Hi Paul,

Not sure if I can be a big help but I'll try. I can see that English is your mother tongue. The urge to translate every "to" into "zu" is strong. So let me dissection your post a bit.

The word “Mal” in German is neutral so it’s “das Mal” and for neutral you have to use “erstes”. That might be the part you will struggle a long time with. I know people living in Germany for years and they still have problems with the “gender” of our words. If you learn German nouns always learn the particles “der, die, das” with the noun. That will make it much easier for you in the long run.
You can use a more literal interpretation of "Where should I start?" as it would work better. You won’t get it any shorter than “Wo soll ich anfangen?” in German.
For the next sentence you can drop the 1st and 2nd “zu” as well as the first “,”. “Ich möchte Deutsch lernen um ….” is totally fine here.
The word “Text” is masculine in German so the right way to use philosophical for “der Text” is “philosophischer” but as we talk about the plural “die Texte” (feminine) we have to use “philosophische” and then you miss the “zu” “…. philosophische Texte zu verstehen ….”
The rest of the sentence would work but sounds a bit unnatural so I would rephrase it to “…. und mit deutschen Freunden sprechen zu können.”
The last sentence is very good but it is “der Gesprächspartner” so you have to use “einen” instead of “ein”. The translation of “getting frustrated” is also a bit off. You could say “Ich bekomme Frust wegen meines Fortschritts” or “Ich werde wegen meines Fortschritts oftmals frustriert“ but I would put the sentence like this “Aber ohne einen Gesprächspartner bin ich oftmals wegen meines Fortschritts frustriert.”

So the whole thing would be this:

Erstes Mal
Wo soll ich anfangen? Ich möchte Deutsch lernen um philosophische Texte zu verstehen und mit deutschen Freunden sprechen zu können. Aber ohne einen Gesprächspartner bin ich oftmals wegen meines Fortschritts frustriert.

Also if you really want to go for the philosophical texts don’t go for Nietzsche first. That is hard for German people as it is nowhere near to “modern” German. Well that would apply to all texts of that time I guess.

Cheers,
Alexander

Erster Mal

Wo zu beginnen? Ich möchte Deutsch zu lernen, um zu philosophisches texts verstehen und mit Deutschen Freunde zu sprechen. Aber ohne ein Gesprächspartner bin ich oftmals mit mein Fortschritt Frust bekommen.