It's the written Chinese that is difficult. Since most of society is based around written text it's an important part of learning a language.

Having studied Japanese for three years full time I know the obstacles. I've yet to read a full novel. It's too painful. I just started reading one with the help of my Japanese partner who can fill me in on the reading and meaning when I try to read.

It would take too long otherwise.

fortunately the gigantic barrier of the horrible writing system is starting to crumble down thanks to technology.

You can now search for words using pinjin, voice or drawing (thanks Pleko).

And if you encounter unknown printed(!) signs you can just point your camera at it (now or soon, what's currently the best app?).

As for calligraphic handwriting this will forever remain elusive. You may consider it as an utterly useless hobby.

As much as I despise Siri, one things she is surprisingly capable of is answering: "hey Siri what does sneeze mean in Chinese"

Technology certainly helps for Japanese.. when I hear a word I don't understand (e.g. from my wife), I enter it as it sounds and the dictionary gives me a nice (often short) list of translations, with hiragana, katakana, and kanji. And, due to my RtK studies (see earlier posts) I often get an 'aha' moment when I see the kanji. If what you described works similarly for Chinese then yes, it's a real game changer.

The lesson I'm getting from this thread is, if you want to learn a foreign language, get a foreign bride.

The real lesson is that learning a foreign language is hard.. it needs a lot of effort. In the general case, at least.

wo yao yi bei pi jiu...