[gwervc]

> There are like 220 hiragana/katakana. You can't learn those in a week.

They're less than 50 each, plus a few diacritics. I did learn hiragana in 3 days, it's that easy. One just need motivation, and practice. People failing at it just don't put the work. Heck, I can read more thai letters than a relative who lives there for years and is "learning" the language because I sat and took a few hours to practice.

[HKH2]

You seem to have intrinsic motivation to learn languages, whereas your relative probably has extrinsic motivation - looking for a punishment or a reward (E.g. I have to learn it because people here use it. If I don't...)