My (Canadian) mother is currently living in China and is trying to learn to speak Mandarin. She is taking classes to learn it and is finding it difficult.

Do you have any tips I could give her to learn it more quickly and easily? She has been feeling discouraged at times.

Thanks in advance.

For a beginner, Chinese may be not a easy language to learn at first. It will be better to learn with a private teacher, especially a native Chinese teacher. He/ She will help you with pronunciation rules and writing rules, and design learning plan upon your learning habit and learning goal, when you master the basic, you can learn by yourself.
If you don't mind, you can learn online, recommand a good website to you http://www.chinesehour.com/ . You can get one-on-one native Chinese tutor here. The detail is at http://www.chinesehour.com/privateclass/...
If you are not used to learn with a tutor, you can also benefit here, you can take advantage of the specially designed 200-hour online multimedia course to learn by yourself, which is both in English and Chinese and free to anyone, detail introduction is at http://www.chinesehour.com/course/how-it...
Wish it helpful to you. :)