Is language learning that easy? 言語を勉強することはあんなに簡単？

I'm intrigued by Tim Ferris' post on how to learn a language, though he characterized Japanese as simple phonetically and deftly avoided the greater challenge of the writing system (which I'll expand on later). Learning only one of the phonetic systems wouldn't take you too far. In fairness to Ferris, he was originally focused on spoken structures, but then he digressed, which reminds me, Uniqlo opened a store in Oxford street!

NOVA explodes! NOVAの爆発

The NOVA English conversation school bankruptcy scandal is just the latest bad news about a company whose troubles have been mounting for some time. Back in the late 1990s when I was working in a private conversation school, we always felt pity for fellow foreigners employed in their factory-style scheme. Now their teachers are stranded without compensation, the students are out of pocket for untaught lessons, and the teachers union has even launched a 'teach for food' campaign.

As that last link mentions, another chain school GABA has apparently reached out to the survivors of this debacle, but I note that their teachers are considered 'independent contractors' rather than employees. Disposable sensei! None of this is unusual, just symptomatic of Japan's reluctant globalization, which in this case may work to China's benefit.