So next time one complains about French I will tell him to .... GO PISS UP A ROPE as Med would say !
With English, one learns that it's a patchwork of exceptions, and memorises them.
With French, once you learn the reasonably consistent mapping of sound to spelling, it's about memorising the strong verbs and the occasional "Œufs" and you're good.
In German, you learn the rules, and once you can decode the sentences to place things in their right class and rôle fast enough, you can at least do the listening side of speaking the language. A lot like Latin, actually.
Swedish is a lot of exceptions. And 4 genders. I don't know how to learn it, because I was brought up with it. The other 4 mentioned above I have some experience of getting used to. And I learned Danish by reading Donald Duck and watching TV. Literally. They call Goofy "Fedtmule".