How much Effort and Time is need to learn Guitar?

like if i start now trying to learn on my own by books blah blah and friends. How long would it take for me to learn decent skills, so that ppl can say "he's not awesome, but he knows what he's doing".

The more you want it the quicker you will see results.
if you cant be bothered a lot of the time you wont get any where.

I'd say around three months, but that is all objective. It depends if you have any musical background or not. I played percussion for 6 years and then picked up a guitar and could play in like 3 weeks. But it all depends if you have an ear for music and whether or not you can keep a beat. Don't give up, that's the best advice I can give you. It's hard, but it's worth it.

you need lots of time...learn chords and scales, and eventually you wil work your way up

a good long while...i did the same thing and its taken me a few years to get to this point. i can easily carry a rhythm, but solos kill me

It will take you a few months to get rhythms and stuff, but to play fast stuff, it will take a while. I started over the summer (electric guitar anyway) and I know a lot of songs and can play some solos. You should definately think about playing, its really fun.

It hurts my fingers to play chords (stupid small hands!), so I gave up after three or four months and was able to play a simple scale.

it depends what you mean by decent skills, but no matter what if you want to be a good player you have to put a lot of time and effort into it, I have been playing for 2 and a half years and I noticed a VERY Drastic change from the time I first started but if you dedicate yourself and put the time into it you can do it

If you want to learn it good then you gotta take the time that means doing endless hours of scales and little riffs a good guitarist can take up to 10 years to fully develop

You could be playing simple chords and putting together songs within weeks if you work hard. Can play more complex things within a year. And after years, you will be able to shred. this is with hard work. For some people, they never get their own sound, and can only mimic other guitarists, since this can't be taught.

once you have gained calluses on your fretting hand, you are playing a good amount. keep playing and playing. once you lose those calluses, you aren't playing enough. if you keep playing and playing every chance you get, i'd say within a year you should know your way around the whole guitar pretty well.

It can take anywhere from weeks to months to learn, but it'll take you a lifetime to master. But don't look at that as a problem--look at it as a good thing. You'll be engaging in a life-long love story, and there aren't many people who can say that they've loved the same thing from the moment they encountered it until the moment they died...