Pinyin is a useful tool, which     1     (teach)in China to school kids. It is not merely used by westerners like us. It has proved to be a useful tool for Chinese people     2     (they)to learn standard pronunciation in their early education.

The first step is to learn how     3     (pronounce) each letter in pinyin correctly and the meaning of the tone markers. Then you have to do    4     (drill) as many as you can. Turn that into a game. It can be    5     (much) fun than you would expect. Start     6    single syllables and to that a lot and then syllable（音节）pairs. Slowly move on to larger groups. Understand the initial, final and the tones.

But most importantly, what you need is good feedback. You’d better have someone that can correct your mistakes immediately.

Find a native Chinese,       7     pronunciation is quite perfect to correct you. If you take Chinese classes, the teacher will    8     (probable) have you do exercises every class. Do this very seriously.

If you are self-studying, try to meet native Chinese people and ask them to give you some feedback.

Otherwise, try to be self-critical and listen very carefully. Good    9     (listen) is more than 50% of     10     it takes to pronounce correctly.

Researches     1     (identify) two main ways in which we learn a foreign language since 1950s. Firstly, experts talks of us acquiring(习得) language. This means    2     same as picking up language. They say that to learn a foreign language successfully, we need lots of     3    (expose) to it and that we learn when we are surrounded by language. We need to hear and read language which is rich in variety, interesting to us and just difficult enough for us (for example, just beyond our level),     4     not too difficult. We acquire language over a period of time without realizing that we are learning. Secondly, experts believe that to learn language successfully, we need to use it in communication    5     other people. We need to use language     6    (express) ourselves and make our meaning clear to them, and to understand them. The person we are talking to will let us know, directly or indirectly, if they have understood us or not. If they have not understood, we need to try again,     7     (use) other language until we manage to communicate    8     (effective). It is this process of struggling to make meaning clear    9     helps learners experiment with language and try out structures and vocabulary    10    (learn) in daily interactions to see if they help them get their message across.