Do one or two tutorials, then jump straight into a moderately-sized project. Google profusely but also don't be afraid of hitting the language's manual.

Perhaps most important is to not settle for code that you know is not ideal. If you recognize that a piece of code you've written isn't good, then improve it. If it's still not idea, improve it again. Keep iterating on it. This will necessarily involve focused learning. In fact I think this is the key to picking up a language quickly. But it does require that you not be mentally lazy.