Is 30yr old too old to start Japanese?

Hi, I really want to learn Japanese as my 5th language. I already speak English (of course!), French, Arabic, Hebrew and Spanish. But my friends tell me that learning Japanese at this age is like trying to learn the violin now, very hard. Is it too late for me? I do want to read at least some of the characters enough to get by where I can have a conversation that is beyond: "Hi, how are you... I am fine" Any one have any personal experience to tell me about?

Personally I don't think that starting to learn Japanese at 30 is too late, I only started to learn Japanese when I was 27 and I have found it fine.
Plus you have the bonus of already speaking other languages, so if you can master that many you shouldn't have a problem with japanese.
Good luck

I started learning Japanese when I was 32 years old and had 2 young children.
If you learn other languages easily, I think Japanese will be fun.

I'm 56 and learning it. You're never too old!

you can never be too old for anything.. go for it.

No age is too old to do anything!

Especially with all that previous language experience, including a language that doesn't use the latin alphabet (actually I found katakana to remind me a lot of hebrew hehe), it's far from too late to start.
Grammar and vocabulary and hiragana/katakana really aren't all that hard to remember, you can get most of the basics pretty easily within a year, even with just self-teaching (see guidetojapanese.org, nihongoresources.com, and a program called dreamkana). Kanji is a bit more of a challenge, but if you're aiming to be able to read basic signs and text and have some decent conversations, then you probably can get by with knowing some of the most used ones, which are fairly simple.
Good luck!

I took it on at 55
日本ごわむずかしです
even though I can only manage basics it has proven invaluable for me in my travels there.

Hey guy/gals,thank you for the responses. It does frsutrate me that I let my age hinder me at 30. But I am gonna take it on.

About Japanese sometimes looking like Hebrew... I totally agree about some Japanese script looking like Hebrew. I see it all the time. It's cool how our eyes can play tricks on us. :o)

Thanks for the tips.

I hope to master the complete Japanese language in 6 months.

Hahha, just kidding! ;o)

If you're starting to learn Japanese, I have two book reccomendations for you. Firstly, "Japanese the Manga Way: An Illustrated Guide to grammar and sentence structure" I've learned more from this book in a week than I did in a year at my Japanese evening classes. I didn't even know that 'da' was the informal word for 'desu'. (Slap the forehead time.)

Also, you mentioned you wanted to learn the kana (Japanese symbols). I'd reccomend "Remembering the Kana". This book is ideal, it uses image recognition to drill the kana into your head. Also, it's written by the author of "Remembering the Kanji" which I've heard very good things about and plan to buy it.

These two books are good bases to start your studies on.

(also you can get them really cheap from 3rd party sellers on Amazon)

@SMEGfridge NIIIICE! I am def gonna get those on Amazon used then!

Rock on and thanks for the advice. The manga book sounds awesome and exactly my kind of read.

don't worry, I know someone who's 80 and studies japanese and he's pretty good.