If you want to make your own opinion panel, I suggest you begin to consider only the opinion of people who have tried to learn a language on their own with some consistency. What language did they study? What book - tapes package did they use? How long did they try ? How motivated were they ? How consistently did they work ? Asking the questions straight away will probably offend people who have to answer negatively, so be polite. But you'll probably realize that most of these "advisers" were just damned lazy.

Learning a language on your own is quite uncommon. This does not mean that it's difficult, but just a bit exceptionnal. And most people don't like exceptional things, sometimes just because it challenges their own way of doing (or not doing), sometimes for darker reasons.

I must say that nobody has never taken me seriously when I talked of beginning to learn a language on my own. The pity is that afterwards, when I did learn a language on my own, the same people either looked in disbelief (it can't be true) or with open-mouthed admiration (some people are so clever...). What I'm saying here is that you can also do it, but you probably won't get much encouragement and many people will   try to have you quit your study. Be persistent, and don't listen to them.