The best way to learn Chinese (a.k.a. Standard Mandarin) is of course to use it in a natural way with friends, in hobbies or work. There is no substitute
for practicing in daily life.

That said, this site outlines three key ideas of specific relevance to Chinese language studies relating to how one gets to a level where it is fun/possible to use the language in a natural way.

I won’t lie; the guide is pretty boring, but these ideas have saved me tons of hurt and grinding memorization. Take 8 minutes and read through this, it will be worth it.

If you can’t be bothered there is a bullet point summary at the bottom of this page.

Topic 1: Chinese is Really Strange

I take it that you speak English already. You might also already speak another language?
If that language is not tonal, like Chinese is, wrapping your tongue around Chinese pronunciation will be your first hurdle.
Tonal means that the words cannot be written in letters in the same way as it is done in English, strange, no?
The tone, or the pitch, of words is modulated in four different ways. For instance, you can pronounce the letters that make up the word for “buy” in a few ways, one of these mean “sell”. So you can see how not getting the pronunciation right leads to frequent trouble?
Therefore: Advice #1 is to initially study where they have a small class size – a small class size means that you can get personal pointers and you will jump over that first hurdle in a fraction of the time it would take if you were in a class of thirty.
I write ‘initially study’ because the benefits of a small class are lessened once your pronunciation is decent, which usually happens within a few weeks or a month, with a small class. However, a smaller class size remains an immense benefit for one very important reason, which is our next topic:

Topic 2: Everyone is Different

So, I wrote in the beginning that using the language in a natural way is the single best way to learn Chinese, or any other language for that matter.
Is also wrote that using Chinese in a natural way means using it with friends, or in hobbies or professionally.

Jargon is what we use in hobbies or at work to describe those things that matter most to us in these settings. If you are a hard-core diver (I am) that wants to see what The Great Wall might look like under water (you can! – they built a hydroelectric damn in a valley that The Great Wall runs through!), you might need to know the word for “pressure valve”, and another 20 – 50 or so diving related words.

If you work with Chinese massage, you don’t.

The point is here that to “use the language in a natural way”, in hobbies or in your work as a massage expert, you need jargon.
Likewise, to hang out with Chinese friends you will need the terminology of the interests that you share, to speak with them, even if you are just going for a pint.

The reason that I noted all this is twofold:

1) The first reason is also the reason that I felt it was crucial to go off on a tangent on Great Wall Diving - I am passionate about it!

In other words; It is relevant to me, and as any educator worth his/her grain will tell you: the best way to learn something is to make it relevant. The brain loves relevant facts, figures and - vocabulary.

What I am getting to, for the first of these twin points, is that jargon words are simultaneously the easiest to learn and the most useful for your daily life!

2) When you use your jargon in daily life you are learning to understand the language in the natural way that I keep refereeing too. But the language is scarcely only jargon! So you practice the nuts and bolts of it as well. To learn the basic and intermediate grammar and vocabulary is immensely more interesting when you get to use it as soon as you leave the classroom, it is also immensely easier to learn because you use it in a way that is relevant! Learning personal jargon alongside basic and intermediate stuff not only teaches you the jargon, it also teaches you the basic and intermediate stuff!
The reason that 99.99% of schools don’t teach Chinese in this way, in fact, I only know of one, despite it being so useful, is that it is very very hard to teach in this way.

Imagine: you have to provide custom made content tailored to all your students, to make this possible.
Unless you have a bad sense of business, or are going for a long-term business model where your reputation matter more than short term cost reduction, you are not going to endure the costs of teaching people on an individual basis. You simply need a lot of staff for every student to do this!
So to summarize Topic #2: Learning jargon is the best way to learn Chinese but it is very difficult to find someone that is organized and follows a
structured curriculum.

Hence, either find one of the very few schools that have this kind of system or find a very good private tutor with experience in making a great study plan.

I did the former and it proved to be the turning point for me in learning Chinese, in my mind it is the best way to learn Chinese.

Topic #3 – The Turning Point

We have talked about the benefits of a small class size through two vantage points: pronunciation and jargon. People that claim that learning Chinese is an uphill battle have lacked one of these two crucial ingredients: either they never got around to honing the pronunciation which will have made speaking outside of class very hard, or they didn’t learn the jargon of their fields of interest and learning Chinese became really boring.

Either way: they did not reach the turning point.

The turning point, as defined here, is that point when you have the two components needed to start speaking the language in a natural way.
You can pronounce the words you know, and you know the words that matter to you as an individual.

The turning point defines language learning because it is what you aim for before you get there – because the prospect it signifies is so attractive: just imagine to live in and interact with a Chinese community in CHINA; it is a immense adventure.

The turning point also defines language learning because after you have gotten to it – learning Chinese is not, by any means, an uphill struggle.
It is a fantastic bike ride into the heart of the global paradigm shift that is currently taking place. China is a rising super power; everyone knows this – why else would you be reading this, for instance? But even though it is a booming economic powerhouse (currently averaging an annualized GDP growth rate of 10% = i.e. China produces twice as much every 7 to 8 years) it is also a country with 5000 (!!) years of history, culture and tradition.
Keep this Holy Grail in mind: it is possible to make learning Chinese a fantastic experience, this will motivate you before you complete the two initial tasks of cementing the foundation: pronunciation and jargon, and it will define your studies afterwards.

In a classroom where personal content (jargon) and general content (the basic and intermediate stuff) is separated, and in which the teacher gives you pointers on the pronunciation, on an individual level, you will easily reach a point of natural communication, on a basic level, in three to four months.

This is the best way to learn Chinese.

Ultimately, learning Chinese…

“…is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery”

- Mark Amidon

and that is what you should focus on: reaching the turning point as soon as possible by targeting the aspect of the language that matter most to you.