On Mastodon you have 3 different timelines:

HOME - Like Twitter, shows all the posts of the people you follow

LOCAL - Shows all the posts of the members of your Instance

FEDERATED - Shows all the posts of the people that you follow and also the posts of people on other Instances that are followed by people of your Instance

The Instance you choose is very Important and depending on it your experience on Mastodon, the people you will see and the community talk will be very different.

On https://instances.social/ you can easily search instances based on language, interests and some badic policies. The suggestions about Instances on this website are more detailed and precise than the ones on joinmastodon.org

I’ve found that general instances are a good base to start off with . I started with the following three :

1. Mastodon.social
2. Mstdn.social
3. Masthead.social

@dorkymcdarkface posted a master list of mastodon instances today . Find that list and go through it at your leisure to discover some instances you’d love to be a part of .

Personally , I’d recommend doing this after you’ve lurked on general instances for a few days and have a hang of how things work here