[philsnow]

Chinese is actually much more similar to English (structurally) than a lot of people realize:

It doesn't mark case or gender like English (and it doesn't even really inflect verbs).

The word order is for the most part the same or similar (German has this verb-at-the-end construction that you not only have to learn, but you have to train somewhat to remember enough context to bind the verbs to the clauses they apply to; Japanese is SOV rather than SVO like English/Chinese).

The writing system takes a really long time and a lot of memorization, but if you're learning only to speak and listen, you don't really have to deal with it.

[seanmcdirmid]

Chinese is basically English grammar with different words...Japanese on the other hand is much more weird. Getting tones right is key, but they are easy to practice.

Writing is quite hard; I'm conversational but basically illiterate.

[gurkendoktor]

But if you only speak and listen, you still have to deal with tones :)