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First few days are the hardest but you'll get the hang of it quick. In less than a week most people are able to follow a crowd of seasoned veterans at moderate speeds and go without falling. Tipsy's right, it is easier and much faster to get good at than skiing but it's a little tougher at first cuz you fall harder.
Have someone show you the ropes if you can, such as learning progression: here's a basic one i like to teach people:
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SNOWBOARDING 101:
here's a basic order that's easy to learn: before you go, setup your board "duck footed" which allows you to try both types of stances and eventually pick goofy or regular which is important to find out quickly. then like it or not, you have to learn how to get on and off the chair first. survival instinct will guide you through that one. Immediately you can start learning to feather in control using your heel edge, learn to stop using heel edge, do that a few runs till you get good at it. The next step is learning to go straight on your base without any edges digging in and keeping your balance, learn to position your body for turn control (point your eyes and belly button in the direction you wanna go), practice that and heel edge for a few more runs and after that is a good time to learn your toe edge. It's a little harder than heel but just as important. Spend a few more runs practicing that one as much as possible and try to switch heel-flat-toe to toe-flat-heel and back. It will take a while and don't expect to link turns like this the first day but you should try at least a couple of times. By then you should have done probably 6 to 10 very short bunny runs, a few dozen falls, several hours elapsed and be ready to progress.
You should gradually move up and start practicing on different kinds of flatter and steeper terrain and slightly longer runs, both greens and blues. After a few days of doing all that and getting comfortable on the board, you can finally force yourself to completely learn to link your turns and you're ready to follow the crowd. When you're in a tight spot, just feather your way out of it!. Some people can do all that in 2 or 3 days but it's a bit painful so don't be afraid to gear up with a helmet, knee pads, TP in your back pockets, thick sweaters, anything you got! It took me 6 days to get that good but I had to discover everything myself. Follow my tips (or anyone with experience) and you'll be able to progress much faster and with less pain!
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Your sense of balance from skateboarding will help, but it's still a very different sport so be prepared to put in the time to learn. And tungsten's friend probably followed a friend who thought the best way to learn was to go straight for black diamonds and learn the hard way, so just be careful not to follow that guy and progress in control and you'll be fine. It's hard to break a leg from just falling down on the bunny hill.
Have fun, I've snowboarded about 500 times since I moved to Tahoe and I absolutely love it.
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