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Often, when people start to learn Chinese it seems like a huge burden to learn to speak the language and to read and write characters at the same time.
My advice is, if you are learning Mandarin, start your studies by learning Pinyin, which is the sounds of Mandarin written in the Roman alphabet. Practice making the sounds and pronouncing the tones. Then you can get hold of a Mandarin Chinese course to get you started.
I recommend that you at least learn to recognize and read characters at the same time as learning to speak, because the written and spoken language are obviously tied together and it would make things a lot more difficult later if you don't at least learn to recognize the characters. It is much easier to recognize characters than to write them. Learning to write Chinese is a long process, and it is easy to forget the characters. But, if you can recognize a character and you can connect it with its pronunciation, then you can type or write text messages. If you want to learn to write or type Chinese then check out the other videos on my channel, where I talk about it.
Therefore, I recommend using a course that at least has Chinese characters for reference, even if it concentrates on speaking. For my Chinese course, I provide both characters and Pinyin, to familiarize learners with characters.
So, in summary, I recommend learning to at least recognize and read characters as you learn the spoken language. Learning to write by hand is optional, and if you are familiar with the characters you can practice them separately and at your own pace.
