Is Japanese difficult to learn

Answer 1

Not for some. But it can become so, without proper course, enough motivation, lack of eagerness and diligence.

Japanese basic alphabetic syllabary called 'kana' (katakana+hiragana) are really as easy as appetizers once you set your mind to it and they help you with kanji, the main dish. Language, specifically a new one, is considered elusive to the mind, also as a foreign learner, where you don't 'see' or 'hear' words so often as a native, you will need to fill that gap by coming up with a way to repeat.

It really depends on how hungry you are when it comes to the kanji, there are plenty! Kanji can be likened to 'vocabulary' in other languages, the more you know the wider your range of vocabulary, the better your skills at reading, writing & comprehension; and the good point is bigger words are made of these single kanji so once you learn one kanji you'll have potentially learnt much more than one word. Something that might seem difficult to most when learning kanji is their 'stroke order' (筆順 /hi tsu jun/) that is the order in which every single line and in effect, the whole kanji is drawn. Still there are keys to help with that like 'radicals' (部首 /bu shu/) and general rules for drawing with very little exceptions.

In my humble opinion, it is essential to learn grammar along with vocabulary, sentence structure etc. In case of Japanese it's really helpful if you learn some main points early (like verb conjugations), it makes your mind more capable of tinkering with the words, phrases and sentences you come by and helps you with guessing & figuring out meanings on your own, which is the best way to remember and learn.

It depends on the person. If you know the Kanji Characters (Chinese characters), you'll find Japanese easier to read than a European person. However, Japanese is not one of the easier languages to learn.

It's an SOV language with no male/female declensions, so it's more straightforward in that way. Reading and writing is another matter.

Japanese has 3 writing systems:

1. Hiragana (Used to be Onnade meaning "woman's hand" because when kanji came from China, the Japanese women made an easy style of writing so that they could read the kanji.) Easy to learn. Used all the time.
2. Katakana (Used for foreign words and sometimes animal names) Easy to learn. Some are hard to remember because it's not used as often.
3. Kanji (Characters that came from China- some were modified by the Japanese) Hard to learn because there are so many different characters and most can be read in more than one way. (Has Kun, Japanese way, and On, Chinese way, of reading a kanji)

Answer 2

The Foreign Service Institute places languages into 5 categories, based on how (typically) difficult they are for English speakers, with Category I being the easiest and Category V being the hardest. Japanese is in Category V, and it's also at the more difficult end of the category.

Category I includes Spanish, French, and Italian...

Category II only includes German

Category III includes Indonesian and Swahili...

Category IV includes Hebrew, Hindi, Vietnamese...

Category V includes Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic