What's the Hardest Thing About Learning Spanish?
I think the answer to this could be slightly different for everyone you ask but for me it's got to be the array of different verb tenses you must deal with in order to speak Spanish correctly.
This is especially true when it comes to the 'mysterious' subjunctive mood which is used much more in the Spanish language than in English... we're just not used to using it and initially it can be very difficult to understand exactly how the tense is used and when to use it.
I must say that for me the Michel Thomas approach to understanding Spanish verb tenses is the best I've found and definitely does save you a lot of learning time over more traditional methods in other language courses. When you understand how the verbs work you understand the backbone of the language, from there it's all about practice, practice and more practice.
Most people will actually find it quite easy to 'understand' the conjugations of verbs and how they are formed for the various
tenses however this will not make any real difference in how well you can speak Spanish!
It's only when you do the hard work of practicing to speak the language that the process will start to become second nature and useful in everyday speaking situations. Just understanding the verbs and how to change them for the different tenses of speech means nothing.
Vocabulary is another daunting task at first however this is an often much misunderstood topic when learning to speak Spanish.
It's interesting to note that a fully conversational level of Spanish is available with just 3000 core words. The best advice here is to learn only what's really necessary and forget the rest until much later on. Learn the core Spanish words and do a bit of research on the web for the 3000 most used words in the Spanish Language or even in the English language! It's going to be the same. Concentrate on that list and you'll be fast tracking yourself to having a really usable grasp of Spanish to cover you for most speaking situations.
So in summary the hardest thing about learning Spanish for me is not learning how the verbs are formed, not the vocabulary and not the reading or pronunciation. It's putting the verb tenses into practice when speaking and getting so familiar with them that they become automatic. That takes a lot of time and practice - even if you already understand the theory of Spanish verb conjugation perfectly.