How to best learn Chinese

• Be ready to go „all in“
• No, nobody else is going to do it for you
• No, it's not going to be a piece of cake
• No, you won't learn it like Spanish in 3 months of wild Salsa and a bit of lanugage classes
• Set expectations right
• Take time to choose the RIGHT tools
• .. and use a variety of them
• Forget about "intensive course" - learn a little and use it a lot
• You need to practice. Class can only do part of the work.
  
• Keep study - life balance
  
• Study relevant vocabulary and use it right away
  
• Since if the vocabulary learnt doesn't help you in daily life you will be frustrated and frustration undermines the motivation you need to keep on rocking.
  
• Get some structure into sentences - the myth of Chinese grammar
• Swiss I am, and if I live up to one of our reputation then yep, I need structure, I need logic. Problem. Solve: manual.
  
• Learn about “loosing face” but don’t be afraid to do so yourself!
• Learn about the culture, since the language is not a tool detached from local reality. The better you know local reality the more you are encouraged to learn. The more you feel inspired and on the ball. (May be personal)
• Try to have language partners that tell you their stories. Lucky as me? I believe this is no problem! If you even fall in love with a Chinese person: even better. :)
• Immerge. If you want to really go full steam: choose places such as tianjin, harbin or Kunming over Beijing or Shanghai. Especially if you are not all too disciplined yourself, try to decrease the number of foreigners around you speaking English..
  
• Commit errors!!