Hello Deanster and welcome to the forum.
My experience in learning how to use my first Linux Mint 17.3, and up to today, is to listen to others, read as many forums as you can, click onto the links when someone mentions a book, or tutorial, or a Guide, and have a lot of patience and persistence. As you read you will see new terms, new codes, and numerous ideas. If you are not familiar with the terms, codes, ideas, than search the word, idea,or code in Wikipedia and then you will learn more.
As starter, here is a link to, a free, internet copy of, 'The Linux Command Line,' by William Shotts:
http://linuxcommand.org/
Hope you have good success in your journey.
