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@ryo @Misato @matana Japanese is pretty much objectively harder, though. Evidenced by the fact that Japanese people struggle with their own language a lot more than even people that learn English as a second language struggle with English. A lot of Japanese people seem to not be able to write kanji from memory, which is "not necessary anymore", but still proof that it's definitely harder because in English, if you can't write, you are illiterate.

Translating Japanese is a nightmare compared to translating English. First of all, someone that doesn't know kanji is already limited only to things with furigana, so almost only manga, and some of the scans that I got are blurry enough that I can't see them, so those are out (reading small complicated kanji on a computer screen is also a problem, it's just a black blur and I have to zoom in to actually see the radicals). Then there are way more words that are identical in kana but that mean many many things, that can maybe be differentiated using the kanji, but that's another thing to slow the process down. Then the actual grammar is harder, because there are so many conjugations/forms and combinations of different forms, while English has comparatively very few. There are also a lot of particles, that can generally be used for seemingly different things, but English kinda has "particles" like that too.

All of that memorization is stacked on top of already having to memorize a shitload of vocabulary. In my case, every time I try, I quickly have to stop because my brain starts refusing to memorize more useless information (which is useless, because I can't use it, none of it really feels like it brings me closer to being able to read). So I have been occasionally learning more Japanese since 2017, and I always have to stop after a while because my brain works against me and just says "this shit is useless, I am not going to remember this anymore", and whenever I try to use it, I have to translate most of it and it's boring as hell and after a while my brain does the same thing and I don't remember anything that I translate. It also has to be manga, games are unbearably slow and boring this way and I just feel like skipping the text, and it's the same for anime. So I stop when I can't absorb more information, and I forget most of what I learned this time, and next time I relearn it, and it gets a little more solid every time. The biggest problem is that the breaks tend to be too long, but they are necessary because I get to the point that I can't remember stuff even after trying to memorize it and repeating it 200 times in my head.

There is also the additional benefit of English being so important that you can't not learn it unless you want to be basically illiterate and have access to very little information. It is less nonsensical, but a lot more complicated. English is pure nonsense, but simple enough that you can learn it by accident (like I did). Hell, I think I remember seeing that 15% of the population of Japan knows English, and I think that's definitely a better success rate than even people that actively try to learn Japanese. Horrible by European standards, but the languages are very different, and I assume that it's taught like absolute shit and most people probably don't try to use it, which is necessary for any language, school never being enough other than for the very basics of grammar and vocabulary.

Anyway, Japanese is definitely harder. Everything points in the direction of it being the hardest language on the planet other than maybe Chinese, though Chinese was simplified and I don't know how hard it actually is. Even more characters to memorize, though, and the pronunciations supposedly aren't straight-forward and consistent like they are in Japanese. English is so easy that retard teenage me was able to learn it with almost no actual study (I did passively absorb some grammar and vocabulary in school).

As far as pronunciation goes, Japanese is one of the easiest if not the easiest. You can learn it by accident. And actually, when it comes to pronunciation, I think English is one of the hardest, because there is no consistency, it's pure chaos and you pretty much have to listen enough to memorize how every word is said.

That's my position as an EXPERT and VETERAN at failing to learn Japanese, and also as someone that normally isn't that bad at learning. I didn't even try to read last time I was learning because at this point failure is expected. Also, I don't actually use Anki, because it sucks and I hate it.

"Learning Japanese takes longer than the lifespan of the universe."
-Black Science Man

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