Is an algorithm close to a programming language?

Java

Fairly close. A programming language is a means of communicating with the machine, instructing it to perform a specific sequence of statements. Depending on the language, those statements may be low-level (like assembly) or high-level (like Java). The level determines the amount of abstraction between the language and the machine. Higher-level languages are easier to program than low-level languages, but low-level languages are generally more efficient.

An algorithm is a procedure or formula for solving a problem; a finite series of computation steps to produce a result. A programming language is not an algorithm. It simply provides the means of translating an algorithm into machine-dependant instructions. Algorithms are typically written using pseudo-code, a non-existent, generalised programming language that can be easily translated into a more specific programming language.

Many programming languages incorporate algorithms as part of the language. For instance, the C++ standard template library provides many algorithms in the form of function templates that can accommodate a wide variety of sequence containers (class templates), such as arrays, lists, sets and maps, or any user-defined container that follows the standard. For example, the std::sort algorithm is a function template that can be used to sort a sequence container, regardless of it type and regardless of the type of data it contains. Although these algorithms are generic in nature, they are highly optimised such that they do not sacrifice performance for generality. You don't have to use them -- you can easily write your own algorithms to perform the same tasks -- but it makes no sense to re-invent wheels unnecessarily, especially for an "everyday" algorithm like sorting or accumulation.

Programs are themselves an algorithm, albeit a highly-complex one composed of many individual algorithms. Thus we can think of a programming language as being the means of implementing simple algorithms in order to solve complex problems.