@Xiao Hu

Thank you so much for your reply. You gave me a lot of insight. I'm going to take your advice and start with Simplified characters, focusing on the radicals. I have a book, Hanzi and the Kangxi Radicals by Dà Máo Hóuzi. It seems a good place to start. I've started the flashcards here at Popup too.

I'm very aware of the necessity of speaking as much as I can. I always repeat out loud the lessons as I listen. I've been trying to recruit my friends to learn with me so that we can start speaking together. Hopefully they will catch the bug too.

I hadn't thought of listening to more difficult lessons, but I'll give it a try. What you're saying makes sense. My friends (the ones I want to join me in learning Mandarin) and I love to watch Chinese movies. I find myself recognizing words here and there, which is exciting. I have as an unofficial marker of success the goal of being able to watch one of our favorites without subtitles.

@pefferie

I'm taking your suggestions, too. I have the Tuttle book and three Chinese Breeze titles in my cart at Amazon. I already downloaded the Anki software and loaded a basic Mandarin set. I think that's going to be a lot of help.

Thanks again to both of you! Everyone has been very helpful since I started, which is a great encouragement. Best of luck and God bless!