Welcome to Gaia! ::

If you're coming from an English-speaking background, Japanese is a hard language. There will be people who tell you it's not hard, but chances are those people are in a bit of a sophomore stage in their language learning and they haven't yet come to the realization that they don't know nearly as much of the language as they thought.

The grammar, vocabulary, and writing system, among other things, are all completely different from English, so, even if you don't think these aspects are particularly difficult to comprehend, they do at least take a lot of time and effort to master.

As for learning it... I don't know if you could say there's an "easy way." I've been lucky enough to have had some very good courses in college that focused on speaking and was very thorough in teaching grammar, and I think that has been a tremendous help. I do think it's good to start practicing speaking and listening before reading and writing (that's what we do for our first language after all). Personally, I think having someone with whom you can practice speaking and who will correct you as necessary is fundamental in learning probably any language, so a tutor would be a good idea. Also, I imagine it's very rare for someone to obtain fluency without spending time in Japan itself.

Anyway, it's hard, but not impossible, and I happen to think it's a lot of fun to learn (and very satisfying when you can see your progress), so good luck!

I have been trying to speak and listen only for like 2 or 3 years! sweatdrop
I have no tutor and I don't have time for 1.
I am in college now so I stopped. But still am thinking about learning it.. But when?!
I think Japanese is not that hard if you work hard for it!
The writing will be hard at first but you will get into it in no time!
And I come from an Arabic culture but can speak English really well.
I think everyone thinks Arabic is hard but I think Japanese is the hardest language and the best ever!

The Japanese take their main writing system (kanji) from China. Some of their culture even mirrors that of the Chinese.
Another reason I mentioned Chinese is because, to native English speakers, it is the hardest language to learn due to the intonations and fluctuations. They also have different forms of speaking as well (Mandarin vs. Cantonese) . Sorry if my analogy confused you.

When the going gets tough, I think of Japanese like this: It could be much harder.

For instance, Japanese takes a tons of words from English and give it a Japanese pronunciation. So all you're really doing is learning how to spell those words differently. So, yay! Easy speaking vocab!

And it may not be based on Latin or Greek, but Japanese can be learned by anyone. Most people just seem to give up after they hit the hundred or so Kanji mark. xD

i leanred a few japanese phrases when i was young, would it be easier for me to learn japanese if i know those phrases

I love what I'm doing and that's learning Japanese, studying the culture etc.
but it still is difficult for me, although I don't really know why because I love it!
but mostly it's about speaking in Japanese, I can do that but when I get nervous I'm done for it. So on my exam.. >.<

but to come at what the master kitcat said above me, I'm really interested, I love it, I study it with passion (I even enjoyed learning my kanji today) but it keeps difficult for me ^^;

wink Is Japanese difficult? hmmm. That's a matter of opinion.
There are people [I usually group myself in there] who are just really adept with languages, and so no language is too difficult to learn. But for every one of us, there are maybe 1000 others who find any language other than their native to be entirely impossible... sweatdrop

However! For those with determination- nothing is impossible! If you really want to do something you can do it- regardless of natural talent/skill. It's all about how bad you want to know. 3nodding