I read better than I listen

[imron]

Or I just close my eyes but 9 out of 10 times I fall asleep...heh

You just need to start watching things beyond 新闻联播 ;)

[heifeng]

haha, news doesn't make me drowsy-- Soap operas are the shows that cause me to eventually pass out! Especially modern dramas which consist of parents arguing about their children (about their marriages or their in-laws or something along those lines*)....Oh, and 抗日战争 dramas in which somehow all of the repetitive shooting, bombing, and yelling also makes me slowly fall asleep too. And without a doubt, any (old) soap opera with 王志文 will also put me right to sleep...such a soothing voice B)

(* I just watched the first 5 episodes of 裸婚时代 today & literally gave up. It's too similiar to the last few soap operas I've watched. It was too early & hot to take a siesta, but it's game over for that one! But then I tuned into 舞动奇迹 and I won't admit to exactly how long I was watching that...I mean folding laundry and listening to it)

[Meng Lelan]

After a bit more searching, it seems in Beijing at least, it's to make TV shows accessible for deaf people:

And Chinese movies too, they have hard, fixed captions right on them is what I am wondering?

The irony is here in the US, the new movies that come out don't have hard fixed captions right on them, you have to wait for special showings in the movie theaters where captions are specially available. Or wait for the DVD to come out because DVDs have the option of displaying captions. Maybe it's because the captions/subtitles are distracting or addictive or what? My (hearing)ex hated it when I displayed captions on the family tv and he complained they were distracting and he was always shutting/deslecting off the captions even when I was trying to watch. After we divorced, my kids were young enough that I put them in the habit of seeing captions on everything by selecting captions only and most of the time shutting the sound off. I guess the Chinese see captions from a young age onward so they aren't so fussy about captions showing up on everything.

Since not like in some other countries that you can select/deselect "soft" subtitle through teletext options, hard subtitles is the only solution we have in China now...

Well I guess if my ex lived in China he wouldn't have had that option....Yes, in the US you can select and deselect the captions. I think it has something to do with a computer chip inside the TV that can respond to the select/deselect caption command from the remote. Seems like Chinese tv doesn't have that option yet? I like heifeng's suggestion to listen to the radio instead.

Something else I want to mention. My mother was a national winner of a French contest in the US back in the 1940s and even today she STILL remembers that she would read/write/speak French far better than listening. That's something I've kept in mind in the 20 plus years I've learned Chinese so my advice is not to get too freaked out about the listening as long as the other three skills are coming along ok. Then again a lot of people here have a lot of good advice about listening activities. This is what makes the Chinese Forums so great in that there is a lot of information and experience here.

[murrayjames]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I think this is a real imbalance, not just a perceived one. Sometimes I'll mishear things I know cold--things I can read, write and speak with no problem at all. A word I learned long ago (冰淇淋, say) will come out sounding like mush on TV. One look at the subtitles will clear it up instantly. Frustrating stuff.

A few people have mentioned listening to radio. Now I can struggle through native-level reading material. But when I listen to the radio, I'm lost. So is the suggestion to listen, listen, listen and trust that it gets better? The more advanced Chinese learners here--has that been your experience?

It's true that speech occurs in time while text does not, so maybe that's it. Or maybe it's the speed of natural speech. Or my unfamiliarity with regional accents. Probably it's all of these things...

[imron]

So is the suggestion to listen, listen, listen and trust that it gets better?

In general yes. I found the suggestions in this thread to be very helpful for improving my listening skills (especially the comments by 赫杰). Unfortunately CRI no longer provides transcripts, but the basic idea still holds -- breaking it into smaller, digestible chunks and listening repeatedly until you understand what they're staying, then move on to the next small, digestible chunk.

Edit: See also these posts (the first one talks more about speaking, but the same technique can be used for listening and also provides links to content with transcripts):

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/19910-post-a-sample-of-your-pronunciation-here/page__view__findpost__p__160804

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/22456-fluency-proficiency-etcsome-insight-please/page__view__findpost__p__182682

[xiaocai]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I think this is a real imbalance, not just a perceived one. Sometimes I'll mishear things I know cold--things I can read, write and speak with no problem at all.

I can't say it is real imbalance or not, but as a Chinese person learning English as a second language, I get that all the time. I've asked my fellow English learners of Chinese and other language backgrounds, and most of them have found the same. I know how frustrating it can be sometimes but don't feel too bad. As you can see there are many ways to improve it.

Seems like Chinese tv doesn't have that option yet?

No, because I think they just did not consider it at all when they planed our analog television system 60 years ago. And since apparently it is going to be switched to all digital in about 15 years time and the analog system will be shut down forever, I think it is a bit too late for them to add this feature in now...

[jbradfor]

Weeeelllll, subtitles (and stereo and SAP and even color!) weren't planned in any country 60 years ago. They were added later.

China uses standard PAL, no? PAL certainly supports soft subtitles, and I'm sure TVs in Europe support them as well, no?

I'm guessing it was more a matter of wanting to get subtitles to everyone without needing to wait for everyone to upgrade their TVs. That, or forcing everyone to have the subtitles on for TVs in public places. [Which, I'm guessing, public TVs were the norm in China 30 years ago.]

[imron]

I'm guessing it's also to do with encoding and font problems.

[jbradfor]

Good point. TV subtitles are transmitted as text, unlike DVD subtitles. So for Chinese subtitles for broadcast TV, a new standard would need to be created.

[xiaocai]

But I think the subtitle thing only started about 10 years ago when almost every family had a TV. So it means switching to digital is not exactly going to make it easier if it is because of encoding problem?

[jbradfor]

Since digital TV is a new standard, I assume that they are providing better support for the advanced features. Subtitles were added to analog TV long after the NTSC and PAL standards were created, so the bandwidth available for subtitles was quite limited. Also, when subtitles were added to analog TV, I don't think much thought was given to the Chinese market, since demand for TVs was low. That is certainly not the case now!

ATSC, the digital TV standard here, still sends subtitles as text. The good news is that "unlike Line 21 captions [used in NTSC analog TV], CEA-708 captions [used in ATSC digital TV] include most of the Latin-1 character set, and include stubs to support full UTF-32 captions, and downloadable fonts." [source] So in theory one could have Chinese subtitles using ATSC.

I looked for information on the subtitle support in DTMB (the digital TV standard in China), but found no detailed information. I have to assume that since China is making their own standard, they will support Chinese characters somehow.

[xiaocai]

Had a search on Wikipedia, and it seems that they have solved the subtitle problem. There is no details of that but at least it says that Chinese subtitle is supported. But reading the wikipedia article, It seem that the analog system will still hang on there for quite a while...

[Glenn]

I find that whenever there are subtitles, no matter the language, I always end up reading them because I figure there's going to be something I won't understand. I have to consciously make myself not look if I want to just listen.

[Guest realmayo]

My girlfriend said that she watches shows by listening to the speech and at the same time reading the subtitles for clarification.

Very interesting and indeed I had a friend, a well-educated native speaker (WENS!), say much the same thing: that when there are no subtitles, she had difficulty understanding. I don't think that was an accent thing.

So either, Chinese people have over the years got so used to subtitles they don't listen that hard to the words any more, they listen less well to spoken Chinese on TV than they would do if subtitles had not been widely introduced years ago.

Or, Chinese is inherently difficult to understand even by WENS (which I find unlikely).

Or, Chinese as used on TV (but not on radio I guess) is scripted in a way too difficult for WENS to understand, it being qualitatively different from everyday spoken speech which, of course, WENS do understand fine (they do, right?).

[BertR]

Me three. It's the only thing making me freak out about taking the HSK right now. If only my listening was close to the same level as my reading....

The only thing that has helped me thus far is tons of TV watching and listening to lectures in China, and it's still not at the same level. Not sure what else I can do at this point.

amandagmu, in case you are talking about the new HSK, I wouldn't worry about the listening section. It is in no way comparable to TV shows. The speed is relatively slow and if you read the questions of each section just before it is played, it is quite easy to answer most questions since you know what you have to listen for. The language and words used in the reading part is much more difficult than the listening part.

You can check the example online for each level of the new HSK (these example exams are quite representative for the actual exam).

[jbradfor]

I've always been impressed/stunned by that ability of many Chinese to have the TV blaring on but totally ignore it and have a normal conversation.

If the above is true, that even WENS use subtitles to ready, I wonder if that is a (partial) explanation of how they are able to do so.

[amandagmu]

TV watching bores me too, but I've found it remarkably easy to stay entertained with some game shows. You can find episodes of 职来职往 online for free. It's a show where young people compete to get a job. I usually watch it while writing e-mails or eating.

Occasionally I also watch 爱情公寓 - easier for purposes of hearing words clearly, more difficult for knowing what they mean, and they talk a mile a minute. Good for learning new expressions though, and the plots are simple. I also think 家有儿女 is good and somewhat easy (easier words but Beijing accent). I can't handle anything longer than 15-30 minute blocks of time which is probably why these sitcoms work so well for me!

also, thanks for the HSK tip!

[Matty]

I find this thread quite interesting, I'm quite the opposite. I can't read most of the captions, but I can understand most of what anyone says, as long as I know or can guess the words being used.

I'd recommend having some Chinese friends who can't speak English and have no interest in it. Just go out and have fun, eat together, just do lots together and your listening problems will go away fast.

I spend all my time with Chinese and we never speak any English, now I can understand what they say at any speed and in many similar dialects. Just have lots of fun and it'll come naturally.

[Wang7]

Does anyone have an idea how the DOD handles this situation?

[Wang7]

Check it out, folks: http://www.dliflc.edu/index.html, and then

http://oda.dliflc.edu/