I came to see Brazilians claiming to speak the hardest language ever! Hehe. 

It really depends on who's learning it! Both languages can be extremely difficult if your intentions are " to master the language ". Actually, every language can be difficult if your goal is to fully understand its logic, grammar, system and etc. But portuguese and english are "speakable", what I mean is, you can achieve a conversational level very quickly. Basic grammar + useful vocabulary, there you go! Unlike Russian (in my opinion) that achieving a conversational level and being comfortable with it can take a lot of effort! 

As a portuguese teacher I can easily say that foreigners tend to speak it better than the native ones here. Simply because foreigners learn it intentionally and respect it when with native speakers, it's taught in a boring way and the system here makes it even more complicated! 

Considering two facts: The illiteracy in Brazil is HIGH and even people who attended schools, universities and etc can easily be functional illiterate here. Compared to other countries, we are poor readers and that's what the government wants from us,... well, I could write a thesis about it.

But Portuguese is a piece of cake and any Brazilian that seems to enjoy saying that portuguese is hard, I would like to invite him/her to study any slavic language for 1 month and then see if they'd ever repeat such nonsense thing again! :) 

@Alex - Easy question. For you, English is easier because it's your native tongue. Hope that helps.

I'm Brazilian and, as a native speaker, I can tell you that English is easier than Portuguese. First of all, because of the many exceptions, verbs conjugation, gender and accentuation, in other words, the grammar is tough, the pronounce's easy. In comparison with English, as you asked, it's harder to learn, even though with German, Mandarin or Russian, it's actually a piece of cake.

I understand English is my native, but I find students I come across Learning English speak very well and   can express them selfs within so little time. I feel as though this is because of the simplicity of English