Questions from a noob

I was originally learning Japanese but for various reasons I have decided to make the switch to Chinese.

I have been looking through various articles about where to start. The common theme seems to be the instruction that you master pinyin and tones before learning anything. Now I could be completely wrong here, but that seems like a fairly lofty goal, as it seems like there are advanced learners on this sub that still struggle in these areas.

These articles also fail to mention what exactly they mean by 'learn pinyin and the tones'. Am I meant to just learn how they sound, and practice them a few times, or am I meant to obsessively drill them in to the point where I can recite every sound in the four different tones. And if this is what you're meant to do there isn't much in the way of an explanation of how you're meant to do this and what resources you're supposed to use.

I've sort of just spent a week and half confused not knowing what I'm meant to be doing.

If anyone could provide some clarification I would deeply appreciate it.

submitted by /u/XO_RF
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