The biggest impediment to learning Mandarin Chinese is fear, which is really not reflective of reality. All things considered, Mandarin is pretty easy for native English speakers. Mandarin sentence order is similar to English, only much simpler, with fewer variables to keep track of. Compared to a heavily inflected language like German or Russian it is fairly easy language to learn, particularly outside of a traditional academic setting.
A good place to begin studying is http://www.zhongwenred.com . The site is free and does not require any kind of registration.
A good place to begin studying is http://www.zhongwenred.com . The site is free and does not require any kind of registration.