Quote Originally Posted by Duo
From what I can make of these threads, I think the question should be changed into should the japanese stop assuming that foreigners are stupid ? ;)
Exactly ! I mean who can't learn some basic greetings and numbers, even as toursits ? When I went to places like Thailand or Indonesia (for about 2 weeks), I learnt what I could because it's not always easy to be understood in English there. In one day I had reached the same level in Thai as most Thai tuck-tuck drivers in English. If I didn't know, I checked in my phrasebook, because I hate using sign language.

I think that most Japanese assume that foreigners cannot learn their language because its "ooh so difficult". In fact it may be one of the easiest language in the world except for the particles (which even the Japanese have problem with) and the kanji (not difficult, just a matter of time and practice). The pronuciation and many aspects of the grammar (no gender, number, declination, conjugation, few tenses...) are easier than in about any European languages. I'd say that the main difficulty of Japanese is that it is too simple and therefore confusing (homonyms, lack of grammatical nuances..).