Jim - unsolicitedly tacking onto some of Bob's advice, if you're really interested in learning a foreign language, you need to get abroad (note single entendre here). When I was in high school I was an exchange student in Italy, through AFS (http://www.afs.org/) and it was the start of my love of travel and joy in learning-by-doing in language study. I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship through the public school system (which somehow overlooked the fact that I had already studied several years of Spanish, and offered me a free trip to Italy ) - so money needn't always be an issue in such things.