I heard Bert Jansch being interviewed on the radio a while back by Liz Kershaw. Her son wants to learn guitar, so how should he start? Learn the piano, says Bert, then when he understands something about music, move on to guitar.

OK, but assuming you don't/can't do that, my own experience is that learning on your own is alright, but although I got pretty good at some scales, quite a lot of chords and chord progressions, and a number of finger picking patterns, it didn't really sound like music. This really became obvious when I went to an evening class, where 15 of us sat around and strummed. I had no sense of timing, which is pretty fundamental for playing with other people.

I'd say by all means teach yourself some chord shapes and practice moving between them until you don't have to think about it, but then get yourself a good teacher. And do yourself a favour - buy a decent guitar. Cheap ones can be hard to play and when you are learning that isn't what you need.

it's not hard but itz best to get an instructor to start off, from whom u can learn some correct and important basic techni like fingering and sweeping. after having a good foundation, u can learn on ur own at ease.

Thanks for the advice

Tutor is something i defintly will do at some point.

Anyone recommend any books for learning??

I heard those 'learn guitar for dummies' books are good??

to be honest mate you cant really go wrong with any of the books, at the end of the day they're all gonna tell you the same thing just try and get one that is like more than 5 pages long!.... Have a read through some and make sure they aren't too 'sketchy' you know like on one page it's "This the C chord" and the next it's "Right now onto playing live" lol

Unless you know music theory, I wouldn't bother with any of those books. You don't learn much and they are known to induce headaches. Music theory is something you are going to want to get a tutor for.

Learn to use tablature, then practice some easy songs with it. Stairway to Heaven, House of the Rising Sun, etc.

You don't necessarily need a tutor to figure these things out.

Here's a cool place to get tabs:

http://www.guitartabs.cc/home.php

exactly!!!
u may have to spend like a day to understand something that can be understood in a min with an instructor.