Good luck learning "spoken" anything without any decent texts to read. You could listen to the radio / watch movies, but you'll find the dialogue is way too fast and not very coherent (dialogue isn't structured very nicely, it's more free form, so you can't follow it as easily).
You won't catch many words.
If you have a tutor, they might be able to gradually build you up, but you won't have the hours with them. Reading at your own pace is a better way to build your vocabulary and grammar.
You're right about the "thousands of characters" thing - a lot of Chinese writing is pretty simple (in terms of character use - simple characters are usually combined to form longer words, the first thousand goes a looong way), as long as you stay clear of classical Chinese literature (at which point, even some Chinese give up).
You won't catch many words.
If you have a tutor, they might be able to gradually build you up, but you won't have the hours with them. Reading at your own pace is a better way to build your vocabulary and grammar.
You're right about the "thousands of characters" thing - a lot of Chinese writing is pretty simple (in terms of character use - simple characters are usually combined to form longer words, the first thousand goes a looong way), as long as you stay clear of classical Chinese literature (at which point, even some Chinese give up).