Learning Mandarin

Because I have to drive an hour to commute, I listen to a Chinese lessen downloaded into my Walkman while driving. I've figured out Chinese tones and vowels, those of which were a little different from what I thought though. Yet, because some grammar is similar to English and some word order is similar to Japanese, I'm getting understand how to speak even though I have no idea how to write and read without Pinyin. Once understand the system of a language, it's gonna be more fun for sure.