Hi there Bethany, I think that, especially with something like Chinese, you need to have a pretty solid foundation in the language before you can actually have a decent chat to anyone. I myself probably spent about a year doing nothing but listening and reading before I actually spoke to anyone. I found that by building up my vocabulary I progressed quicker than others who focused on speaking at the very beginning. So I would recommend that you can have regular sessions once a week or once every two weeks (even if just used as an incentive to study), but to really progress (and I define progress by how many words you know, how many characters you know, and well you can use grammar to express yourself) I think you need to just sit down and study on your own. Studying on your own is most time effective, as you can focus on the things that you don't know and need to work on. This is especially true of people who are at a higher level, as it's the things that DON'T come up in every day conversation that we need to focus on. Laurence