Is German hard to learn for English speakers?

German is moderately hard for English speakers. It's easier than Arabic, Chinese or Japanese, and harder than Spanish, French or Italian. The US Foreign Service Institute estimates about 36 weeks of full-time study for German, compared with 24–30 weeks for Spanish. The good news is that English and German are close relatives, so a lot of the vocabulary is familiar from day one. The hard parts are grammar: three genders, four cases and verbs that move to the end of the sentence. All of them get easier with enough examples, and hearing and saying real phrases is the fastest way to collect those examples.

What is easier than you think

• Lots of shared words. Haus, Hand, Finger, Wasser, Buch, Name, Hotel, Problem, kommen, trinken, finden. You already know hundreds of German words.
• Spelling you can trust. Once you know the rules, you can read almost any German word out loud correctly. Try that in English.
• The same alphabet, plus ä, ö, ü and ß.
• Word order in simple sentences often matches English: "Ich trinke Kaffee." I drink coffee.

What takes practice

• Der, die, das. Every noun has a gender, and it often doesn't follow any logic. Learn each noun together with its article, never on its own.
• Four cases. The article changes depending on the noun's role in the sentence: der Mann, den Mann, dem Mann. Hear it enough and "mit dem" starts to sound right before you know why.
• The verb at the end. "Ich weiß, dass du heute nicht kommen kannst." Literally: I know that you today not come can. It feels strange for a few weeks, then it doesn't.
• Long compound words. They look scary, but they're just shorter words glued together: Kranken + haus = hospital.

How to make German easier

Don't start with grammar tables. Start with whole phrases, and let the patterns come from them. Say everything out loud. Practise a little every day, so the endings you heard yesterday are still there today.

That's how 30daysGerman teaches. The audio course has you say common German phrases in the pause before a native speaker does, over 63 lessons. The interactive course goes through 16 chapters, over 2,000 words and phrases, with short grammar notes and verb drills. Pick the one that fits your day, or use both.