A few days ago I came across (in youtube) a brief news program from Spain about Spanish language being one of the fastest spoken languages. The presenter cited some study of a comparison of the speed of the spoken languages. The study concluded that two fastest languages are Spanish and Japanese. The slowest is Mandarin Chinese. The presenter also said that a very moderate, in terms of speed, is German. Being a student of Spanish language for many years (more than 30) I completely agree with the study. Even now, after so many years, I watch Spanish movies and series with the Spanish subtitles.

And being a native Russian speaker I often think of the comparison between someone learning Russian vs. Spanish. I remember reading in a Life Journal forum dedicated to learning Spanish a testimony of a person (I think a woman) who said that after many years of studying Spanish, she still struggled to understand it, when spoken by natives. And then she said that recently she began to study Russian and only after 6 months she could understand it pretty well.
Back when I was in the university, in Russia, we had a fairly large population of foreign students; I am guessing about 10%. Foreign students were mostly from Arab countries (Egypt, Iraq), Iran, Africa, and some eastern European countries. The foreign students would have to study Russian for one year, before starting the 1st year of college with Russian students. I lived in dormitory and had to come across these foreign students quite a bit. Also, in my group there were 3 students from Iraq whom I had to help academically (back then I have not yet started taken the stupid pill :). In any event, what always surprised me, back then, is how fluent in Russian were the foreign students. Only after one year of study! I don’t know if this was because the Russian professors had a unique and very efficient method or the language itself was easy to learn.

Now I am wondering how French language stands, in terms of how fast or slow the natives talk. Probably later this fall I will start dedicating even more time to French and wonder how long it will take me to be proficient in understanding the natives and expression myself more or less coherently.