German is harder than I thought it would be. Sincerely, I think at some level I honestly thought I'd just pick it up without having to study it properly -- that was the case with English, and I reasoned (dumbly, I know now) that it couldn't be much harder now that I knew English and had that as a base.

Of course, I learnt English when I was younger. And I did study it properly (academy and all) at some point, although I knew reasonable English before then (or so I believe). And German is more complex -- it just is, with its declensions and word chains and what seem like many (too many?) grammar rules.

It could be simpler, that's for sure. It feels as like its historical speakers just weren't that interested in simplification. Latin speakers did -- romance languages are simpler than Latin. Declensions were dealt with by late Latin speakers and were replaced with a relatively easy to grasp (to me anyway, and of course I'm biased, but to some linguists surely as well) set of propositions. Alemannic speakers, on the other hand, were just a bit too earnest and decided to keep with the old ways. Now I have to deal with it. Eventually.