Yes, I guess it could be deemed a soft "L"... but I can't recall using it that way.

For me, being born and raised in the States, learning Japanese was Hell. I took six years of formal education, and it didn't do much for me... lol. Of course, I was a distracted kid back then.

I think learning the pronounciation of speak is probably relatively easy, but as seal had mentioned, it's the immense size of its structure and form... the kanji's... the thousands of characters. Chinese, to me, would be even harder. My hats off to anyone who dives into the Asian language when it isn't their "mother tongue".

I broke down and went the easy route, lol... English major for half my college career. heh.