How to Improve Your Mandarin Chinese Pronunciation?

As China becomes a leading world power of the 21st century, Mandarin is becoming an important language to know. Whether you're in business, politics, etc etc, a basic knowledge will definitely help you. The hardest part of Mandarin is the pronunciation, and the myriads of so many faulty Romanization systems. This how to uses China's HanYuPinYin system, which I find the most accurate. 

Steps

1. Find someone from China to help you with tones!- there are four tones, -, /, v, \. (flat, rising, falling/rising, falling). Flat is like when you stick out your tongue for the doctor and say "ah." In pinyin, this is written as a- (the accents should be OVER the vowels though). Rising is like when you ask someone, huh?. Falling/rising technically is supposed to fall and then rise, but in actuality is sounds just like the rising tone except it starts at a lower pitch. This doesn't exist in English, so it'll sound weird to you if you've never learned Chinese. try saying "huh?" by beginning with a lower tone, it shouldn't sound like a question anymore. Falling is somewhat terse, like when you're telling someone to "Look!" or when your considering something, like "hmm."
2. Learn the Pinyin alphabets: Consonants. B (bo) P (po) M (mo) F (fo) D (duh) T (tuh) N (nuh) L (luh) G (guh) K (kuh) H (huh) J (dzee/jee) Q (tsee/chee) X (see/shee) ZH (jr) CH (chr) SH (shr) R (rr) Z (dzih) C (tsih) S (sih) Y (yee) W (wu)
3. Vowels. A (ah) O (uo) E (uh) I (ee) U (wu) ü (üe) AI (like the english "I") EI (ey) UI (u-ei) AO (au) OU (o) IU (e-yew) IE (e-yeh) üE (ü-eh) ER (er) AN (ahn) EN (in) UN (oo-en) üN (ü-en) ANG (ahng) ENG (ehng) ING (ying) ONG (ong)
4. Tonal accents go over the a, o, e, i, u , ü. <<in this order. So, if a word has both A and I in at, such as XIA, the accent goes over the A when written. Exception: When U and I are in the same word, the accent goes over U.

Tips

• For the Pinyin Vowels, they are pronounced in ONE SYLLABLE. ex. For, UN, don't say oo...en. Say ooen, in one syllable.
• In actuality, many of the consonants are pronounced the same. They only change because the alter the sound of the vowel. The following are the same: J and ZH, Q and C, and X and S. J, Q, and X are ONLY used before I and U. When before a U, the U becomes a ü, but is still written as U. When before an X, the I (which is supposed to be pronounced ih) becomes an "ee." So, XI is pronounced "see/shee", whereas SI is "sih"
• J, Q, and X are probably the hardest to pronounce. In most Mandarin dialects, they are pronounced as if there's an "H" in them. For example, X (see) can be pronounced 'shee' or any sound between a 'see' and a 'shee.' Thus, J (dzee), Q (tsee), X (see) can be pronounced 'jee', 'chee', 'shee', respectively. Typically, the former pronunciations are found in northern dialects (areas around Beijing) and the latter in southern (like Nanjing).
• To properly pronounce the r you need to curl your tongue towards the middle of the roof of your mouth and just make the r sound. Begin by folding your tongue (as if you're pronouncing a Spanish or Korean r), but stop midway (don't touch the roof of your mouth).
• In words that are ian, like xian, it is said like the letters E N.
• The ü is said like eww (when something is gross) except your lips are in a small "o" shape. Try practicing by starting with holding out "e" and bringing the corners of your lips closer together making the "o" shape.
• If you are trying to sound more like you studied near Beijing make sure that your h's, as in hao and heng, are from the throat like the h is pronounced in German.
• The consonant w is said without the weh sound, more like oo. Like when you see something that is interesting.
• Choose early on what it is that you want out of Chinese.