If the books or text tutorials aren't cutting it, I strongly recommend some of the video tutorials from The New Boston, which are all free on youtube. If you have a second screen or are able to split screen to watch while you code, it could be pretty helpful.

Best of luck!

Yes - absolutely, which is often why we suggest C#/Python/Java as the usual language for beginners, since it's far more important to learn programming before learning the intricacies of each language.

I learnt python first, took some time but since then I've found picking other languages up has been pretty easy. As you say I'm only learning the intracacies of each language not how to program in general. Although when I make time to learn C++ that would be the first time I've ever learnt an unmanaged language which will be some more learning for me but not as much as diving head first into C++.