I'd like to self-study a GCSE (British basic secondary qualification), in one of these languages, but I'm not sure which. I still want to learn a language that is useful, but not a typical run-of-the-mill language, something which has an element of uniqueness, while still having value as a promient language.
Firstly, just how difficult is it to attain a GCSE standard of language? And also, would I need to follow a course that is specifically designed for the GCSE syllabus, or would studying just a standard course, such as the "Teach Yourself" series or "Hugo", be adiqaute?
I'm a little worried about the difficulty of Russian and Japanese, although not the written side, as I've learnt Cyrillic and it's not as hard as it's cracked up to be, you could be reading and writting Russian in a week, and the 2 phoenetic Japanese scripts are fairly easy, although there is the Kanji that has to be learnt. I'm a bit worried about the spoken side, as Portuguese is clearly the easiest of the 3, but to take Russian or Japanese to GCSE level, how much problem am I going to find? Although the grammar is different, and you've got to learn to put to language together in a different way to English, is the grammar in Russian and Japanese actually that difficult?
Thanks for any advice.
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