The Awful German Language
Entry posted by Viggen
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I recently stumbled over Mark Twains Appendix D from Twain's 1880 book A Tramp Abroad called The Awful German Language
...being a native german speaker, i found it fascinating how Mark Twain "manages" to learn the german language and how he wrote with his usual wit about it...
Now observe the Adjective. Here was a case where simplicity would have been an advantage; therefore, for no other reason, the inventor of this language complicated it all he could. When we wish to speak of our "good friend or friends," in our enlightened tongue, we stick to the one form and have no trouble or hard feeling about it; but with the German tongue it is different. When a German gets his hands on an adjective, he declines it, and keeps on declining it until the common sense is all declined out of it. It is as bad as Latin. He says, for instance:
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SINGULAR
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Nominative -- Mein guter Freund, my good friend.
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Genitives -- Meines guten Freundes, of my good friend.
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Dative -- Meinem guten Freund, to my good friend.
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Accusative -- Meinen guten Freund, my good friend.
[*]PLURAL
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N. -- Meine guten Freunde, my good friends.
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G. -- Meiner guten Freunde, of my good friends.
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D. -- Meinen guten Freunden, to my good friends.
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A. -- Meine guten Freunde, my good friends.
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Nominative -- Mein guter Freund, my good friend.
Now let the candidate for the asylum try to memorize those variations, and see how soon he will be elected. One might better go without friends in Germany than take all this trouble about them...
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. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it. 
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