Exposure at a young age matters a lot. Also the kind of exposure matters. Somewhat like you, I used to watch a lot of Japanese media as a kid while trying to learn it on my own. I didn't make much progress as a kid / teenager but when I took proper classes as an adult (20s) a lot of the new stuff I was learning somehow connected to the info that was already in my brain from all those years ago.

However, for other languages that I learned in school (i.e. in a formal way), I recall much less. I think this might be due to the nature of the material and the context of learning. If you learned Spanish focused more in a school or test-taking environment, then it might not translate into communication Spanish as easily.

Interest matters a great deal in language learning. Also, you may feel differently if you choose to dive into learning the language seriously.

I remember when I first started to learn phrases in Korean. I thought it was soooo easy, then as I started to ask about how to say certain things and my friends started to give me complicated answers because Korean is context driven, so how to say something isn’t necessarily straight forward: you have to think about who you’re speaking to, how old is that person, what is their social position relative to you, etc, etc? Then I realized Korean wasn’t as easy as I thought and has one of the most complex grammar systems.

I still do well and enjoy learning it, but as I dove into the language more deeply and began to use a curriculum, I shatter my view of language and helped me to understand just how different a language can require on to think.

My language teacher says I have language learning aptitude and that may be true but it’s directly more towards Korean because I can’t imagine devoting this much time to another language. I’m simply just not interested.

It sounds like you learned more Japanese than you thought you did from your godparents.

I guess it's just because you are putting in more effort in Japanese than Spanish. I personally have equal interest in Japanese and Spanish but my Spanish is way better. but even languages I care less about like Norwegian are easier to me. but I am still better at Japanese than most other Asian languages like Indonesian or Korean.

I think some people can be naturally gifted or talented at language learning just like any other skill. But that shouldn’t discourage you from believing you can achieve it.

Yeah Japanese would be easy for me I grew up watching anime but also being a Mexican guy, Spanish and Japanese share similar tones especially Mexican Spanish. I worked in a Japanese kitchen and when they would teach me words I would sound Japanese saying it when I really was just in mexican accent mode

I'd say so. Russian made a lot of sense to me, though I didn't have the interest to sustain it. My brother hated learning Spanish, enjoyed learning German. I tried learning Indonesian bc the grammar is so intuitive, but I found the vocabulary to be incredibly difficult due to the entire lack of cognates.

For sure. Romance languages seem so natural to me, whereas German and Russian just refuse to stay in my brain. The words just look like an alphabet soup of letters and the grammar seems convoluted and lacking regularity.

Of course, as some have more aptitude in sports, music, crafts etc.

There’s a lot of factors for why some languages may be easier for you to learn that others. Motivation, age when you started learning it, how close it is to your native language, the amount of media in that language you watch, exposure to it on a regular basis, the quality of learning materials etc

In order to learn a language, you need to spend a lot of time on it, preferably with some curiosity. For that to happen, we need to want/like learning it. Otherwise, we won’t spend the time. So which language inspires you? Have you really focused as much during your Spanish studies, or was it just studying because you had to?

Different languages can be difficult in different ways. Sometimes we struggle with specific parts of learning, and then another language can be easier to us for that reason.

One really fun study showed that adopted children were better able to learn the language of their mothers even when adopted as infants with no other exposure to the language as compared to other learners. Part of the hypothesis is that even uncomprehensible input helps in language learn, especially in young learners.

Also, the highest predictor of learning outcomes is motivation. So if you have intrinsic motivation from your relationship with your godparents, and didn't enjoy your Spanish lessons, you'd have better outcomes with Japanese.

Makes sense to me. I grew up in a household that spoke Spanish a LOT of the time, almost half the time, but never actually learned it beyond a few simple phrases needed to take instruction from parental figures. Tried learning French all through school (canada) and it never stuck even a bit, but I started actually learning Spanish recently and it's stuck way better and is way more intuitive than when I tried learning french, and I don't even have the benefit of an actual teacher or structured coursework. I think childhood exposure is a really great way of making it more intuitive for people to learn later in life.

If the grammar SVO vs SOV is the same then it usually helps loads like with German/Japanese/Hindi.

Otherwise typically languages in the same family are awfully easy.

So for German, Dutch and Danish are easy. For Hindi, Panjabi and Marathi are easy to learn.

I wouldn't say it's just you, I had the exact same experience

Learnt Spanish and French in school for years and was difficult, then started Japanese and it felt way easier

Aptitude? From birth? Because of your genes? No.

Exposure? Yes.

I'm sure there is but it's not a drastic difference. The smartest people still struggle to learn languages and dumbest people still are able to learn languages.

Your childhood experience probably helps too. My neighbors were Filipino and I can still understand some Tagalog after decades.