What is the Most Difficult Grammatical Aspect of Learning Spanish?

By Kyle W Bumpus

For most native-English Speakers, the most difficult grammatical aspect of Spanish to learn by far is the verb system. As a romance language, Spanish inherited a complex and nuanced verb system from its parent Romance language, Latin, that just doesn't exist in English. While English verbs do change with person (he/she, they, etc) and time (past, present, future), they usually don't do so nearly as much as their Spanish equivalents. But that's just the start

Preterite Vs Imperfect

While English speakers mostly stick to the simple past tense when describing past events, Spanish has two common past tenses which are not interchangeable. You must learn to differentiate between the Preterite and Imperfect tenses on-the-fly, often using both in the same sentence. While their respective usages are fairly obvious 90% of the time once you get used to the system (imperfect for continuing or background action, preterite for one-time events, etc), the remaining 10% of cases can be maddening.

The Subjunctive Mood

Closely following the Preterite vs Imperfect conundrum is the subjunctive mood. In fact, the subjunctive is even more difficult to many Spanish learners. In essense, the subjunctive mood differentiates between actions you know for a fact happened (He drove the car) and those you are not so sure happened (I don't think he drove the car). In English, the verb "to drive" takes the same form regardless of the mood: "drove". But in Spanish, the verb form would differ to explicitly convey the idea. Just as with the preterite and imperfect tenses above, you will soon get the hang of the subjunctive and 90% of the cases will be obvious to you. The remaining 10% will probably elude you for years but thankfully these cases rarely come up in conversation.

Visit Learn Spanish On Your Own for a comprehensive beginners Spanish guide, and free Spanish grammar lessons to help you on your way to bilingualism.