I think for language nerds learning Japanese is a canon event. The 日本語上手 -> Uzbek pipeline is very real and it’s happened to all of us. You’re not alone. Japanese isn’t even a real language, it can’t hurt you anymore. You’re free now. Learn any language you want. Even fr*nch.
I’ll check back in a few years good luck soldier 🙏
So btw fun fact Japanese is one of the hardest languages to learn unless your native language just so happens to be some regional language in Japan because 1. Its grammar is weird 2. It’s almost a language isolate with the exception of the aforementioned regional languages that are , by the way, very much endangered (contrary to popular belief it’s not related to Chinese or Korean at fucking all outside of writing/cultural similarities/loanwords) and 3. It probably has the single most complex writing system in any language
Also if that wasn’t enough there’s very little reason to learn it unless you have Japanese family members or are like really desperate for Japanese media that hasn’t been localized (or want the least interesting translation job) like if you wanna learn a difficult language learn Mandarin or Arabic bc they’re much more practical which kinda sucks bc Japanese is really cool but it’s hard to stay motivated when it just gives you so little return for the time investment
I mean... I know all that. But genuinely I think it's easy. Its grammar is really logical in ways English/Romance grammar are not, the writing system is actually less confusing that it looks to be at first, and like... the fact that it's a language isolate is really interesting. It doesn't help me learn any other languages, but it's no harder than learning your first language on a different language branch than your native one.
And I guess if you're motivated by application and return on investment, maybe you won't want to learn it, but I've picked up a ton of languages that are way more useful and way more connected to other languages and dropped them all without getting anywhere. Japanese has been the first time I've been consistently self motivated in learning a language, and it's probably just because I have so much access to Japanese language media that I can immerse myself in the language at a way higher level than I can for anything else I've tried to learn.
I don't want to speak it for any real reason, but I think it's interesting. There are a lot of Japanese people on language sites who are willing to help you learn, there's a ton of resources everywhere because it's super popular, and maybe if I can achieve a level of fluency in this super accessible language, it'll be the step up I need to try again in the less popular ones.
Again, maybe I just don't know how hard it can get, but I thought kanji was stupid until I realized you need it to be able to read a sentence longer than 3 words. I thought the grammar was nonsense the first time I heard it until I learned what a particle is. When I got my brain used to hearing the language, picking it up academically got a lot easier because I recognized the natural speech patterns. Like, it's been really really accessible to me. There's a lot to learn, but it isn't hard.