The first thing I considered when I decided to learn Spanish was where could I possibly take a class on it. Luckily, the high school that I attended offered a Spanish class with an excellent teacher. Unfortunately, the desire to learn a foreign language does not always hit a person when they can easily enroll in a class. However, there are many alternatives to learning a language in a class.
First and foremost, I must mention that there is no method of language learning that will work if the student has no desire to learn! I have seen many high school students sit through three years of Spanish, get passing grades, but still not be able to communicate a simple thought simply because they just learn the material long enough to pass a test. If a person truly desires to learn, he or she will have success whether in the classroom or not.
Okay, you've decided that you really want to learn Spanish. What do you do now? If at all possible, consider enrolling in a Spanish class. This gives you person-to-person communication that will greatly facilitate your learning. The class would be a good starting point for your language studies. Learn Spanish Online at "http://www.studyspanish.com" offers tutorials that are structured just like a Spanish class. They offer many of the practices, explanations, and cultural items that school textbooks contain. They also have a great page of links. Another suggestion would to be to find someone that you can practice your new language with. Luckily, my best friend in high school was from Mexico. She was able to answer most of my questions and we had a lot of fun practicing (it was almost like having a secret code!). If you don't have someone near you where you live, you can always find someone on the Internet that can speak Spanish. There are chat rooms available for Spanish-speaking people. These rooms can be found by searching through your chat utility (my favorite is ICQ "http://www.icq.com"). Also, feel free to e-mail me or add a message on the discussion board if you have any questions or need someone to practice with.
I cannot stress enough the need for a good Spanish dictionary. I highly recommend a text-version (The American Heritage Spanish Dictionary is a good one). Also, you will do yourself a favor if you get one of the larger ones (with more words in them). The pocket versions are very limited and they often lead to frustration. There are several on-line dictionaries ("http://dictionaries.travlang.com" has some good ones), but in my personal opinion the text version is still the best.
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