I read an article in The Straits Times donkey years ago when I
was still in college, that German and French are considered two of
the hardest languages in the world to master.
I can't comment on German, but I did learn French for eight months
whilst waiting for my 'A' level results, cause I had extra pocket
money by working as a private English tutor to a few foreign
students then. French IS tough! Everything, non-living objects
included, has a gender! I remember my French tutor at Alliance
Francaise teaching us cheekily that "Tables and chairs are
female... why? Cuz if you looked between their legs, there's
nothing!" 
In English, it's just 'the table' and 'the chair'
but in french, 'the' has a masculine form - 'Le' and a feminine
form - 'La', a plural form - 'Les' and if the first letter of the
word is a vowel, it become 'L'' as in 'L'aeroport'. 
And that's just governing the use of the article 'the'.
French grammar (Les Conjugation) ... or how in the world you spell
it, I'm sure I've mis-spelt it 
... is even worse! In English, we have the various tenses - Past,
Present, Past Participle, Future, etc. In French, you have all
those PLUS the verbs all take on a different spelling when the
pronouns are different! 
ie. Present tense in English : Present tense in French
I swim. : Je nage.
She / He swims. : Il / Elle nage.
They swim. : Ils nagent.
We swim. : Nous nageons.
So, for every single tense for the word 'swim', there will be at
least four variations!! I must
have burnt up a lot of my brain cells then, memorising all these
conjugations! 
No wonder now not so bright!
