Poor listening skills

[Scarlet]

I actually have no skills at listening. I'm having so much trouble breaking down a sentence and translating in an instant. I have to look at the text in order to understand. It's very frustrating. Should I just listen to more audio? It seems I'm just not picking the words up when I hear them. When I read them it's ok though.

[laowai1980]

Yes, it takes a lot of hours of listening actually. I have the same problem, when people start talking fast. With slower speech it's easier of course, only when I come across a word I don't know, it stumbles me for a few seconds and I might miss out on the next few words. Just imagine how many hours it takes children to tune their ears for the mother tongue, that should be more for adults learning a language, since our ears are already tuned to our primary language. I remember when learning English I had the same issue as now with Chinese. This problem was a granite wall, but it went away with time. Just takes some patience and perseverance, nothing unusual about this problem.

[imron]

You might find this thread useful. It contains some very good ideas for improving your listening ability.

[DrZero]

This may not be helpful, but I really don't think there is any substitute for being around real, live Chinese people on a consistent basis. I study a word in the afternoon, and sometime later that evening I hear my Chinese wife or one of her friends use it in conversation. That reinforcement really helps. My listening is quite a bit stronger than my speaking, not that either one is all that strong (low- to mid-intermediate student). So I would say try to find a group of Chinese friends, or at least one. OR, get a one-on-one tutor, if you don't already have one. Recorded exercises, TV programs etc. will never substitute for having to perform on-demand with a real person.

[imron]

It's definately important to speak regularly with natives, however what listening to TV and radio do is improve your reaction and listening speed. With a person, you can always ask them to repeat what they say, or to slow down, and in that respect it's easier than with TV and radio where you really have to keep up, otherwise you miss out on what's happening.

Practising with these helps train you to reduce and eliminate the processing that takes place between hearing the sound and then understanding the meaning. If you're already at the stage where you know most of the words being presented in an article, and it's just that you can't follow quickly enough, then radio and TV are a very effective way to give your listening a boost.