Oh I like this question alot! Reminds me of my skateboarding days and makes me go look for my board in the garage again :D

That said, I think the younger you are the easier it is to learn, not too young obviously. I think around 12-13 kids in general pick up sports really well. In the beginning it took a lot of effort and frustration to land the first tricks and nail that first ollie! I found that the best way to learn was to skate with your buddies and if possible with guys better than you, that not only motivates you but they can teach you the tricks and give you tips.

I mean c'mon, the first time your on a skateboard you have no idea how to kickflip. Someone needs to show you how to move your front leg to the side of the top part of the board in the same ollie motion and rotate the board...somehow haha.

The beginning is just one thing, practice practice practice. Take some blows, some falls and some pain. It took me about two good weeks to learn how to kickflip, and land, and ollie over another board. Eventually I even landed a double kickflip (pat on the back). Before you start the difficult things though you should feel comfortable on your board, know how to ride it properly and easily and learn how to ollie while riding. After that step up the difficulty more and more, go for some easy rails and the small half-pipes.

Another thing which I found was helpful and inspiring was watching skate videos. My personal favourite: Rodney Mullen! (by far the most innovative and influential skater, besides maybe Tony.)

I have been skateboarding for more then a decade. I started when I was 13. Took me about 3 months to master the ollie and maybe 2 more to kickflip. There are endless amount of tricks you can learn. From fliptricks to grinds to nollie frontside boardslides and beyond.

The first step is to get the feel of the board. Next you need to just jump on a deck (without trucks or wheels) and see if you are goofy footed or regular. One thing you need to learn is where the pressure points are on the deck and where to position your feet. I tend to keep my front foot on the back two blots and my back foot over the last two. Then once you have that figured out you move on to pedaling. It can be quite frustration and sometimes painful. But once you have it down its way worth it the rush of landing a trick is amazing.

As to kickflip, you need to get the ollie down first and this can be cumbersome. Once you understand the fundamentals of the ollie you can begin to try and kickflip. All it takes to kickflip is a slight change in the foot position and a slight tweak of the hips.

Check out Tony Hawks trick tips and get a Transworld magazine :)

Good luck and be safe.

PS I have broken both arms my leg and have had a few concussions and 100s of stitches, safety gear is a must if you want to live past your twenties.

Wow, haven't thought of those days in a loooong time...

I was a kid then, like 13, and to me skateboarding came pretty easily. I started out just riding around and then I got hooked up with Thrasher magazine - they showed step by step instructions on how to do tricks, the first of which was an ollie (the most basic of all moves and pretty much the foundation of many of the cool ones). Kickflips came pretty quickly after that... I'd say once I started really trying, I was doing decent tricks at will inside three months. Practicing every day, I had a bag of tricks that was pretty diverse in that time. (It's hard to tell you how soon or quickly you'll learn kickflips etc as each person learns differently - but never give up!!)

I practiced those over and over, and, once I got some confidence, I'd go to where the other skaters were: the skate park. There we traded tricks and practiced together... I'd say after about 6 months, we started on launch ramps and pools (pools are FUN) - doing grabs, shove-it's and the ever popular boneless (which was very en vouge at the time!)
After about a year of that, I started my first half pipe. I'll never forget the first time - it scared the s#@t out of me!! But once you ride it right the first time, you're addicted.

All in all, I'd say I went from knowing nothing to riding a half pipe (and not embarrassing myself) in about 2 years. That was going out almost religeously every day and falling and suffering trhu scabs and torn jeans and shoes and countless decks... But I can still feel myself hanging weightless in the air for a split second if I try.

Keep practicing, go hang with other skaters, wear your helmet (especially on ramps - one spill without one will change your mind), don't give up and most of all, HAVE FUN.

I may have one of the first persons to build a skateboard. This was about 1958. I used my board that the milk box had broken off of. I remember how interesting it was to stand on that board with two feet and no box with which to balance yourself. I discovered that it was much faster that way. In those day's the LA basin had miles and miles of flat fresh concrete sidewalks. Cerritos College was at the end of our street and they had a lot of concrete walkways, and they had not opened the College yet. It was great.
We never thought of doing tricks in those days.