<p>i'm going to be a freshman in college and I'm wondering how hard is Italian. I have taken spanish for about 6 years if that is any help.</p>
<p>If you know Spanish, Italian will be easy to learn... though it will be confusing at times. A lot of the vocabulary is similar enough that you can figure out what some words mean, so you will be better off than your English-only colleagues. The same goes for just about any Latin-based language.</p>
<p>I've heard very mixed reviews from people learning a second romance language. Some find it extremely easy because they're able to pick up on the grammar more quickly, and some of vocabulary is similar.</p>
<p>Others actually get really confused and begin mixing the two languages. Its kind of hard to tell until you try- I decided to go with German after taking several years of spanish instead. (You should be able to drop the class if you feel confused.)</p>
<p>Love the italian! I was in class sitting next to a girl who took spanish all through school... I was jealous cause she picked up and retained it all so easily (lots of words have similar roots and grammatical rules). I didn't do so well in class; it was challenging to me being as my second language is American Sign Language, and that's an over simplified way of communicating, and Italian is way more complicated than English. The opposite side of the spectrum screwed me up, but I still loved the class!</p>