I remember being told that German was much more like English and therefore should be a doddle to learn (in comparison to French). I couldn't grasp German at all.
Same here, I've never been able to get the hang of German, did French GCSE and found that fine
Possibly for a non-English AND non-German speaker there is not a great difference in learning the two languages, but for us English speakers the way we learn the two languages is quite different. In my experience there is not so much emphasis on the understanding of the different tenses and when they are used in English, but there is in German and other languages. I feel I understand the structure of English better BECAUSE of having learned other languages. Not that anyone taught me that, I figured out the similarities myself.