Mandarin listening skills
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 6:30 pm
I've been reading this and the older forum for at least 8 years, and this time I decided publish my first topic.
I live in Brazil, I have some background learning English, German and French, and now I would like to hear from you some advice on improving my listening skills on Mandarin.
As for now, I am able to distinguish individual and isolated tones with no problems. Pair tone drills sometimes not as accurate, but surely above 80%. I thought that it was a sufficient level to at least start listening to real material content.
Now my problem starts, because I don't know really how should I proceed. Currently I'm listening to some intermediate listening material while I write down the tones I'm hearing. What makes me confused is what happens when I already know the word, I normally get the tones right. When I don't know the word, I have a pretty difficult time trying to get it properly. In fact: is not my brain tricking me because I know the word already and it is associating in a biased fashion with my previous knowledge? Should not I be able to get the tone out of context and regardless of meaning since I already know all the pinyin chart?
I've heard already some people say that we should listen only what we already know for some time. Do you think that it is a productive approach?
In general: what strategy should I adopt in order to improve my listening skills? Do you have some experience and have something to share?
I live in Brazil, I have some background learning English, German and French, and now I would like to hear from you some advice on improving my listening skills on Mandarin.
As for now, I am able to distinguish individual and isolated tones with no problems. Pair tone drills sometimes not as accurate, but surely above 80%. I thought that it was a sufficient level to at least start listening to real material content.
Now my problem starts, because I don't know really how should I proceed. Currently I'm listening to some intermediate listening material while I write down the tones I'm hearing. What makes me confused is what happens when I already know the word, I normally get the tones right. When I don't know the word, I have a pretty difficult time trying to get it properly. In fact: is not my brain tricking me because I know the word already and it is associating in a biased fashion with my previous knowledge? Should not I be able to get the tone out of context and regardless of meaning since I already know all the pinyin chart?
I've heard already some people say that we should listen only what we already know for some time. Do you think that it is a productive approach?
In general: what strategy should I adopt in order to improve my listening skills? Do you have some experience and have something to share?