The best way to start learning a language is online.

Chinese

http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/online.htm ~ offers to help you learn the Chinese Characters

German

http://www.german.about.com/ ~ offers a very large website dedicated to teaching the German language.

Spanish

http://spanish.about.com/ ~ offers many spanish learning resouces such as lessons and grammer

Japanese

http://japanese.about.com/ ~ many good tips for the Japanese language