The Horrors of the German Language

I, like several others, took the time to read Mark Twain's "The Horrors of the German Language," I was excited to read it because I am a fan of Mark Twain and have heard about this work referred to many times in the past. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. Mark Twain is a great humorous and satirical writer, and despite not having nearly as much experience with German as Twain, everything fell into place and made sense. As Twain puts it, "My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years." and indeed do I feel like it could be thirty years before I could compose a full fledged conversation in German. Even just looking at words like Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen makes me squirm. I suppose, if anything I now have a better appreciation for those who are fluent in German. Being aware of many of the faults of the English language as well - probably attributing why it becomes so hard to learn one hard language off of another, I am very grateful that it is my mother tongue and I'm sure many Germans feel the same way.