A little problem with speaking and listening

[Demoniszcze]

Hello everyone!

My name's Matthew. I have recently discovered this fantastic forum, which is a bit surprising considering that it's the first result in Google, when 'chinese forums' is entered. Anyway, I need your advise.

I'm after 2 semesters of Chinese philology but alas, I failed one of the oral examination in June, which means I can take a second shot at it on 14th September.

Now, the problem is, that like many of you, my skills have developed unevenly, speaking and listening being terribly neglected. Writing and reading however is pretty decent, as from the very beginning I've been learning every character as a set of radicals, rather than just some random strokes. Also my extraordinary memory which enables me to remember heaps of trifle trivia and rejects anything of some importance seems to handle Chinese characters very well - a big surprise here.

At my university, our ability to write characters, produce dialogues, properly pronounce chinese phonemes and familiarity with basic grammar among other things, are tested at the end of each semester. I have passed all exams ( even those with Chinese teachers ) but one - the oral examination - passing which is required for attempting the ultimate test that's in written form. The oral examination consists of 2 phases. First one is a short speech on randomly selected topic, while the second is an interrogation performed by a committee (which is formed by two of our teachers.) and involves answering some random questions.

Now, even though I can write all the words we covered during this year and can remember most of them, I cannot quite use it in a way I am required to. I lack verbal flexibility, have a problem with simplifying ideas and expressing them using only structures we have learned, also most of the material we have covered is ludicrously plain and uninteresting. This results in my inability to embellish my speech and even express myself, which meant I stuttered and stared silently at my interlocutors during my examination. Even though I don't make many grammatical mistakes while writing, my teachers and I are overwhelmed by the number of them when I speak.

Also, I have a really hard time trying to understand what one of the examiners is asking me. It's not that she mumbles under her breath, or her pronunciation is so bad, but rather her monotonous voice and lack of facial expression makes it so difficult to even focus on her and the question that is being asked.

I've just returned from a month sojourn in China (Shanghai and Beijing) where I have managed to handle basic conversations at a minimal level of complexity ( ordering food, buying tickets, haggling, booking hostels, socializing with natives ). I attended 2-week summer course at Fudan University and had no problem understanding teachers, so it's not that I can't understand Chinese at all. But I can't really speak well, and definitely I'm not able to produce 2-3 minute speeches.

Any advise? How exactly one should go about drilling exercises, substitution drills, are they gonna help? Any alternatives? How to fight with my listening deficits? Is simply listening to rbc.cn daily enough?

I begin to feel my downfall is imminent.

Cheers,

M.

[abcdefg]

A little problem with speaking and listening

Sounds like a big problem, not a little problem. Not sure if it can be remedied in 10 days. I think your best bet is to try to address the issue head on in some low-tech way, such as finding conversation partners and practicing every day using the material you have been studying. If that's not feasible face to face where you are, there are on-line resources that might be helpful. Several have been discussed in prior forum posts. Try searching them up. Here's a start: http://www.chinese-f...ce/page__st__20

Sounds like you need practice in the "production" end of conversation and just listening to podcasts, radio, etc. will not be enough to save the day.

[Demoniszcze]

So, I've managed to pass all my exams - the dreadful oral exams, as well as written exams ( the written part with flying colors, actually)! That means, I am still a student at my university. Yay!

And although it seems I progressed slightly, as I can now comprehend nearly everything that is said in classroom by both my native and chinese teachers, I have bumped into another wall. The problem is with my ability to hear and listen. First of all, I have noticed that I understand most of the stuff that is being said as long as it is not meant for me directly. For a independent observer it could appear I am a eaves-drop-o-philiac, twisted and perverted in a way that allows me to properly hear and understand things only said to someone else, or not really meant for anyone in particular. As soon as one of the teachers ends their monologue and asks me directy I regress mentally to the level of an alpaca, understanding very little, and even that with great difficulty. My mind goes blank, basicaly. The moment teacher shifts his/her attention from me to some other victim, I miraculously regain my powers of comprehension. I believe that greater aural exposure to chinese will fix this problem. However, I have a very limited internet connectivity right now and for a couple of days, thus my attempts at bettering my hearing ability are limited to listening to a 轻松汉语初级汉语听力（下册）recordings. And this is my second problem. No matter how many times I repeat them, there are certain parts I simply can't get. Tried to slow down the tempo of the recording a bit in the audacity, but to no avail. If the book has transcripts of those recordings and If anyone had an access to the aforementioned book in a digital format, I would be willing to marry my benefactor or part with one of my kidneys for that person's sake, for a small price of letting me tinker with those texts. The thing is, we use this book as a course for a 听力classes. My teacher, when asked for the transcripts, have emphatically declined. She believes, that there is little sense in using transcripts when training listening ability, but I'd care to disagree. After all, I've been listening to the records for a few days, and even though I heard a couple of things wrong at first, I quickly fixed those mistakes. Now I'm left with some phrases and sounds I am unable to decode no matter what, or hear them wrong, such as ”那是专门为他中小学生举办的“ where I hear “mei" instead of "为“ even though I *know* "为” is the right answer.

Getting pretty desperate,

M.

[sylvannus]

I think it lies in the problem that formal speech and informal speech are different, as formal one is more plain, without much facial expression. To get yourself used to this, I guess you can watch a few programs in cctv.com, especially the news programs. They are all broadcast in standard Chinese, and what is important is that the hosts speak in a very plain speech with minor emotion, like the examiners.

[jiacheng]

For me, my listening has been helped by using an SRS test that basically simulates a dictation style test. It plays the sound and shows the pinyin, then I try to think of the meaning and write out the word. For production, an SRS test showing the English definition where you are required to produce the correct pinyin with tones could also be helpful.

I'd also like to point out that your teacher is clearly an idiot for denying you access to the transcripts to your audio lessons. The book containing the transcripts should be available somewhere and I would try to get your hands on it if possible. I would consider switching classes or schools if you can't find a workaround.

I think your teacher must have written some of the teaching materials that I have used. They used words in the audio which are never listed in the new word sections and were never used in any of the previous teaching materials but somehow expect you to magically understand it. It makes me wonder if there is a research paper about SLA with faked data that encourages this type of crap.

On the technical side, it is possible to convert cassette tapes to digital format if you have a male-male microphone cable to hook your cassette player up to your computer. Audacity can be used to do some noise removal on them too. Personally I am very irked by authors that have such spite for students using their materials that they can't even be bothered to provide a CD or other digital format.

[aifeluna]

the best way you can do is finding a native partner to practice a lot. I mean, you can learn from tape or video, but what you need is interaction and correction. that's what mechine cant provide to you.