Is Spanish Hard to Learn? An Honest Answer
The honest answer: Spanish is category i (one of the easiest for english speakers). The US Foreign Service Institute estimates about 600–750 classroom hours to reach solid working proficiency — but "hard" depends far more on how you study than on the language itself.
Why it is easier than its reputation
A few things work in your favour with Spanish:
• thousands of shared Latin-root words you already half-know (importante, universidad, familia)
• consistent, phonetic spelling — words are said the way they are written
• a huge supply of listening material and native speakers to learn from
The genuinely hard parts
No sugar-coating — these are the parts that take real time:
• the subjunctive mood, which has no clean English equivalent
• the ser/estar split (two verbs for "to be")
• gendered nouns and fast, connected speech
The fastest way through it
Spanish rewards input more than almost any language: the subjunctive and ser/estar are learned far faster by hearing them in context hundreds of times than by memorizing rules.
That is the whole idea behind learning by listening and reading: fill your hours with Spanish you can actually understand, a little harder than is comfortable, and the "hard" parts stop being rules you memorize and start being patterns you recognize.