Hi, I am doing the same type of self-study. My first suggestion is always to work with a native speaker tutor (i.e. the various low cost, tutors on www.italki.com) but if that does not work for you then you can go to the public library and check out Pimsleur Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese depends on your situation) CD courses for speaking/listening. And then go to www.amazon.com for the best rated Chinese character learning self study books and decide which one (but only one when you are starting off) to use first. Its your choice if you buy or borrow from the library. These are just the lowest cost self study options I used in the past. But I really would work with a tutor. Its a lot quicker. Good luck! Jericho

Speaking of course. You have to know the different pronunciations for one single letter（字）. The different pronunciations show the different meanings, and it will be very difficult at begining.

pinyin is good. I studied chinese also begin with pinyin ^^

even though we don't have some alphabetic stuff, we have Pinyin. It can help you to study the phonics. You can google it or find a person to teach you. It's not hard for an English speaker. And then, you can start letter, words, sentence. you'll be fine. Remember, the first step should be Pinyin. And it will help others to help you with Chinese. Hope it will help you.