Learning a new language as an adult.

A great way to spend some free time! I know what it's like to learn language by yourself not being in childhood anymore. i think i even have made much less progress because i was not trying actually (just had to learn something because of living in another country). as for german, i was studying it at school, but didn't succeed a lot because of a similar problem as you have: the school program was more of showing off, rather than a good teaching. I have a friend who began to study german i guess at the same age you did, without any prior skills in it. when german students came to study for some time in our university, she became very good friends with them, and started to practice with native speakers. i think the surrounding is very important in learning, so if you have some german speaking friends, try to talk with them; at least share some thoughts through the internet from time to time. another thing is reading simple literature in german (even for kids), listening to german tv channels, watching german movies with english subtitles. as you might have already understood i am a follower of the idea that language learning develops through your daily interactions. hope you will be able to find something useful in this loooong text. good luck!

That's good for you to start to learn another foreign language. Perhaps you can find a Germany friend and you can learn German quickly:) I love China

Scarrlet covered most of everything. One thing I would add is try to search online. There are free language based games you can use and that could work as an alternative/supplement to your learning. Other than that, getting samples of the language whereever you can (the net being a common media), watching TV programming with subtitles, studying with others (especially children) can all help too. There are also tools, databases, text searches for language in case you want to try some learning that way too. Ah yes Freemind, before I forget. "Viel Glück mit Deutschkenntnissen" Well I'm still a free learner and hobby seeker myself. But that was a well wish in German.