NewCultivator if u wanna learn chinese mandarin, a good place to start is using the app Hello Chinese.
I learned mandarin for 4 years and the app basically summarized what i learned in those 4 years 
Tho, if u have trouble with certain words, use pleco because its like a dictionary.
But you might also have trouble with chinese idioms as they are frequently used in novels and such so try to read on some famous proverbs, idioms, and sayings that they like to use.
NewCultivator To prevent you from making a big mistake. Chinese is a TONAL language.
It is a spoken language. Once you learn a wrong tone, you speak a VERY DIFFERENT Thing. Similar to Spanish papa (potato) and papa (father).
Get a proper native to correct you. This is one of the language that you can't learn without a TEACHER for speaking. Use NATIVE Chinese people (Beijing to prevent you get dialect). (for writing don't use Taiwan's traditional style, mainland people (where the big market in the future is) write in simplified.)
For the words, this Rabbink used "repetition until stick" method. Remembering the Hanzi (writing style) is the easier part of the language. Tone is the hard part.
Try Duolingo, it's a website for learning languages. It also have an android app so you can leafn with just the phone. (It's online)
Ni hao Wǒ de míngzì shì Pen Qiu Yan.
Panqiuyan
Let see! I know 3 or 4 characters
Ni hao means hello or you good/ okay
WO means me/I/my
Shi means 10
That's all
@_@
NewCultivator It says hello my name is Pen Qiu Yan.
Panqiuyan wait! doesn't "shi" means 10?
NewCultivator 10 = 十 (shí), is = 是 (shì)
correct me if im wrong
NewCultivator This is the proof of TONAL language. You need someone to 'correct' you else, you learn something wrong. Apps and Book can't replace a teacher. When you learn something wrong, it might be too late to correct it.
MasterRabbink Sadly No institute in my place for teaching CN
Yessss.. There was once that my friend was giving a speech about how grateful he was for his mom but my chinese teacher ended up laughing cuz the way he's saying it was like he was grateful for his horse. 
