Because of the grammar.
The grammar structures of the German language are much more complex in comparison to the the grammar structures present in the English language.
German has four grammatical cases present in nouns and articles, it's one of the fewer Germanic languages that has preserved that grammar structure, the system of grammatical cases grants a much freer word order in the sentences with more freedom of combining them according to the context. German has also three grammatical genders in the nouns.
On the contrary English lacks of the system of declensions present in German, the only grammatical cases that English has preserved are the genitive and nominative, besides the word order in the English sentences is by far the strictest among all Germanic languages with mostly SVO pattern, allowing in very fewer cases a different word order in the sentences that it isn't this one.
English also lacks of grammatical gender distinction in nouns and adjectives, being among the fewer Germanic languages that has this characteristic.
Also the phonology of German could be harder to master for English speakers, since that there are many phonological sounds in the German language that they're not present in English.
Coincidentally Old English had grammar structures very similar to present day German with three grammatical genders and a system of declensions for grammatical cases, but all those features were lost during the transition from Old English to Middle English, Middle English had no longer those grammar features.
But it doesn't mean that German is harder to learn for English speakers overall since that it also depends according to the individual perception of the person and their personal experience with the studying of the language.
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