>>11
It's less about languages then it is about paradigms.
If you're just learning yet another imperative c-like scripting language, then of course it will be easy and won't require much experience. Try learning some lesser known(by the average programmer) languages like the ones in the LISP family(CLISP,Scheme) or ML family(SML,Ocaml, Haskell) for understanding the functional paradigm. If you never dealt with this programming paradigm before you'll see it's different than just learning new syntax. Another (worse) example: a pure C programmer learning OOP design patterns OR another programmer first learning about stack-based languages or learning assembly(and computer architecture). Can you really just say it's new syntax? Once a programmer knows most common programming paradigms, it becomes just about learning a few new concepts and syntax, but until then learning a new language can mean learning a new paradigm, which can be quite a journey.