I don't know, guys. Mark Twain thought of it this way: "…a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronunciation) in 30 hours, French in 30 days, and German in 30 years".
Compound words like "Freundschaftsbezeigungen" or "Stadtverordnetenversammlungen" or "Familieneigenthümlichkeiten" [sic] did it for him.
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html