l thinklearnning English costs lots of time

一般不这么说吧...
用I开头惯用spend
用cost前面一般用‘物’开头
spend的主语必须是人, 常用于以下结构：
(1) spend time ／money on sth. 在……上花费时间（金钱）.
例：I spent two hours on this maths problem. 这道数学题花了我两个小时.
(2) spend time ／ money (in) doing sth. 花费时间（金钱）做某事.
例：They spent two years (in) building this bridge. 造这座桥花了他们两年时间.
(3)spend money for sth. 花钱买…….
例：His money was spent for books. 他的钱用来买书了.
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cost的主语是物或某种活动, 还可以表示“值”, 常见用法如下：
(1)sth. costs (sb.) ＋金钱,某物花了（某人）多少钱.
例：A new computer costs a lot of money. 买一台新电脑要花一大笔钱.
(2) (doing) sth. costs (sb.) ＋时间,某物（做某事）花了（某人）多少时间.
例：Remembering these new words cost him a lot of time. 他花了大量时间才记住了这些单词.
注意：cost的过去式及过去分词都是cost,并且不能用于被动句.
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take后面常跟双宾语, 常见用法有以下几种：
(1) It takes sb. ＋时间＋to do sth. 做某事花了某人多少时间.
例：It took them three years to build this road. 他们用了三年时间修完了这条路.
(2)doing sth. takes sb. ＋时间,做某事花了某人多少时间.
例：Repairing this car took him the whole afternoon. 他花了一下午修车.

个人比较喜欢spend~
不过这两个只能用cost
take表花费应该是固定句式 it take sb some time to do sth.

je prefer "would require" or "spend". but as a matter of fact you could only choose b.