@mikinsmith,
Hello, Mikinsmith:
I am 75 years old and still learning my native language, English.
They say that language study is good mental exercise, so my hobby is to study two foreign languages + English grammar.
1. I studied Spanish in high school in the 1950s!!! I can now read easier articles in a newspaper; I can now understood 80% of a TV newscast; and I can converse in Spanish, using far from perfect Spanish.
2. I started to study (Mandarin) Chinese in 1960. I still cannot speak it; I still cannot understand it. It's entirely my fault: I am too lazy to practice it. But I can read it a bit -- with a good dictionary. And I could write a letter in Chinese to someone -- although the reader would laugh to death at my mistakes.
James
P.S. I am sure that you already know this, but the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has a wonderful news website that reports the news in many languages. That's how I practice my Chinese reading.