Each person has different methods.  But every method has one thing in common, practice.  Lots and lots of practice.

You can practice with friends, tutors, strangers, bar girls, what ever.  Just get out there and talk to people.  Have fun doing it.  The moment it seems like a lot of work is the moment you will quit and never want to learn any more.

The best way to learn is to practice.  Once you learn a few words keep using them.  The old saying is correct "if you don't use it, you lose it".

if you dont want to learn in a classroom make friends with someone who doesn't speak much English, that way you can help each other out, or move to a neighborhood that doesn't have many foreigners, i myself moved away from the center and have learnt much more Chinese than i did in the past few years, and I'm also learning old Chinese characters. 

Find a Chinese friend like me who can speak good English, ha ha

that is the best and easy way to learn Chinese...

Full time study coupled with a total or near total immersion program.

Like learning English, there are no shortcuts.

And, avoid these clowns:

 www.easylanguage-tj.com. 

They are spammers. Good schools dont spam as they have solid reputations that speak for themselves.

I spent many years studying Chinese in the U.S. at university. But it was only after moving to China that I actually became any good at it. The cultural immersion was key for me. I think you could get better at Chinese with 1-2 years of studying here than you could with 4-5 years of studying abroad.

I started out with a book and CDs called Teach Yourself Chinese, real hard going. All based around conversations, but none of them really relevant to me, so I gave up. Today I began an audio course by Pimsleur and even after just one lesson I know this is going to be much better. Each lesson is thirty minutes and it is all done by listening and talking. Just seems to suit me better, even my Chinese wife says it is better. I think everyone learns in their own way, the answer is to find what suits you best. Consistent practice every day is important whatever way you choose.

Practice is the best way to learn any languages,find a tutor to fix pronunciation,Chat in Chinese......Many ways

go get foot massages and chat up the masseuse(Sp)

Agree with all of the above, I've been here for a year and a half and seems to be the same as anything... everyone learns different. The first year I was here my learning curve was so slow, primarily due to teaching english and being so busy with little time to get any practice. After moving away from teaching into a company where the majority can barely speak english, I had to make myself learn not just for self-improvement but necessity.

I've tried 'Rocket Chinese' which is an audio based learning program and to be honest it was not for me so I dropped it very quickly. 'Rosetta Stone' on the other hand uses audio, visual, pin yin, han zi and voice recognition, which does help you learn but you really need a lot of time and patience for it. For me Rosetta's approach seems to teach some strange things from a beginners level that just aren't relevant or useful for daily life if your living here. I mean why would you need to know "he is swimming"form the outset when you haven't even learnt numbers, colours or ordering basic food and drink! Anyway if you have plenty of time on your hands and are willing to put in the effort then it does work... eventually!

Personally I found the best way to learn is to speak to chinese friends who have a fairly good grasp of english themselves. If you can learn the basics of pin yin and the sounds of the words then you can always ask them "zen me shuo" ("how to say...") using Wechat or QQ. Everyday I find myself using pin yin to talk to them now and it doesn't take very long to get the grasp of it. Obviously there are the four tones but to be honest only non-natives with a high level of chinese speaking ability use these correctly and a vast majority of chinese natives don't speak 'pu tong hua' (standard), so I wouldn't get too hung up on the tones just yet.

Chinese is one of the most difficult languages to learn so it's not going to be a rapid process, well not for me anyway! So my advice is firstly english speaking chinese friends, learn the basics of pin yin then keep asking people questions, when your out and about and a situation arises ask them on QQ and Wei xin. Keep speaking as much as you can and if you really want to go the extra mile there is always Rosetta Stone or private lessons.

Hope this helps!

I've learned Chinese online at eChineseLearning dot com, it really works for me.

I run online teaching classes. I charge PM for more info.

Talk to Zhongguo ren.

Giving some booty call.

U can make a friends in china, play game , go to park , and dinner together , but  you must have to open you mouth and speak , no matter you are wrong . so just like Chinese guys learn English .

making Chinese friends helps