The thought that Japanese is “not that hard” in this context is laughable. To be sure, in language learning ‘hard’ primarily means ‘it takes longer to get used to’ rather than ‘only smart people can figure it out’.
But, when you’re in school, hours in the day or week are limited, as are weeks in the semester. This is a very real and unavoidable measure of difficulty in that context.
That said, I would never recommend taking any language because it’s “easier”. Motivation is an *enormous* factor. I managed to fail a Spanish class once upon a time, but I’m long past N1 in Japanese now. The difference is entirely motivation. Your hours will count for a *lot* more if you actually care about the material.
FWIW, a lot of Kdramas and Kpop songs also have Japanese language releases, and also the langauges have a lot of similarities. If you learn one now, it will be easier to learn the other later.
In short, you should really just take the language you *want* to learn the most, which sounds like it’s not Spanish. You’ll have to figure out which culture you’re more interested in and how much a shared experience with your dad means to you (including how likely it is your dad will *actually* study Japanese seriously in the first place).
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The thought that Japanese is “not that hard” in this context is laughable. To be sure, in language learning ‘hard’ primarily means ‘it takes longer to get used to’ rather than ‘only smart people can figure it out’.
But, when you’re in school, hours in the day or week are limited, as are weeks in the semester. This is a very real and unavoidable measure of difficulty in that context.
[“How long does it take to learn Japanese?” (r/japanese FAQ)](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanese/wiki/faq/how_long_to_learn/)
That said, I would never recommend taking any language because it’s “easier”. Motivation is an *enormous* factor. I managed to fail a Spanish class once upon a time, but I’m long past N1 in Japanese now. The difference is entirely motivation. Your hours will count for a *lot* more if you actually care about the material.
FWIW, a lot of Kdramas and Kpop songs also have Japanese language releases, and also the langauges have a lot of similarities. If you learn one now, it will be easier to learn the other later.
In short, you should really just take the language you *want* to learn the most, which sounds like it’s not Spanish. You’ll have to figure out which culture you’re more interested in and how much a shared experience with your dad means to you (including how likely it is your dad will *actually* study Japanese seriously in the first place).
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