There is a very nice article at: http://www.smartlanguagelearner.com/experts-reveal-method-learning-vocabulary/ listing several experts/teachers/students/bloggers best study advises. There are several good advises there that can be applied on Chinese as well. They are all naturally rather obvious but sometimes we need the obvious repeated;-)

Thanks! it's a great article, I agree with most of the points; context when learning new words is essential as well as using these words in conversations as much as possible. Like Benny says, if in the past you've learned a word but you forget during a conversation, once the interlocutor tells you the word, the embarrasment is going to burn it into your mind.

While I'm sure there's some useful advice to be had amongst all the opinions, it's interesting to see how someone - Benny Lewis - who reaches B1 in speaking Chinese (excluding reading) after months of full-time study in China, and then gives up, is considered an "expert".

That's right, he certainly is not an expert in chinese but has a lot of experience in learning diverse languages to a medium conversation level.