One of the reasons that Japanese is hard (for a westerner) is that all the symbols used to write Japanese text are unknown. Mathematics is expressed in logic, a

One of the reasons that Japanese is hard (for a westerner) is that all the symbols used to write Japanese text are unknown. Mathematics is expressed in logic, and that logic is most often expressed in a human language that the reader knows (such as English) plus some symbols. Those symbols are usually either known, or are introduced on a supportive framework of logic, a human language, and known symbols.