Movies to enhance listening skills

[Wang7]

Da jai hao; I was wondering, in your infinite wisdom, if you think watching movies would/could enhance or hinder the listening comprehension skills of a new self - learning student (less than one year)? I recently purchased a nice Taiwanese movie called the Blue Cha Cha/Shen hai, and at times it very difficult to hear what is being said.

Xie xie

[abcdefg]

...if you think watching movies would/could enhance or hinder the listening comprehension skills of a new self - learning student

Movies can help after you have a foundation. They aren't much use at the very beginning, in my opinion, but they won’t do any harm. And it's best to find ones from the part of China where you plan to live or study. For example, if you want to go to the mainland, watch and listen to mainland movies, not ones from Taiwan.

[jasoninchina]

Chinese is a language full of homophones. On that basis, I have heard it said many times that it can do more to hinder your learning at the beginning. You say you've been studying for less than a years, maybe 9 or 10 months? You may benefit a little from watching a movie, but I don't think its worth it. You'd be better off aquiring all the material you can that is on your level. Anything from TY Chinese to Chinesepod to 快乐汉语. I feel that Chinese is different from other languages in this regard. If I hear "casa" in an Italian dialogue, I know it means house. It's probably not going to mean anything else. So exposure to that language is always going to be a good thing. But if I hear "ma" in a Chinese dialogue, does it mean mother, horse, ant, etc. Thats why I would say that watching movies for the sake of exposure is not going to be super helpful. If the material is on your level, or just above, go right ahead. I hope that made sense :-)

[giraffe]

I started watching movies and television almost from the beginning. I think it's actually very useful for tuning the ears but I would strongly recommend against focusing on it as study material. Just listen and observe the cadences, patterns and sounds. Try and pick out people's names and titles. Test your perception of tones by picking out a word and looking it up in the dictionary to see if you got it right. Or just try and follow what's happening from the action on the screen without worrying about the dialogue.

[sleepy eyes]

I opened this thread to write the reverse of what someone said. My experience has been the reverse with taiwanese movies. Taiwanese movies are the easiest on my ears* and have been the most profitable, and I live in the southwest with 5 hours of Dongbeihua input per day. A lot of the linguistic information on taiwan pth x mainland seems to be the spawn of either propaganda or provincianism exaggerating and distorting things. I remember mainlander friends advising me against studying with a taiwanese teacher when I was back home because her mandarin would be horrible, incomprehensible, and the pronunciation terrible. Her pronunciation and prosody were, and I went over both of those on praat, at least twice closer to the tv standard than theirs and the idiomatic differences were negligible at best, at least for a beginner like I was. It made me aware of certain things. I`m ***not*** implying abcdefg has been prey to either. Plus, some regions don't have that big of a film industry. If you want to watch mainland movies, you're not going to escape thick northern accents. Even if you go back to Shaw Bros. and taiwanese wuxia like King Hu's 70s movies.

I also *completely* disagree with the post above. Input is the number one thing for learning a language. If anything, getting early exposure to natural prosody will only enhance your tones and internalize several important things, probably more important than simple semantics of casual words, which you'll study regardless. Plus, subtitles can clear a lot of the confusion. But, of course, I'm assuming you're willing to watch *a lot* of movies.

(But, yes, podcasts are my favorite tool, even more than class, so I'd give them the upper hand. Then again, my chinese is pretty awful.)

*a further digression in impressionistic language: the famous z c s issue for taiwanese mandarin is a huge exaggeration to me. at least according to the movies i've seen, which include the classics from the 80's upwards and recent ones that don't focus on the countryside. if the actors are not following standard pronunciation, they are not pronouncing homophones that endanger minimum pairs (suo with sì's s for shuo - i'm avoiding the ipa here), they use other subtly close phonemes to replace the standard phs, and it's very very easy to distinguish them from pinyin zcs. so much that it becomes just a matter of local accent that does not hinder comprehension, just like any american accent of english compared to others, unlike some of the mesolecticisms you hear in china. in the south of china some people *do* double those same phones, though.

[Gleaves]

I think it might be a personal preference, but I haven't had that much luck using Chinese movies for listening practice. Chinese TV shows, on the other hand, have been by far my biggest source of listening practice. I also watched a bunch of dubbed animated films (Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks/Ghibli) when I was getting going.

[Understudy]

I found watching movies to be helpful once I had a bit more speaking and listening experience. While I don't think it will hinder your studies, I find that the first year and a half is typically best spent putting in the hard hours gaining vocabulary, grammar and character recognition. I've always found TV shows more enjoyable than movies, mostly because they are, in many cases, easier to understand and more manageable in length.

[xiaotao]

There are lots of Chinese programs to watch for free on the internet but I have a good collection of DVDs that I have purchased in Chinatown or on line. I like to get the ones that can switch subtitles. Some have all three subtitles, english, traditional characters, and simplified. Some have 2 or 3 audio: English, Mandarin, Cantonese. For learning Chinese, I believe watching several times is necessary. I have my Pleco handy when I'm watching. Romantic comedies or cartoons are good to start off with.

[abcdefg]

@sleepyeyes, I think you must be a more careful listener to, and student of, film language than I am. Must admit I mainly watch the film to enjoy the story and acting and so on. In other words, for entertainment. If I learn some new language along the way, I consider that a bonus.

[imron]

I also agree with the TV series suggestion. Make sure to check out the link Gleaves provided, there are getting close to 100 series listed there, many with word lists and more.

[sleepy eyes]

You are probably correct, I'm far too keen on film to use myself as a model. I'd second the podcast suggestion, I think at this point it's most profitable option available for him.

[Lu]

For learning the language, it's probably better to watch a Chinese movie than an American one, but it's still better to learn vocab or listen to podcasts or write characters or whatever than to watch a movie.

[xuefang]

After learning Chinese for 2,5 years (one in China) I now think that movies and TV series are a good way to practice listening. In the beginning I would concentrate on something else like listening to Chinesepods. But when you have the foundation then choose those movies or shows that are about normal daily life and relationships. For example historical movies might be too hard in the beginning and include vocabulary that you don't need in the daily basis. Start with the easier movies and shows.

I really recommend watching dating shows in TV. Atleast I think they're funny and are usually fairly easy to understand. At my level I don't understand everything, but I can enjoy them and get the basic discussions.

[character]

I started learning Chinese because I watched a lot of Chinese movies.

- Not every Mandarin soundtrack will be understandable Mandarin -- my SWAG is that about 1/3 of the movies/TV shows I've tried with them have Mandarin tracks clear enough/close enough to standard Mandarin to be useful. YMMV. If you're only getting Mainland movies/shows, I would hope the percentage would be higher. Even with a mostly clear track, expect to hear somewhat different pronunciations than you do from real training material. Don't use movies/shows as a pronunciation guide but for listening practice.

- Make an effort to learn the words/phrases repeatedly used in the material, even if they aren't what you would use in conversation. This way you can focus more on comprehension than picking the words you do know out of sentences you mostly don't understand.

- If you have a VCD player, VCDs can have Chinese and English subs displayed at the same time, which can help in figuring out the words which were said (keep in mind that Chinese subs may not exactly match the Chinese dialogs).

[kala]

I agree with xiaotao - I think it's useful to first watch something with English subtitles, and after that with Chinese subtitles. That way the contents will be familiar enough when u watch it the second time.