A really good book for grammar is T'ung & Pollard's Colloquial Chinese. The book is quite old now and the vocab a lot older but for learning grammar it is by far the best. Just make sure you buy both sections of the book, just the texts on their own might not be so helpful. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tung-Pollards-Colloquial-Chinese-Series/dp/0415018609/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1373357210&sr=8-2&keywords=Colloquial+Chinese goes with http://www.amazon.co.uk/Character-text-Colloquial-Chinese-Ping-Cheng/dp/0950857211/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1373357210&sr=8-6&keywords=Colloquial+Chinese And Lansoprazle is right, get Anki, an electronic flashcard system. I use it for all my Chinese learning. P.S Take a bit more care when reading on here...I didn't use Google translate, I said I Googled it looking for example sentences! Nothing to do with Google translate! Lol :)

Hi, I know your pain mate! But then I discovered memrise.com. Great way to remember characters, as it regulates your need to review and you can physically see your progress. (You have a 'garden' that needs to be watered). Also there is a British book 'Modern Mandarin Grammar' I have used. It has a good practice section, you can also type your sentences onto this website and people will check them for you. Hope that helps

I would recommend MDBG Dictionary for looking up words to get a detailed definition. (http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php) I would install Perapera Chinese pop-up browser tool so you can immediately mouse-over Chinese words and get a short definition (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/perapera-kun-chinese-popup-tra/). Using these tools you can learn new vocabulary from whatever you are reading on the internet. Good luck!

it is gonna be a tough task if you are talking about memorizing characters , however things will be easier ,if you try some tools , for example, Anki .google it, it will help you a lot . And as for grammar, systematicallly learn it from a text book seems to be a must if you are not in a Chinese speaking country, btw, add me ,if you like, my Skype ID is : windsofchengdu. I can do my best to help you learn Chinese,as the only thing for exchangging, I need you to sharpen my ears,cuz I have a poor listening lol...