I agree that PHP is pretty similar in syntax to Javascript, which in some ways makes things easier. On the other hand, it can be easy to forget which you're working in and use the wrong syntax (even though one is user-end and one is server-end... call me dumb if you want). And, as Phaaze pointed out, PHP lets you do some things so easily that you can develop bad habits.

My first exposure to real programming (ie: not QBASIC) was C++, and I remember that for the first couple of weeks in that class, we didn't write an ounce of actual code. We just wrote pseudo-code (like Phaaze did in his example above) and learned the concepts of if/then/else statements, for and while loops, arrays, etc. That was probably the single most valuable part of my college experience (at least as far as education is concerned...).

If you can find a good book on general programming concepts or get someone who is a programmer (matters not what language) to explain some basic concepts, I think it will help you a lot. Javascript can be confusing enough anyway, so at least understanding some basic vocabulary and concepts will go a long way.

--Josh