Vietnamese is easy to learn, it's romanized and you can spell the word according to its sound. Much easier than pictorial Chinese.
half of my family speaks viet at home and i dont understand much..i dont think it is hard..but i think you can learn this lanuage only if you grow up with it..
Yeah my family do the same but I understand it, I speak basic Viet though despite that. The only problem with me is I don't understand North Viet accent or those shows they watch like PBN and Asia (although I do understand some Van Son as I understand their jokes and stuff).
learning to read and write in vietnamese is easy if you already have some exposure to the language, or if you can already speak it fluently. that's cause the grammar is simple and almost all of the sounds occur in english, too as someone who grew up speaking viet inside the home, i've taught myself how to read and write because of my verbal fluency. but i'd imagine it's much more difficult for someone who did not grow up in a vietnamese speaking household/community to pick up the tones.