Learning German

[paulwoof]

looking for a bit of advice on this one.
over the last couple of months ive had an urge to learn a new language. i dont know why, maybe im looking for a new hobby or my start to expanding from my boring self.

i was born in germany (RAF) and moved to scotland shortly after i was born, with a brief tour to ireland which i also cant remember. wether its the origins or other ive kind of set my heart on learning german, plus it is a nice sounding language.
i had no interest in learning any language when i was at school. mainly because they only did french, i couldnt get my head around LE and LA, what country on earth has a feminine bus.
im 20 now, so hopefully not to old and feel i would like to brodan my horizons.

so im looking for some advice from those who either speak german, be it from birth or later on, both opinions would be helpfull in a way.

my queeries are the standard: Where to start, best way to learn, tutor/online?,
I imagine starting from scratch its going to take a while, im not to naive about it, im presuming years to get to an accomplished level as opposed months.
from basic research, ive amounted the langauge is somewhat simliar to english but the grammar can be very difficult?
der, die, das, den, dem, des i believe all mean "the"

any help would be appreciated. hopefully this is the right section.


P.S Wie schmutzig sind deutsche Mädchen?

[paulwoof]

thanks for the reply guys, I understand its going to be quite difficult but i need a challenge, most things i do are mundane apart from playing guitar which ive stuck at for around 8 years now.

ive got started on duolingo.com which was reccomended earlier which i have found a good way to dabble in so thanks for posting that, i dont have a microphone to do the speaking excercises and the womans voice who does the examples isnt the clearest but im getting there.

i see my frustration with genders is starting again, feminine, masculine and nueter, i havent got as far as applying them to anything bar their respective human genders, der Mann, die Frau, das Kind,

i read that every noun in german is capitalized, is this the norm in all writing, from say novels to kids on facebook. does everyone start any noun with a capital? would seem strange to be typing to some on facebook and keep hitting the caps lock key for every noun.

ich bin der Mann