[R] How long does it take to learn the R programming language?

[Thomas Subia]

The length of time it takes to learn R is dependent on what you want to use R for.
Let's assume you want to use R to perform basic statistical analyses on your own.

IMHO, the best book for self-study for this is Andy Field's book, Discovering Statistics using R, It's the best book because it gives you all the necessary background for using basic statistical tests and the associated R scripts needed to perform them. 

You might also want to consider Winston Chang's The R  Graphics Cookbook, statistical analyses often need graphs to illustrate the data. This is the best book to teach you this because it gives you all the necessary R scripts to achieve this. 

The learning curve for learning basic statistical analyses using R is steep relative to SPSS and Minitab. SPSS and Minitab use GUIs to easily guide the user to the desired statistical analysis. Typically the user does not have to write commands to do this. R does offer R Commander which has a GUI to guide the user to data input, graphing and statistical analyses. You may find this useful. I suspect that as you become more comfortable using R, you will become less dependent on R Commander for your analyses. 

Hope this helps!

Thomas Subia