How long does it take to learn animation? Is there any free software available for the same?

Answer 1

Blender is the best open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. It's available for all major OSes including Windows and Linux.

Download from:
http://blender.org/

Official tutorials:
http://www.blender.org/cms/Tutorials.243.0.html

WikiBooks tutorial:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro

Here you can see a movie that was created with Blender:
http://orange.blender.org/

Answer 2

Not sure on freebies but Paint shop Pro has a animation programe that comes with it-it is fantastic and I found it best to play in there until grasped how to create them. As they say, practice makes perfect ;)
I think animating is easy but so god damn time consuming, very tedious indeed....but the end results are worth the time spent and patience required.

I wish you luck, you'll love it when can get the right software