What advice can you offer a beginning guitarist?

The strings may hurt your fingers at first, but eventually the tips harden to where theres no pain.

Practice, practice, practice.

Too much to sum it up here in a short answer. My blog, guitarwisdom.blogspot.com is mostly about advice to beginning guitar players. Check it out and read the messages from the beginning, then let me know if that helped.

Practice CORRECTLY....can't stress more the importance of "correct"....i am teaching myself and i had to learn basic chord fingerings because it was'nt efficient in advanced songs.

Practice, and don't attempt Free Bird, Knockin' on Heaven's Door or Stairway to Heaven because those songs have been attempted by every guitarist out there and playing them now usually gets you labled as a douche. Good Luck, try Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes it seems simple enough for a begginer and stay away from Dragon Force songs otherwise you will probably break your fingers.

Practice. And like what you're playing; you do better when you enjoy what you're doing.

Learn a few simples chords and practice for about 10 minutes every day until the tips of your fingers callous. Its repetative and painful but it works x

Practice practice practice. and if you get sick of it some more. And play some song you like every now and then. if they are too difficult for you at the moment play them really really slow ( maybe even so slow that you can't make out any melody) and when you get it perfect a couple of times raise the tempo. and practice every day.

Practice, learn your scales and arpeggios, practice, listen to great guitarists, practice, play with other people and practice.

like everyone else said. practice, practice, and practice some more!!! but don't overdo it. If you feel that you have practiced yourself out and your mind is tired and your hands are tired, take a little break. then come back to it!!

memorize the pentatonic scale and learn to play around with the chords and scales in A minor. the guitar scales method program helped me to get a better feel for things. But remember the guitar is not always the solo instrument, just play chord sequences to a rhythm or beat and u'll be able to play along even at the beginning.

go for guitar classes

i taght my self learn to read tabs when i started i learned every nirvana and alice in chains song there is.
theyre quite easy. =]

Have fun - check out some of the 'how to play - on guitar' vids on Youtube and also buy a good chord book and shape guide : )