I think it was hard because we had to learn all that abstract advanced stuff (Plusquamperfekt Futur II Temporaladverbial Reflexivpronomen, all that shit) that you’ll probably not learn in a language course for non-native speakers and that you don’t need to know to speak the language in normal life.
Still, it is super hard to get basic Deklination right. Of course people will understand you, but they will immediately notice you are a foreigner even when you speak without accent.
If you aim for a high proficiency level like C1 then yes you eventually learn all the “advanced” grammar. Especially the tense system in German isn’t even that advanced compared to basically any Romance language or the English tense-aspect system.
Unfortunately, language learning in schools seems to be firmly in the hands of theoretical literature people. Of course, knowing the formal rules of a language helps with speaking it, and knowing the fancy scientific names for some linguistic constructs might even be entertaining to some, but in order to understand and speak a language, its understanding needs to be on a more personal and intuitive level you can only develop through frequent use of that language.
I think it was hard because we had to learn all that abstract advanced stuff (Plusquamperfekt Futur II Temporaladverbial Reflexivpronomen, all that shit) that you’ll probably not learn in a language course for non-native speakers and that you don’t need to know to speak the language in normal life.
Still, it is super hard to get basic Deklination right. Of course people will understand you, but they will immediately notice you are a foreigner even when you speak without accent.
If you aim for a high proficiency level like C1 then yes you eventually learn all the “advanced” grammar. Especially the tense system in German isn’t even that advanced compared to basically any Romance language or the English tense-aspect system.
Unfortunately, language learning in schools seems to be firmly in the hands of theoretical literature people. Of course, knowing the formal rules of a language helps with speaking it, and knowing the fancy scientific names for some linguistic constructs might even be entertaining to some, but in order to understand and speak a language, its understanding needs to be on a more personal and intuitive level you can only develop through frequent use of that language.