@ddavetaylor:

Aren't there any decks available who only use pinyin and English on the back?

It's already hard enough to learn the pinyin right now, I would like to wait with the characters until I get the hang of the grammar and vocab a little. :-)

You can of course send me your deck! I would really appreciate that!

@Xiao Hu:

Wow, you are a great motivational speaker!!!

(or did you get all that from a book or something? :-P )

You are right, we all have to start from zero, and that's the biggest problem I guess. If you don't live in China, you don't get confronted with the language on a daily basis, so that makes it all a lot harder. I will have to actively go and search for some Chinese content. Music, movies, all very good tips!

Maybe Chinese children's movies are a good idea to start with? :-)

I have to admit, I was getting really discouraged when I wrote my first post here, but thanks to the great support here, I got over it. :-)

I sure am having fun, so even while it will take me a long time, I'm looking forward to succeed!