List of learning difficulty for various languages for English speakers

The list is here. Came across it while reading up about Korean.

What language to learn?

OK, so Japanese might not be the best language to learn. Considering that Spanish was not a bigger winner for me (but that might have been thanks to the lack of interest in the language), it might be worth it to consider more languages.

I have thought about French. Girlfriend speaks a little which helps. Plus every single bloody package in Canada comes in French so learning new vocabulary should not be too difficult. And I would not mind visiting the country. But I have never been able to say words correctly.

Mandarin has been considered. I have a bunch of friends who speak Mandarin (ranging from well to a few words). My pronunciation is surprisingly good for a white boy (a perk of having almost exclusively Asian friends from junior high through my bachelors degree). The writing system is crap (screw ideograms!). Plus I don't have a huge desire to visit the country (although if I went with friends I would totally up for the trip).

I am not at all interested in learning German (just don't like the sound of it). Esperanto is just too esoteric. And I have no interest in Spanish.

Or I could say screw the second language and just stop with American Sign Language (which Meesh and I plan on learning).

Contemplating learning Japanese

I have been wanting to learn a second language for a long time (Spanish from high school does not count). I had been holding off on deciding on a specific language for so long as I had not come across a language I was interested in learning that didn't seem to have some rather silly part to its design.

This includes Japanese which has two issues. One knock against the language is that it has a high level of formality to it in terms of specific words and forms you must use with different people based on their status compared to you. The other problem is that there is three separate writing systems, one of which is based on Chinese idiograms.

But Japanese has the motivating factor of being from one of my girlfriend's background. Granted Meesh does not speak Japanese (had a bad experience in Japanese school as a child), but it would be nice if one of us spoke the language. This is especially true if we ever make a trip to Japan to visit her relatives there who really want to meet her.