The present research examined the changes in Chinese university students' motivation to learn German during a 16-week semester. Analyses of the data showed that both at the beginning and toward the end of the semester, the participants held (fairly) positive attitudes towards German, were motivated to learn the language mainly for integrative and instrumental reasons, and studied the language hard. Towards the end of the semester, they became significantly more integratively motivated to learn German yet made significantly less effort to learn the language.