How many years does it take to learn Mandarin?

It takes a learner with average aptitude only 15 weeks to reach level 2 for Spanish or French, but about 50 weeks to reach a similar level of the Chinese language. If you want to be fully fluent in Mandarin, you'd better plan to spend about 230 weeks, which is about 4 years.

Is it hard to learn Mandarin?

Mandarin Chinese

Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons. ... But writing isn't the only difficult part of learning Mandarin. The tonal nature of the language makes speaking it very hard as well.