<p>I agree that studying abroad in mainland China or Taiwan would be the best way to pick up Chinese, but I would say that Beijing isn't the best of cities to develop a good Chinese accent. Beijing locals have a very distinct accent that's different than the way many people speak mandarin. </p>
<p>I'd recommend Shanghai because people there speak with the more common and "clearer" accent, plus Shanghai is simply more fun than Beijing.</p>
<p>Also, I think that Chinese is a very difficult language to read and write, obviously because there are so many characters that you have to memorize. However, learning to speaking Chinese is considerably easier. There are many people who can speak Chinese quite well but have a lot of trouble reading and writing it.</p>