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  The following are extracts from a Facebook thread. This is a good example of people who read what they want to read and ignore what is important. Lion Luqman Michel With tone marks, Pinyin is as easy if not easier than Hanzi. You can read anything written in Pinyin that is within your vocabulary. NOTE: Here is my post on the importance of tone marks. LINK 

  Here is one YouTube video to learn to speak Mandarin. I would suggest you to learn Pinyin and learn to speak from the 32 lessons on this site.You need not learn the Chinese characters for the time being.  LINK Here is another beginner course for your listening practice. LINK I will introduce more lessons which are all free of charge.  There are free of charge lessons all the way up to HSK 6.  You don't have to learn the Chinese characters if you don't want to.