Is Japanese hard to learn?

Difficulty depends on how different a language is from your own. For a native English speaker, Japanese falls in the hardest band, which follows the US Foreign Service Institute's groupings of 24-30, 36, 44 and 88 weeks of full-time class. Languages the Institute does not rank are placed beside their closest relatives, so treat this as an estimate.

It takes longer than European languages. You face a new writing system and an unfamiliar word order. The sounds themselves are friendly, with few of them and no tones, so speaking is a good place to start.

Languages in the same band include Arabic, Chinese, Korean.

• Japanese is written in the Japanese script. You learn to read it alongside speaking; you do not have to master it first.
• Motivation. A trip, a partner, a job or a show you love will carry you further than a small difference in difficulty.
• Speaking from day one. Sentences you say out loud stick far better than words you only read.
• Short daily practice. Consistency beats intensity.

Japanese puts the verb last and marks each part of the sentence with a small particle such as は, を or に. Rebuilding sentences makes that order familiar, and saying them aloud gets the rhythm right. Pitch accent matters, so listen closely.