Thank you very much for those links! They're very helpful.

As I mentioned in reply to niceguyanon, my field is one where language acquisition has a higher value than it might for other fields. And, I'll admit, I do feel that the confidence and cultural benefits are worth the investment, for me at least. Expression and communication are important to my work. Becoming a more efficient communicator means making myself more valuable.

I know that audio tapes and text books are not how I'm going to learn a language. Like many of my peers, I spent two years in classes repeating over and over "tener, tener... tengo, tengo... tengas, tengas...." and gained nothing out of it except how to say "Me gusto chocolate." I know how language learning doesn't work, if nothing else.