I'm an American who learned to read Hangul. I had also tried learning to read Japanese and Chinese, but those were difficult for me. With Hangul, I just picked it up almost accidentally.
[EDIT] It was really kind of weird/awesome that one day while riding through Koreatown in L.A., I looked over at a sign and blurted out "I can read Korean!". I was completely surprised.
Fun fact, you can already read it backwards. Try reading Hangul that's painted on a piece of glass from the wrong side. It's almost as easy as reading it written correctly.
[EDIT] It was really kind of weird/awesome that one day while riding through Koreatown in L.A., I looked over at a sign and blurted out "I can read Korean!". I was completely surprised.