> Oh, yes... I'm one of the weirdo anime geeks, as well. And this is an absolutely brutal language to learn, mostly deriving, I think, from having to learn to read it, too. And kanji are -nasty-.
>
> Seriously. I'm halfway through Intermediate Japanese(2nd year) and halfway through Introductory German(1st year). My level of comprehension of the two languages is roughly equal. I think my German's better, though Japanese -is- infinitely easier to pronounce.
>
> Either way, it's sort of... you know? Yeah.

Not that German is much better, even *with* a familiar alphabet and common cognates, thanks to its sometimes complicated declensions.

Sure, the below-linked essay by Mark Twain is just as full of blatant misstatements as the article on Japanese, but...well...hey, why not give all the confusing languages equal time? Heh.

-- codeman"je préfère français, moi-même"38