On: Learn Russian or Chinese (mandarin)?

[Setsuna]

Japanese is much easier than both. (This obviosuly doesn't answer your question but just a tip)

[sabj → Setsuna]

Where does this come from? It's nice to have alphabets, but you still have to learn kanji... All that aside, it is ranked as pretty equivalently difficult to Chinese by a lot of sources. (foreign service, etc).

[Setsuna → sabj]

Plenty of loan words and easier to pronounce.