Determine How Long You Have to Learn Mandarin, and Why You Need to Do So.

This is important, because a person visiting Beijing for a week doesn't need to learn Mandarin as thoroughly as someone who will be working there for a year or more. Also, a tourist may be able to get by with just a few dozen phrases, but a person planning to study and live in China will need to be able to speak and read the language quite well.

And finally, consider your time frame. If you only have a few weeks before you leave for China, you simply won't have time to master the language, and there's no sense pretending that you will. But two weeks is plenty of time to learn how to tell time in Mandarin, understand directions, order food, and find a bathroom. Don't try and take on more than it's humanly possible to handle, and you won't set yourself up for frustration.

Figure out how YOU learn.

Remember not everyone learns the same way. If you're studying Mandarin diligently but getting frustrated because it's no fun, you're probably trying to study in a way that doesn't match your learning style.

Visual learners become easily frustrated by instructional programs that are all auditory – they need something to read.

Auditory people, on the other hand, become restless if there's too much to read and too little to listen to.

Kinesthetic learners, who learn best by doing, need to listen to the conversations and complete the written exercises (if any), but make sure their instructional program offers something to do with their hands – like video games! If you're not really sure how you learn, mix it up until you find a combination of learning and study techniques that works for you.

Check out Rocket Chinese which caters for all learning styles. This Mandarin language course might just give you an unfair advantage over other Mandarin learners.

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