yea, sim will help out a lot. If you can't afford it, there are some free sims out there that will give you an idea with the controls at least.

Otherwise, I'm assuming you have training gear? If not, make some, it will help you with initial learning. It's not going to be easy learning with a micro but it is possible, one of the most important things is making sure it's set up right. If it's not set up right, it's difficult to impossible even for an advanced pilot to fly it. Make sure the center of gravity is good and that the fly bar paddles are level and even. You also have to have your gyro set up right. A nice hh gyro will help greatly in this department, especially for learning. If it is at all possible, get someone to physically check out your heli and even hover it for you.

You have to take baby steps when learning, first thing is to practice on smooth ground with the training gear which allows your heli to slide around. Spool it up till it's really light on it's skids and get familiar with the controls, move it around, control the tail etc. Basically try moving it around on the ground like a car till you know exactly what the controls do and it's second nature. Next, lift it off in maybe about a foot at a time and just try to see how it reacts when airborne, this is where you need to get your reflexes going and why you should go through the first step, if the controls aren't natural at this point, it will be impossible for you to try and hover it.

Then, when you can get it a foot at a time and control it for a couple seconds at a time or a few seconds and feel confident, try lifting it off to about 3-4 feet, it will be a lot more stable here out of ground effect and just keep practicing, you'll be on your way to learning to hover.

Other than set up, the most important thing is to get used to making small corrections, the most common mistake of a newbie is making too big of corrections or over correcting, also you need to get used to making smooth throttle changes because abrupt changes will have your heli rotating etc. and will be hard to remain in control. Practice these when it's on the ground in your initial stage and try to hone it when your doing your short hops. You need fast corrections but tiny corrections. An idea to keep in mind is it's kinda like driving a car, imagine if you're on the freeway and when you need to make corrections, you're yanking the wheel in one direction or the other, or when you need to slow down, slam on the brakes and when you need to pick up speed, flooring the gas , same with heli.

hope this helps a bit, these are some tips that helped me while I was learning, some others can give you other ideas too...