Even Greener Pastures

Thanks everyone. Yes, SHL, I think you understand what I mean. It does feel like cheating. I wonder if native speakers of German ever think twice before putting a verb at the end of an English sentence, wondering "am I doing this because it's correct or because I'm German?"

Can't speak for anybody else, but I don't, not about verb placement. Prepositions are a different matter altogether. The older I get, the more I find myself doubting my instincts - and rightly so. Sigh.

I find the story about the Ukrainian/Russian speaker needing to check about different word endings for different gender peculiar to say the least, especially as she wasn't just checking if that was the case, she didn't know why it was so.

Er... no. Not peculiar in the least. You try asking any Polish speaker who's never wasted a thought on his native language why the endings change when you switch from saying "Lubię białe wino" (I like white wine, accusative) to "Nie lubię czerwonego wina" (I don't like red wine, genitive), and in all likelihood they're going to look at you as if you'd asked them why some wines were red while others were white, why people die, or why dogs bark. (I know. I've tried. And one of those I asked had a degree in German philology.)
Failing that, ask any ordinary German why it's "der gute Schnaps" but "ein guter Schnaps" and watch them flounder and drown in the intricacies of a bit of grammar they use every day.