I'm also a rookie and had the same thoughts when I began. The beginning is always the most difficult part, especially if you don't know so many languages. So don't be demotivated, that's the first thing, I'd say. :)

You should first learn the kyrillic alphabet and then some basic vocabularies. Don't start with the grammar, but rather by learning phrases and deconstruct them. For example the question: »где здесь метро?«

Without having taken a look at the grammar rules you will recognize that there is no form of »to be« in it.

где = where

здесь = here

метро = (you'll know, if you know the kyrillic alphabet)

If you do that for every phrase you'll get a feeling of how the language works. But that shouldn't be the only thing, you should also hear the language. I can warmly recommend you the Goethe-Verlag München audiobooks, which are available in and for almost every language (!): http://www.goethe-verlag.com/book2/

Then repeat over and over again the audio tracks. You can do that en passant, by listening to it when sitting in a train, walking or cooking (on the iPod… I probably don't need to mention that :P).

After a while you could go into a library and borrow a book from it.

I started Russian a few years back and am A1/A2 now with it, I have the long term goal of being able to adequately do medical care in Russian, anyway, for starting point I VERY HIGHLY recommend pimsluer russian, it's an expensive program but I have been able to find it in the library free of charge. Simultaneous how about a phrase book to learn the alphabet? And if you are just getting started in any language, check out Benny Lewis's book fluent in three months, you won't be fluent in 3 months unless you are unemployed and have no friends/family and will study Russian for 90 days, but its a great start. You can follow me as well, but I am not going back to Russian till this summer as I need room to learn some Korean.

<em>From</em>: http://www.insidescience.org/content/massive-study-shows-how-languages-change/2096

Ever wonder why some languages are harder for adults to learn than others? The researchers point out that languages contain what linguists call a “kernel lexicon,” meaning a list of words that constitute 75 percent of the written language. If you know those words, you can make out much of the literature. These also are the words least likely to change even as the language morphs.

The kernel lexicon for English is less than 2,400 words. If you know them you can read 75 percent of the text. The kernel lexicon for Russian is about 24,000 words. So, even though the whole of the English language has about 600,000 words and Russian has considerably less than half of that, without the crucial 21,000 kernel words, most Russian writing would be largely incomprehensible.

<em>So think twice about your wish. My native language is very difficult to learn.</em>