Hey Steve,

Will be interested in what advice other people have. Generally, we believe it is easier to learn reading/writing after getting the basics down with listening, so if you are a complete beginner put more of an emphasis on listening to the audio, and especially the dialogue-audio once you've heard the podcasts at least once. In terms of working through the lessons:

* visit your lessons page and make sure you are subscribed to the Absolute Beginner and Speaking Practice lesson series. These are both designed for relative newbies to the language. The language used in both is a bit slower than at higher levels, although still at native speed. The focus is on extremely high frequency words and sounds and phrases you should be able to put into use right away.

* download the lessons to your iPhone or study them on the site. The order does not particularly matter: the important materials will repeat over time -- what you want to get in the habit of is pushing yourself by listening to more and more audio at as fast a pace as you can move. The goal is to get accustomed to hearing and understanding chunks of Chinese. Listen to the dialogues you've already studied between tackling new lessons. Your goal is to be able to understand everything without needing to consult the transcripts. What will happen is that the chunks you understand will grow and eventually you'll be able to tackle materials at the Elementary level.

* if you are using the website, view the online transcript when listening to any lesson for the first time. Click on any words you don't understand and the system will add them to your account and schedule them for review using a spaced-repetition algorithm. You can tweak this as well as the degree and extent of compulsory testing on the review tab of your account settings page. If you are planning to use Popup Chinese exclusively bump up the default settings to more aggressive levels. If you are using your mobile phone, we have the transcripts embedded in the MP3 files: tapping the screen in the iPhone music player will pull up the transcripts if you need to consult them while on the go.

* if you have trouble with pinyin, we have some tips and resources available on this lesson, including links to where you can download a host of independent files. You will internalize pinyin over time, but the links and resources discussed here are useful if you have trouble hearing things like the difference between tones or between similar sounds.

Finally, if you run into any particular roadblocks or frustrations, please send us an email letting us know where you're getting stuck. We're hoping to revamp the signup process for total beginners over the next month, so knowing what people find frustrating would be very helpful to hear. One option is definitely adding a "first ten lessons" series.

祝好,

--david