Good for you, AKWabbit! Ganbatte!
You have learned something else, too. Having "te" or "de" at the end is the gerund form of the word. It's like "ing" in English, so
nonde is drinking and
nomimasu is the dictionary for of the verb (to drink). The thing about the book I recommended is to memorize the hiragana and katakana tables because that helps you in pronunciation. You pronounce each sound exactly the same as the kana. Romaji only handicaps you and is rarely used anyway, except for English or other languages or sometimes for signs or company names, just for impact.
Good luck and if you ever see my online, send me a message and I'll check your pronunciation. I've found every single audio learning tool is rarely like real, conversational pronunciation and timing. I'm not a translator and don't consider myself any kind of linguist, but my spoken Japanese fools people on the phone all the time.
Small thing: it's hito, not histo. May just be recurring typo though...
