Force yourself to speak every chance you get. Trial and error my friend - you need to take advantage of every second you have while in China in order to improve your Chinese.

Speak, speak and speak.... Talk to the lady at the reception/in the lift, the cashier, the cute little girl beside you, the spitting guy opposite, ... just speak otherwise little progress will be made during that year.

Ninja edit: Taxi drivers make good conversation, especially if you've had some drinks.

Every time I am taught a new word or phase that I'd like to memorize, I make every effort to use it as soon and as often as possible - can make conversations somewhat contrived but it works! I've found the best people to practise on are the men guarding the doors of your apartment blocks (if you have them :oops: ) - they work long boring hours and many like nothing better than having a good old chinwag about nothing much at all. The Chinese residents in our block (mainly rather snooty) probably think I'm trying to pick him up but I don't care - my Chinese is getting better every day because of it.

The phrase not force yourself too much means you should not push yourself when you are stuck and keep working hard, then one day it will work out naturally. But if you don't even start, how can you say don't force yourself? Especially when referring learningChinese, if you don't force yourself open your mouth, how can you say you learn it?

Yeah, why waste time speaking? If you concentrate only on reading, after just 10 years you'll be able to speak Chinese as brilliantly as all the Chinese students here speak English!

"Do you like Chinese dish?"
"Oh, your spoken Chinese is very standard!"
"You're very great"
"That child is very lovely!"

You can't learn to swim if you don't get in the pool. Seriously, that's the stupidest piece of advice I've ever heard about language acquisition. It reflects a crippling preoccupation with face-saving. The only way to learn anything is to try it and accept correction. Sure, at first there will be times that people don't realize you're speaking Chinese. But when they at least recognize the language, that IS progress.

Speaking is not acquisition. Reading and learning is. Speaking is just practice, which is useful with some knowledge.

Have you heard of Steve Kaufmann? Read #6:

http://adachina.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!B0217EB4E07E2F10!1354.entry

Steven speaks 12 or so languages and I trust his wisdom more then some unfounded forum entries.

Another person to model on is Kato Lomb, another great linguist which acquired a language mainly by reading - starting often with kids books for local kids. Amazing stuff to copy.

I love that quote: You do not need to speak in order to learn, you need to learn in order to speak.