Yesterday, here in Japan, I went to a Spanish restaurant. I haven't studied any Spanish since high school and never intensely or at a high level. I did, however, remember, "Tu hablas Español?" which I said that to the waiter, who then responded with "sí". I then proceeded to checking out the menu and realized that I could read most of what was inside. This blew my mind. Even after living in Japan, and studying Japanese each and every day, I still can't read half of what is written around me.

It made me aware that I could probably become fluent in Spanish, French and Portugues before I could become fluent in Japanese, much less much Chinese.

I agree. I often visit Central and South America for on business, and I know enough to get around and have a basic conversation. I took two semesters in college.
However, I've been studying Japanese intensely for two years and the most basic conversation seems impossible for me. I read an article published by the Department of State which states that on average, it takes Americans 600 hours to master languages such as Spanish or French, while Japanese and Chinese are hardest, taking approximately 2200 hours of study. That's almost 4 times as long!
I try not to think about it though. To me, stating that Japanese is hard is almost like admitting defeat. All you can do is keep trudging on.

si

I agree.

But if a Japanese learns Chinese he/she might feel this much easier than learning French for instance.

Another very important factor is the attitude towards the new language and your inner dialogue.
If I wake up every day telling myself that Chinese is difficult I might believe it in the end...

Yep! Sure feels satisfying playing a new language with the difficulty set to "legendary"...

I also realized this recently.

Spanish, with its simple and widely used alphabet, coupled with its phonetic word spelling, and not-so-difficult pronunciation make it about a hundred times easier to learn than Chinese! I haven't studied Japanese much, but I've been doing Chinese for ages

actually, since realizing this, I've thought about stepping away from Chinese and going back to Spanish

@Bohan. here comes the question why you started studying Chinese in the beginning.
you put so much effort into it and spent so many hours that your "stepping away from Chinese" sounds not real...

I think learning languages is all about your attitude. Continue to be excited about learning Chinese/Japanese. If you don't want it, you won't get it.

Exactly my thinking, learning languages is about attitude.

French would probably be easier to learn, I did 3-4years of French in school and I can barely utter a word, because I wasn't interested in it, while I learned English without any notable effort and don't have problems communicating in Japanese after 3-4 years of learning (lacking some kanji though, especially in writing...)

But I agree though, that Japanese is difficult and I notice this over and over again, especially when I'm trying to read news articles.. It's like there is no end to vocabulary, readings and word combinations and it's hard to tell which words should be used at what timing.

I think this is part of why I love studying Japanese! I myself am fluent in Spanish (lived between Argentina and Spain for 6 years) and although I *love* Spanish, there is something about the challenge to Japanese that attracts me to the language even more. Also, the people studying Japanese/Chinese are in general much more dedicated and passionate, so it's a fun hobby to share with others, too.

After learning Spanish I tried studying German and French, both for a couple years, so I have a basic reading knowledge of both, but neither of these languages fascinates me. That means I'll never be fluent in either of them no matter how easy they are - simply because I don't care. And regardless of how "easy" a language is, becoming truly fluent is extremely difficult in ANY language. I know more than a fair share of people who claim to be "fluent" in Spanish but are intermediate level at best!

I'm excited to have found Skritter because it has been really helping me with my Chinese characters, which after 2 years of studying Japanese I still hadn't really started to study seriously, and now that I have, vocabulary is really finally starting to make sense to me....that's the beauty of Kanji!

So ganbatte kudasai, minna-san! Akiramenaide kudasai! Sorry, I do not know how to say this in Chinese. :)

Just keep going. ;-)

Massive amounts of entertaining reading and listening will get you there with minimal boredom/pain. After learning Japanese, Chinese feels quite easy. ;-)

It's not that it's hard, it's just extremely different versus your native language, which Spanish is not. I agree that if you believe something is difficult, it will be. I'm sure you can ask the same question in Japanese as well!