All languages are hard to learn if you 'force' yourself to. The best (but slower) way to learn a language is to 'feel' it gradually, through various media...along with an understanding and (growing) interest in the host language's culture.
It's really the inherent xenophobia and fear/uneasiness of change that makes languages hard to learn for adults. Kids don't have that because their heads aren't -that- filled with the jargons of life yet.
p.s. Chinese is actually far simpler than english, it's really the unfamiliarity with the script stucture (which isn't hard either) that puts most people off.
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