I would say so. The writing and grammar system is different than English. I’ve studied Japanese for a while and the SOV and SVO really threw me off.

For example:
“I (Subject) speak (Verb) Chinese (Object).”

“Kare wa (Subject) chuugokugo (Object) wo hanashimasu (Verb)”.

So yes. It’s a challenge.

Learn French. Do not learn Japanese.

Even though Japanese and my native language Icelandic, is world's apart. Japanese comes very easy to me. Straight A's, so I was very proficient before living in Japan and now I'm practically fluent. Whenever I don't understand something (when speaking), I would ask them to explain (in Japanese) the meaning or provide synonyms. Usually in scenarios where there's a lot of technical terms, academic texts, financial terms, bank, insurance company, government institution matters, etc.

Your ability to learn other languages depend on your aptitude and even then regardless of your native language it can be very individualistic what languages come more easily to you. Interest in the language is also a crucial factor in mastering any language, as is commitment and practice (practice makes perfect).

To be considered fluent/proficient, you'll need to know around 2000-2500 essential kanjis - the same as what Japanese high school students learn. Though if you can, learning 3000+ kanjis will put you on par with adult fluency. It's not as daunting as it seems, if you put an emphasis on learning new kanji every day and the presence of hiragana and katakana helps immensely.

Its really hard
There often isn't a direct translation like there is with many other languages. You can approximate easily enough but often finer points are completely lost in the translation. Philosophical things are almost impossible to translate.
So, basic translation is easy enough but really clear translation is really hard. There are some simple phrases in Japanese that I have spend years thinking about and still can't translate them. I know what they mean but there just isnt an equivalent english phrase.

You can speak the language without reading or writing it. Start with that.

Let's see now...

Has an "alphabet" of sort that you need to memorize.
Takes years to master.
Is a tonal language.

Just stick to reading manga with it.

Honestly it's just memorising kanji that's hard (and some of the more unusual grammar quirks, which are hard to explain, but when you get them...). The rest is easy.

And it's not even hard. It just takes time and focus. There are no shortcuts. That's what people find most difficult. You can learn all the kana in under a week (I did it in about three days) but for kanji it takes a looooooooooong time and you don't really feel you're getting much in the way of results until you're a few hundred down.

So my answer is no, but also, yes.

But I speak Japanese like a drunk pervert with a head injury who really likes metallurgy, so please defer to the other more fluent posters.

Konichiwa! =^_^=

Kirsten Dunst song:
https://youtu.be/WJm9T1wPIns?si=ROs4xz4FVuSILDkv

No it's not.

Japanese language is easy after couple of litres of sake

Originally posted by Delta:

Learn French. Do not learn Japanese.

Why tho'?

Originally posted by Delta:

Learn French. Do not learn Japanese.

Well, at least I can help you with french.

Originally posted by Siluva:

Originally posted by Delta:

Learn French. Do not learn Japanese.

Why tho'?

spoken in more countries, i guess. only one country has a very large amount of japanese speakers. really only useful if you are living there or want to view untranslated medias or something

If you were to learn a language. Top tier recommendation would be to learn English and Spanish
Good alternatives being Arabic, Russian, and French.

Regional languages or languages that are mostly used in one country, such as Japanese, are only useful if you're actually going to engage with japanese things.

Modern Japanese is no more difficult to learn than any other language.

Your familiarity with syntax will factor into this.