I'll say this, learning German was a lot easier than learning polish, which I'm doing now.

Ivan wrote:

I found German pretty easy, Chinese almost as easy, Russian pretty difficult, and Japanese fairly hard.

Well, for me Japanese is easier than German. Besides the Romance-based languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese but not Rumanian) I can make myself understandable in Greek, English, some Japanese and well, I can order food and drink in German.
Greek because I lived in Athens for seven years so I HAD to learn it; but it is not so difficult anyway.

I'm originally from Wisconsin, but I've lived in Germany for close to 20 years..... My Wife is from Krakow, so that's why, I'm learning Polish.
I had some Russian in High School, which actually makes learning Polish more difficult.

I might be making a trip to Münster this Friday...

We went to Ascheberg last friday, but didn't find any conifers in our price category, that really spoke to me.. so I got a hinoki at the local garden center... I'll be starting a new thread on that this week.