[jdmichal]

This helps me makes a lot of sense on why German is ranked longer than all the romance languages. Most of the learners in the data set we're probably already familiar with a romance language, and probably with a higher level of formal training than their mostly intuitive knowledge of English.

[mullen]

But German is not a romance language and neither is English. Theoretically, as an english speaker, it should be easier to learn German than French or Spanish (But is not).

[jdmichal]

That's my point. If all one has is informal but native English, German theoretically should be faster. Though not as fast as, say, Dutch to German, thanks to the large import of romance vocabulary into English, along with other grammatical drift...

However, if one has informal but native English, but also formal training in a romance language... I could see such a person picking up new romance languages faster than German. The romance languages are more consistent with each other than English is with German.