MonoGame is the easiest resource I've ever used when it comes to sprites. I don't like Unity or other engines like it, because it's super inflated and it's hard to do a very specific thing.
I've written a renderer in C++ once.. to draw a sprite on the screen it took around 500 lines of code. In MonoGame, it takes maybe 3 lines to load and draw it wherever you want.
Right now I'm working on a big project using MonoGame, and C# is just a great language to use in general.
If you've never used a programming language before, C# is a great modern language to start on. Plus, I know all about it, so you can ask here and I'll probably know the answer. I say you should look up a C# basic tutorial if you don't already know it, make sure you have the basics down. It's very important to know how to use functions you make effectively. You're also going to want to know how to use arrays. You can get away with not knowing how to use classes and objects. If you already know any C language, you basically already know C#.
