How Long Have You Been Studying Spanish?

SCENARIO

Imagine you are talking to a relative, a friend or a colleague. Maybe you are talking about activities you are currently involve in and you took up at some point in time in the past. Your relative, friend or colleague knows that you are learning Spanish and have been doing so for some time. He/ she wants to know for how long you have been learning Spanish. 

In Spanish he/ she could choose to be less formal and  say :

¿Cuánto (tiempo) hace que estudias español?

Alternatively, he/ she could choose to be a little bit more formal and say:

¿Cuánto (tiempo) hace que estudia (usted) español?
  

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OUR TIP

You DO NOT need be concerned about the degree of formality in the question you are asked. Whether the other person uses the more/ less formal question is irrelevant to your choice of answer.

Your answer depends only on what you want to say about the length of time you have been learning Spanish. There are a variety of ways to answer this question. Maybe you want to say that you have been doing it for:

• Quite a long time
• A short time
• A specific length of time

Here are some examples which deal with those basic possibilities:

• Hace mucho (tiempo) que estudio español (I have been studying Spanish for a long time)
• Llevo mucho (tiempo) estudiando español (I have been studying Spanish for a long time)
• Estudio español desde hace mucho (tiempo) (I have been studying Spanish for a long time)
• Hace muy poco (tiempo) que estudio español (I have been studying Spanish for a very short time)
• Llevo muy poco (tiempo) estudiando español (I have been studying Spanish for a very short time)
• Estudio español desde hace muy poco (tiempo)  (I have been studying Spanish for only short time)
• Hace un año que estudio español (I have been studying Spanish for one year)
• Estudio español desde hace un año  (I have been studying Spanish for one year)
• Llevo un año estudiando español (I have been studying Spanish for one year)

Now you should practice answering the question:

¿Cuánto tiempo hace que estudias español?

This is another Free online Spanish lesson from Love-Spanish.com. We conduct lessons online on this and many other topics using the latest video conferencing facilities. Online lessons are the ideal way to improve listening and speaking skills. For more details on our lessons online and how to book them, please visit:

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