If your considering learning basic Chinese for the Beijing Olympics 2008, I would personally suggest that you try a Free 6 day course before you dive in and complete the remainder of the course.
If you decide to learn Chinese online you'll most probably be greeted with audio tracks and a personal tutor. The audio tracks will ideally have the full transcript of the conversation in Chinese, both in Pinyin and in Characters and then the translation in English.
The following example would most likely follow (for an elementary student learning meetings and greetings):
Pinyin:
Sarah: nÐ hÎo ma?
Ling: wÒ h
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