It depends on your linguistic background. I started studying Portuguese after already having reached fluency in Spanish and French. I therefore found it easy (although I do struggle to understand some spoken European Portuguese as I find it more difficult than Brazilian Portuguese). My linguistic background also means I can understand Italian fairly well, as well as languages such as Gallego (which is similar to Portuguese) and Catalan (less similar). I can also understand written Occitan fairly well. On the other hand, if you're from Asia, and the only experience you have of learning a second language is with English, then I'm afraid to say that Portuguese - and in fact any Romance language - is going to be extremely difficult for you.

Yes and No As a "most phonetic language", it is easy to read a new word without caring about being wrong in nearly all cases. As a native speaker I think that the main difficult with Portuguese is the fact that there is many ways and levels to express de same idea. But, it should not be that hard if you have another Latin language background (Italian, Spanish, French, etc.). Another point to consider is the fact that there are two official orthographic rules (orthographic only) . The Portugal and the Brazilian one, its affects near of 5% of the all words. Formally speaking both are now acceptable in all Portuguese speaker countries, and the Portuguese one has a defined time to go away. But, I don’t think that Portugal people is going to change the way that they spell some words so soon in order to embrace the Brazilian way to do it, as long it was a very political decision. Of course, each country has its own words or special meanings to the original Portuguese words (which is a little dangerous). Pronunciation is also a bit different between Brazilian and the others variations. There are some preferences too, Brazilian generally uses gerundial forms and in Portugal, infinitive forms are more common, but in all Portuguese, both forms are correct. However, I guess these affirmations are common to all other languages. Before you get started may be helpful if you try to understand a little about romantic cultures, because its expression is deeply connected with the way we express our ideas and thoughts. Portuguese is not difficult, but can be complex.

Hello Mike The portuguese has a lot of spanish words, may seem easy to learn for hispanic speakers, but you have to start from 0 to learn it, if you want to learn it well, it isn't easy.

It i s very difficult to learn portuguese..I have been trying to learn it since two years,..However,I wish you success in learning that language..regards

I reckon it is when it is compered with english language, but it isn't when it is compared with some arabic language for example. Mind you, when we have motivation toward the language, the sense of difficulty changes totally, thefore, hardness can also depends on the person who is learnig. No matter which barriers can appear on your path, you will be able to find out means in order to overcome them when you are well-motivated.