I personally say "yes" it is a hard language to learn. It's hard to speak as well as to learn the grammar. German has three genders for things (nouns).

SECOND OPINION:

I would say German isn't so hard to learn if you take it step by step and realize that all those impossible to remember words in German are simplistic once you know what they mean. For example, Geschirrspülmaschine comes from Geschirr (dishes), spülen (to wash), and Maschine (machine) it is the dish washing machine.

Third Opinion:

I argue that German is a harder language to learn than the other major European languages - Spanish French and Italian are all much easier for a native English speaker. The problem is the grammar - modern German grammar resembles old English and old French grammar - these languages were left by the wayside around 500+ years ago. There is a LOT of grammatical rules compared to English. For starters there are three genders. Secondly there are four cases - English and French do not have cases. They are annoying. Thirdly there are almost no rules for plurals. In English you just add s. In German each word has it's own plural form - ie das kind, die kinder, der tisch, die tische, die regel, die regeln. These are the major problems with German, although there are other issues that make it difficult. The verbs also require conjugations and there are irregular forms etc, but they are mostly annoying because of taking fairly arbitrary prepositions, i fall in love in, i wait on, i know from - commpletely different from English and somewhat counter intuitive. Add to this split verbs. Then there are the very very long compound words as described above. These are mostly intuitive, but not always, and of course you have to know all the meanings of the smaller words. You can get by speaking a bastard German, ie simplifying most of the genders to das, the plurals to "er" and ignoring the cases or using "dem" although you won't fool native speakers. You can learn the finer details if you think it's worth it and you have a few years to spend in Germany.

Fourth Opinion:

I, as a person who speaks almost 6 languages would say it's hard, but don't feel discouraged.

Fifth Opinion:

I say yes, but also no.

If you understand what you are learning, then it can be fairly easy. If you want to learn it, you can.

However, it can be confusing. I'm in my first year of German (and top of the class) and in my second year of Spanish. German is a lot harder than learning Spanish. There is not as many cognates (words that sound/are written nearly the same in English) as there is in Spanish. For example, die Apfel, apple, sounds nearly the same. In German you also have the articles: der, die, and das, which are matched to the noun. Those are harder to remember. In Spanish, it is easy because the noun usually ends in o (el, as in el perro [the dog]) or a (la, as in, la manzana [the apple]).

Sixth Opinion

I have been learning German for about a year and half. I don't think it is that hard to be fair. Yes there is the problematic Genders and Plurals and Cases. But while you will hate cases in the beginning, they become your friend later on. So if you want help with cases and Genders here they are.

Das can only indicate a neuter word.

Der is the Masculine Singular, also is the Feminine Dative, also the Genitive singular and plural.

Die can indicate a feminine or plural word in the nominative case.

Den comes only in masucline and dative plural forms.

Dem is the Dative Masculine and Neuter article.

Des is the Genative Masculine and Neuter.

This should make it easier for people learning German.

Seventh Opinion

If you love a language, it becomes much easier to learn.

The secret to learning German is to find a way to fall in love with it.

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