So basically, where I learnt Chinese, that was in a chinese university, it was divided mainly into, Oral, listening and comprehensive. If you master the basics you could simply clear atleast HSK 4 like I did.
I’d practice through Duolingo, Memrise.. But they were all temporary.
I’d mostly use Hanping and Google translate or Baidu sometimes. For its your curiousity that can get u in to learning. What I’d do was type the sentences. Phrases, or characters in there… And would listen to them on repeat many times until I get in sync with them. In our listening class, our teacher would play the audio and would ask us to solve the questions in the book based on the audio, and then check the answers, that was a great practice of listening!
Then through some of my Chinese friends I was introduced to Chinese music, many famous ones.. And I’d hear them on repeat which also helped me alot and then slowly switched over to watching Chinese movies with subtitles.
Our comprehensive and oral classes were kinda similar.. In comprehensive we used to learn grammar, read words with pinyin, solve grammar questions. Read big articles and passages in Chinese which helped with our reading skills.
Oral/ spoken class Was even more interesting, the teacher would ask us to form a skit based on the text given in the book and act it out on the stage with your classmate… That took a lot guts and efforts.. We were supposed to use those words which we’ve learned earlier and use them in our way in that act in front of everyone. That came useful when we used to head out on streets and talk to random street vendors who served fast food.
Clearing HSK 4 Was also a goal.
Which can only be met by reviewing the given words daily. Vocabulary is a great Tool! You can form sentences write a passage! Describe the picture.
Our teacher would give us homework of writing every character that was around 20-30 in each chapter for 4 times and learn their pinyin. And then we were asked randomly which would help us revise those words even better.
Keeping a language Partner is also beneficial as long as you both practice regularly and with the same pace. In my case, I was lucky, me and my roommate, we did our best, and would ask questions from each other in Chinese, we would talk in Chinese very often even outside the classroom.. We made many Chinese friends around our university just to randomly chat and hone our skills of speaking Chinese.
Talking to a native is another good method.