Learn how to pronouce a syllable,then a word,then a sentence,you will learn basic sentence pattern,at the same time involved in daily conversations,then grammar to make you understand the language habit of Chinese.

As mentioned by Elaine, Chinese has two parts pin yin and Characters. As for Pin Yin, it is very important, you need to learn it first and you need to learn the four tones and neutral tone. It is the key step to pronounce Chinese well. After you learn Pin Yin, you can choose to learn Character or not, if you just want to learn the conversation to speak, there is no need to learn Characters because the Character is for the ones who want to write. If you know Pin Yin you can read all of the Chinese words and sentences. Hope this can help you.

Generally speaking .most of beginners will study pinyin first, and then characters. The pinyin is like phonetic symbols which help you spell and read . So if you want to study.you may choose study pinyin.:)