I feel like native English speakers who've learned Spanish tend to think of Portuguese as hard because it has more phonemes (and accented letter forms) than Spa

I feel like native English speakers who've learned Spanish tend to think of Portuguese as hard because it has more phonemes (and accented letter forms) than Spanish and (arguably) more grammar in terms of verb forms (e.g. mesoclitics and personal infinitives). This is especially when Spanish is their point of reference, or their only point of reference. But I think the Foreign Service Institute is right and there's good reason, both theoretically and experimentally, to consider Portuguese comparatively easy for native English speakers!