Developing Fluency in Chinese outside of China

[Ah-Bin]

And don't forget, even in China it is possible to get worse at speaking Mandarin if you are too lazy to go and talk to new people and spend all your time reading and watching Cantonese films (like me!). I think a determined effort with one or two speakers and a lot of work can get results, though maybe not fluency. But what is fluency anyway? Some people speak "fluent" i.e. flowing Mandarin, but it still sounds terrible because all the tones are wrong.