language. Some of my favorite things in the Japanese culture is their history and food. :)

HI All

I agree it is the speaking in any new language that is hard. I basically have decided that will speak any way. Evenif the grammar is wrong, as long as I can be understood I'm fine with that. 

I lived in South East Asia for 15 years and I miss all the different foods there. The diversity was great. 

Have decided not to do Japanese, just too much on my plate at the moment. May do so in a few months.

Take care

Maxie