There are a lot of articles out there on how to learn Chinese.

Basic tips
include things like go to China, take Chinese language courses, etc. Great
tips.
But, as somebody that wants to learn Chinese, what else should you know?
hat are the secrets that only someone who has in!ested their sweat and
blood into learning a language can tell you?
To answer this, " asked this #uestion to se!eral accomplished language
learners on the topic of learning Chinese$ hat is one unusual tip you ha!e
for learning Chinese?
They sent some great responses. %nd, if you&re aiming to learn Chinese, each
of their blogs is certainly worth a look too.
'a!e (lynn of Chinese)acks.com
*ake sure you ha!e an outlet, that is, somewhere to put into practice what
you ha!e learnt. This is especially important if you+re learning *andarin in
your own country. %n outlet could be anything from blogging about what
you+!e learnt, to setting yourself mini,tasks such as writing about a mo!ie
you recently watched, or e!en -ust tweeting your thoughts in *andarin.
.utting what you+!e learnt into practice will help remember it, and become
more con/dent in using it.0
Chinese)acks.com
Grace of 1ust2earnChinese.com
3ou can+t master Chinese without being able to read. 3ou can+t master
Chinese reading without being able to recogni4e characters. 3ou can+t master
characters without being able to make connections among them. The secret
to e5plode your character memori4ing is to connect them by radicals
and sound components. %t the same time, interesting Chinese stories written
in graded Chinese are the most e6cient way to grow your !ocabulary,
impro!e your comprehension and re,enforce your memory.
ithout that foundation, your pinyin based spoken Chinese can+t go too far.
This is my ad!ice for Chinese learners aiming at 7uency.
1ust2earnChinese.com
8iel of Confused2aowai.com
This comes from my research that " did for my *aster+s degree and probably
one of the biggest things that !ery few people know in learning Chinese
characters.
*ost people know of radicals, but !ery few understand how they interact with
recall and reading. There are /!e !ariables$ fre#uency, consistency,
transparency, regularity and combinality. " document them in full in a blog
post on my site.
The main thing that !ery few learners of Chinese characters reali4e is that
there is a sub,conscious in7uence on these radicals on your recall and
reading. % learner should take the responsibility to not let the negati!e
impact of these !ariables inhibit their learning. " launched )an4iCraft recently
that tries to pro!ide as much of this useful information as possible9 to help
learners easily /nd the info in the characters. (or instance, trying to
automatically determine if there are pronunciation clues a!ailable in the
character components.
The Chinese script is one of the most interesting and fascinating scripts ali!e
in modern times. :ach character is not a mess o; strokes, but contains a
wealth of history, semantic and phonetic information that is e5tremely useful
to a learner. They should not miss out on this. "f you+re more conscious of
what+s going on, then you+ll be able to master Chinese characters a lot
easier.
Confused2aowai.com
*e< =Tait 2awton > (ounder of 8an-ing *arketing Group?
*y tip is to get emotionally in!ol!ed with the language. 3ou&ll remember
things a lot better if you feel it when you learn it. This isn&t only my
e5perience. "t&s also something "&!e seen mentioned again and again by
psychologists, like in this article.
@o, how do you go about obtaining emotionally charged e5periences in
Chinese? )ere are some pointers$
'on&t back out when you&re in situations that make you ner!ous or
otherwise pro!ide you with a bad feeling. "nstead, push on through it and put
your language muscles to use.
@ometimes people think "&m -oking about this oneA Get a Chinese
girlfriendBboyfriend. This is sure to charge up your con!ersations with all
7a!ours of emotion< Besides, if you&re in China, you&re likely going to want a
boyfriendBgirlfriend sooner or later, right?
Choose reading topics that are about things that make you feel something.
This could be anything from an essay about political issues that you are
passionate about to a romantic no!el > choose what works for you.
1ake Gill of "2earn*andarin.Blogspot.com
%dd accountability to your language learning goals.
%ll too often we set out with the o!erwhelming task of 0learning a language0
without the appropriate goals or accountability that might lead to success.
.icking a personal goal is a great way to get things going, but getting others
in!ol!ed in your language learning process, and gi!ing them =and yourself?
incenti!es to stay moti!ated can really help push things in the right direction.
The traditional classroom is great at doing this, with homework assignments
and grades to keep =most? learners on task, but you don+t need a classroom
to ha!e accountability.
The /rst CTD song " e!er learned was the result of preparing to sing in
Chinese at a friend&s upcoming birthday party. " told them " would be gi!ing
my debut performance of 00 ="+m ugly but "+m tender? in
honor of their birthday, and then " got to work actually learning the song. The
pressure of performing in front of my friends, and the potential of
embarrassment of totally failure, was -ust enough accountability to push me
to study o!ertime and sign a wonderfully CTD,es#ue !ersion of Ehao Chuan+s
classic rock ballad< %ccountability doesn+t ha!e to come in the form of
potential public humiliation, but adding some kind of stakes to your goals will
help increase success. ant to learn FG new characters a day? Tell your friend
their ne5t cup of co;ee is on you if you fail. ant to /nish a chapter of that
te5tbook or Chinese no!el? 3our friend get+s a free dinner on you if you can+t
cut it.
ith incenti!es like that they+ll be sure to check in and see how things are
going... trust me< "f you don+t want to get your friends in!ol!ed, than you can
do the same thing on sites like beeminder. "+!e been using accountability
tactics for the past few months to get homework assignments done days =or
weeks? ahead of schedule with great success. " ha!e taken my friends out for
a few dinners since then, but rather than feeling like a total failure as "
reached for the check, " was /lled with a renewed desire to work harder to
make sure it didn+t happen again. "t&s also gi!en me lots more time to actually
focus on things " en-oy, like studying Chinese<
hile things like tones and characters are important for learning Chinese,
ha!ing a good study plan and a way of reaching your goals is crucial for
success.