Where should I start to learn Chinese? In Chinese language, we have initials(consonants), finals(vowels), four tones, and characters. Here is my suggestion: give them an order of precedence. First come the initials and finals, also known as consonants and vowels. Pronouncing them well can make your Chinese speaking sound clear. Pay special attention to some pronunciations which can distinguish meanings, for example, “a” and “e”, “an” and “en”, “uo” and “ou”, “t” and “c”, “t” and “d”. While some sounds don’t exist in Chinese, so it doesn’t matter if you can’t pronounce them perfect, like “u” and “/ʊ/”, “e” and “/ɜː/”, people can still understand you because it doesn’t affect the meaning. Characters will be the second, in my personal opinion. In Chinese we have many words with totally same syllables, but use different characters to differentiate meanings, like “做(zuò)” and “坐(zuò)”, one means “to do”, and the other means “to sit”. The reason why Chinese people aren’t confused, context is important, but characters help them think better. Also, characters themselves carry meaning and can combine to make new words, therefore learning characters from the beginning will accelerate vocabulary learning and reading ability in future study. Tones are the last, and I will say it’s the least important too. If you can say consonants and vowels clearly, in most cases people can understand you under the context. Even in some rare cases that the tones are important for understanding, it’s way faster to use characters or context to explain rather than repeat and emphasize tones. And one more thing I want to say is, don’t worry too much about pronunciation. Even Chinese people have all different kinds of accents. Chinese people’s speaking isn't perfect either, why can’t foreigners have some foreign accent? And that’s why characters can not be eliminated, it helps people identify the meanings.