i'm a chinese. now i'm majoring japanese. maybe there are also many characters in japanese. so for chinese learners, you needn't spend many time remenbering how to write these characters. so, through my experences, it's not very difficult for a chinese to learn japanese at beginning. but after a period of time, i find it's not easy. now i'm preparing for JLPT1, there are too many stuctures which have similar meanings, so just as our japanese teacher said that if you would like to learn japanese well, you should understand japanese people's way of thinking. by achieving this, maybe reading some japanese articles and news is a good way.

im a filipino and my native language is english. im now learning japanese now and preparing for my JLPT4 on december 7. learning the japanese language takes a lot of time. i think the best way is the interest and perseverance to learn the language. i believe it applies to everything that we do, patience is a virtue. start learning words step by step and learn the basics! hiragana and katakana is easy but kanji takes familiarization of characters and imagery. . goodluck!