As hard as English.

It's not difficult for you to speak Chinese, but it will be difficult to learn about Chinese culture and Chinese philosophy.

I am a Chinese native.In fact,Chinese isn't so hard for people just want to learn for communicating,and the grammar is extremely simple,maybe the most hardest work would be the writting in Chinese,but where there is a will,there is a way.Good luck.

The first step is always difficult. it is possible to be a painful experience for the beginners.you can try to find some chinese tutors on italki,they'd like to help you good luck,Mike

Beginning any language is always difficult. On the one hand, there are some challenging sounds to pronounce in Chinese and reading it is much more difficult than Romantic languages since you use a tremendous amount of characters instead of a set alphabet. On the other hand, the grammar can be a lot more straightforward than many other languages. I myself, am only a beginning student but I am very motivated to learn. I think that no matter what language you are learning if you really enjoy it and have a strong desire to learn you will definitely succeed. Once your mind wraps around the concept of tones and characters you will start to see progress. My progress might be going a lot slower than I would like but I am always encouraged by the fact that even the little I know now is miles beyond what I started with.