One point I have to agree with, tim31: Listening to others is a good way to learn.
Maybe start with a little interaction before joining a chat by casually describing your activities in an emote ("/me ...", "/my ..." and a few more, look in the "Help" dialog for "/emote" descriptions or just type"/emote" and get a brief syntax example; most emotes still have shortcuts, like "/emote greet" = "/greet"). You may get different results whether you have a character in target or nothing (left-click on the ground, or "/target clear", I believe...).