1. Have an interest in the culture: Not a must, but language and culture are closely related; if you have no interest in the taiwanese or chinese culture you won’t have a strong incentive to get involved with the language either.
2. Listen to music in chinese and watch taiwanese dramas: Learning simple lyrics and repeating them will improve your tones; and watching taiwanese dramas will improve your listening skills and teach you taiwanese slang.
3. Go out: A chinese teacher once told me: “The best place to learn chinese is outside the classroom, we only use this as a way to give you the tools you’ll use outside” If you stay at home writing characters you’ll never know how to speak. Make taiwanese friends, they are very cool people. 
4. Cultivate long lasting friendships with the locals: Avoid only hanging out with friends who speak your native language (a very popular mistake most of we, all foreigners in taiwan make). Hang out with the locals too and try to actually befriend them, you’ll always prefer to hang out with friends rather than with a language exchange only.
Meilialva 