-Start learning the characters early and don't reply on Pinyin. Pinyin is an input method, not a way of writing Chinese in the English alphabet. Nobody actually "reads" Pinyin. -Work on your listening and pronunciation early. It's important, but acknowledge you'll keep getting the tones wrong. It's a constant battle, and even the best learners make occasional mistakes. -Try to enjoy it. Chinese isn't easy, but it should be enjoyable. Try to use things that you are interested in because you are more likely to persist in your learning if you actually like what you are doing. -I started using LingQ, as there were very easy dialogues and audio recordings there. That got my started on the very basics. I would learn the new words, characters and listen to the dialogues again and again. -I then bought a series of beginner readers called "Chinese Breeze" 《漢語風》, but I'm sure there are others available. I spent a few months on those, continuing to expand my vocabulary, learn new characters and work on my listening. -I then moved onto a great little book on Chinese culture published by Yale, called "Twenty Lectures on Chinese Culture" 《中國文化二十講》. This, too, was written for beginners in a basic style and came with vocabulary lists. I got a friend to record it for me and did the same thing. -Now I had a basic grasp of Chinese, I tried speaking to people on platforms like iTalki, at meetups and to my friends. -Since then, I have continued using the same approach, speaking, listening to and reading more Chinese and continue to improve. There is lots of good stuff on YouTube about Chinese. Steve Kaufmann has done some excellent videos, but there are many more. Chinese Grammar Wiki contains some excellent information all in English The dictionary app Pleco Websites like zaojv that are full of example sentences in Chinese I read (and still read) lots of Japanese manga translated into Chinese as these are much simpler than books but still interesting Laurence

For me, I've found that watching Chinese dramas was the best way to acquire the language quickly. Like a child you learn the pronunciation and tone of frequent words and phrases and the chinese characters are on the bottom of the screen so you can "read" along with dialogue. Your ear gets trained to the rhythm and cadence of the language and you become familiar with seeing chinese characters and learning the ones seen most often. It is best to watch modern dramas, not fantasy or historic ones. You also have to be aware that who one is speaking to and the situation dictate the style. Just like in English you wouldn't speak to your parents and older family members or your boss or supervisor like you would to your really close friends. I also listen to modern chinese music. Use the speed settings on your player to slow down songs and listen to the tones. You can find the pinyin, English translations and Chinese lyrics on youtube videos of the songs when you search. I write out the dialogue and lyrics of the songs and use hanping pro app to get the meaning of words and also to practice writing I was working at the airport on the incoming international concourse and I used the words and phrases that I knew to get speaking practice and especially to help elderly Chinese passengers. Chinese verbs and essentials of grammar is a good book published by McGraw HIll, Frequency Dictionary for Mandarin Chinese by Routledge will also give you core/frequent vocabuary quickly. Chinese pronunciation is a book also published by McGraw Hill and comes with a CD-ROM disk. One caveat, I wrote Japanese kanjji for a long time (on and off for several years) before starting Chinese, so I was already used to the character writing part.

for the beginer, pronouciation is most important, so suggest to study pinyin first with some words and simple sentences. better to find a professional teacher, as they can corract your pronouncition all the time

hello. dear, in my country, i have a book 301 conversation chinese, you can buy this book in the book store nearly University.