Would increasing difficulty help us learn listening faster?

[Olle Linge]

For various reasons, I've thought a lot about improving listening ability recently. Naturally, our listening ability will grow as we gradually become exposed to Chinese, but what I'm talking here is deliberately trying to improve listening ability during a relative short period of time (a few months, a semester). The most important thing of all is of course quantity, meaning that if we don't listen enough, we won't get anywhere regardless of what we're listening to.

Another factor which feels important is the level of the audio we're absorbing. I think everyone agrees that listening to very simply Chinese isn't very helpful if we want to improve listening ability in general (but might be helpful for other reasons). I personally don't find it very useful to listen to something I don't understand at all, but I know some people advocate that as well. The question then becomes how difficult things we should listen to.

I just wrote an article about a phenomenon I think is quite common. You can read the article here (Triggering quantum leaps in listening ability), but I'll summarise the basic idea. In essence, I've noticed that I sometimes tend to shy away from material I can't handle comfortably. Still, I have started listening to much harder material a few times in my studies and each time I've found out that if I just give it enough time and stay focused, listening ability tends to catch up. My feeling is that the initial fear of not understanding everything or close to everything has been holding me back.

After talking to quite a number of other learners and reading about other people's experiences, I've found that I'm not alone. My theory is this:

Most people could improve their listening ability faster if they just had the confidence and the determination it takes to increase the difficulty of the input.

I'm not talking about studying more here (although quantity is still very important) or about all people, but my impression is that many learners would benefit from trying to listen to more difficult Chinese, relatively speaking. What do you think?

[jasoninchina]

For listening practice, I listen to material which is on my level and material that is just above my level. I listen to material that is on my level for the "confidence" you mentioned. Then I mix in something a bit harder in order to stretch my abilities. I agree that listening to material which is too easy or too difficult is not much use.

[Silent]

I guess a mix of levels would be best. I think till a certain level more difficult is better. However if the level is too high you'll be exhausted quickly and spend less time or will understand/recognise so little that there's little to no comprehensive input left. In the end you learn less. Too low of a level will have little real educational value but it has value for internalisation of what is learned before.

[rezaf]

If you live and study in Taiwan I don't really think that there is any need for you to focus too much on listening. I think a minimum time for listening everyday in a Chinese enviornment is necessary because it helps you to familiarize yourself with what you already know but I don't think listening is a very efficient way of learning new things. In other words your listening ability is just a reflection of all your other abilities and therefore can only progress after your other abilities get better. After I started my dictionary memorization project I noticed that there were a lot of common words that people would use but I couldn't hear them and as our brain can fill in the blanks by just listening to the words it already knows I wouldn't even feel the need to look them up in a dictionary. So even if you want to deliberately spend some time on listening I think it's better to listen to things at your level or maybe just a little bit higher than your level because the purpose of listening is to help you practice what you already know not what you don't know.

[hutudekongfuzi]

In addition, there has to be a method applied to listening to things outside and above your current level. For example, I could listen to something that I don't understand time and time again but unless it is only slightly above my level I will not know which words to search for and how they are formed in a sentence. One way to do this is with broadcasts - if you can find them - that come with a vocabulary.

The caveat here is that I am very much a visual learner, I need to listen for words that I've yet to encounter and if I want to remember them I will have to look them up - I have friends who are audio learners and need only hear something once and they can internalize it.

[Olle Linge]

Thanks for your input. I think the most important thing I overlooked, both in the article and in the discussion here is the fact that listening to difficult stuff makes you tired and frustrated much more easily. Thus, perhaps the recommendation for students should be to listen to as difficult material they can without feeling dejected or exhausted. The danger is that people will stop too early and not really give it a chance, though.

After I started my dictionary memorization project I noticed that there were a lot of common words that people would use but I couldn't hear them and as our brain can fill in the blanks by just listening to the words it already knows I wouldn't even feel the need to look them up in a dictionary.

This is part of the reason why I've spent an enormous amount of time learning words and I completely agree with you. This is something I think many students overlook simply because it doesn't feel intuitive. It's also a fascinating topic, because sometimes there are really common words that I just don't know. Then, I encounter it in a dictionary or textbook and say to myself "this can't be very common, I've never heard it before". Then, I hear it ten times a day after that, proving that my mind simply didn't notice the word before. Of course, this doesn't happen very much nowadays, but it occurred very frequently during my first year or two.

In addition, there has to be a method applied to listening to things outside and above your current level. For example, I could listen to something that I don't understand time and time again but unless it is only slightly above my level I will not know which words to search for and how they are formed in a sentence. One way to do this is with broadcasts - if you can find them - that come with a vocabulary.

Agreed, you can't move too much above your own level, because you will become lost and really have no way to solve the problem. However, the point I'm trying to make is that we can cope with much harder things than we think. I'll give you another example of what can be done. Simply listening many times will almost always be enough if combined with what Rezaf said above about knowing many words. If we don't know the words, listening many times won't help very much. I'm listening to a lot of news broadcasts now (without pictures or text). When I started doing that a long time ago, this is what it felt like:

First time: I understand perhaps 10%, just a few words

Second time: I probably understand what it's about

Third time: I start being able to recognise sentences

...

...

...

Tenth time: I begin to be able to understand close to 90%

...

...

Nth time: I can guess words I don't know and look them up

Note that I don't use any tools or any help to try to figure this out, I just have the same 15 minute news broadcast on my phone and listen to it many times. Of course, I do also listen to other thing, since this would be quite boring to do all at once. Simply listening many times is one way to access more advanced language without lowering the difficulty.

[imron]

I think increasing the difficulty level does help you learn faster, but what is also important is to make a conscious effort to work on the parts you find difficult. Back in the day, I found this post very useful and helpful for improving my own listening skills (be sure to keep reading for the followup posts too). Basically you find some audio with a transcript, and go over it again and again, sentence by sentence until you understand it. Regular practice over the course of several months will see your listening increase by leaps and bounds.

[Silent]

Simply listening many times will almost always be enough if combined with what Rezaf said above about knowing many words. If we don't know the words, listening many times won't help very much.

Personally I feel it has added value to read along with the text every once in a while. That way it's possible to correct characters that have gotten associated with incorrect sounds. It has also added value for reading skills as that way, at least as a beginner, I'm forced to speed up my reading (at the costs of comprehension)

[Olle Linge]

I think increasing the difficulty level does help you learn faster, but what is also important is to make a conscious effort to work on the parts you find difficult. Back in the day, I found this post very useful and helpful for improving my own listening skills (be sure to keep reading for the followup posts too)

Yes, I agree. I mean, in general it's always a good idea to do different things to try to correct different kinds of problems. Thanks for the tip as well, there are so many discussions on this forum and it's impossible to find the good ones just using the search function.

Personally I feel it has added value to read along with the text every once in a while. That way it's possible to correct characters that have gotten associated with incorrect sounds.

Cool, I never thought of that. It might be because my reading is way better than my listening, so I've never encountered this problem. Still, this should be true for more things than just characters. Having transcripts is excellent because it's some sort of key that guarantees that you will get the right answer in the end. Sure, it's possible to ask a native speaker about parts you don't get on your own, but as you point out, that's difficult if you don't know that you have the problem in the first place.

[WestTexas]

Personally I always use 'transcripts', ie the subtitles for a video. I will cover up the bottom of the screen and watch the video, repeating any parts I have trouble with, then for the parts that I really can't get (generally words I don't know or someone speaking with funky pronunciation) I uncover it, pause the video, and read the subtitles for that part.

I agree with the general sentiment though that listening to progressively harder materials is the best (the only?) way to improve your listening.

[Silent]

Cool, I never thought of that. It might be because my reading is way better than my listening, so I've never encountered this problem.

My reading is far better than listening too and that's the reason I've the problem. I started out learning a bunch of characters. Then without knowing them perfectly I started reading. If I mix up the meaning I will notice as it won't make sense and I will look it up. If I mix up the sounds and vocalise them incorrectly when reading there are no consequences. Reading along also helps to learn/internalise the characters.

Too hard for me, but also an interesting excercise is to write along and check or the pinyin you wrote down fits the transcript. Most likely you'll have to stop, start and wind back regularly which can be a bit annoying.

[giraffe]

From the very beginning I've been listening to material that's totally beyond my ability to comprehend and I haven't found it frustrating or tiring in the least. Every night I watch a Chinese television series and listen to some radio drama but I do it in a very low key, unambitious way. I just treat everything I hear as a big puzzle and try to collect as many clues as I can. Sometimes it's only a word here and there that I recognize. Sometimes a whole sentence. Sometimes I totally understand a long stretch of dialogue (and I get really excited). Sometimes nothing at all. The fact that I'm totally missing massive chunks of the story line is not important to me. I just let the sound wash over me like a wave and grasp whatever bits of flotsam that get caught in my fingers. As time goes on, I find that certain patterns are becoming very familiar and words that I used to have trouble recognizing are starting to pop out at me. Maybe I would progress faster if I was only listening to dialogues that were calibrated to my abilities, but my approach seems to suit my personality which is perhaps more comfortable with ambiguity than some people might be.

[Olle Linge]

Too hard for me, but also an interesting excercise is to write along and check or the pinyin you wrote down fits the transcript. Most likely you'll have to stop, start and wind back regularly which can be a bit annoying.

This is probably an excellent way to practise listening in a very active way. Of course it requires time and determination, but doing something like this once in a while should be interesting. Have you tried it much? I have tried only sporadically, but will do it more. I've also tried combining this with writing characters (after I write the pinyin).

I just treat everything I hear as a big puzzle and try to collect as many clues as I can.

This is spot on, really neatly put. This is the attitude I had (still have sometimes) when listening to radio broadcast. It's not a mission to understand everything, more like a game where I try to get as much as possible.

[Silent]

Sound only I tried it very little, too exhaustive and little results. I've written along the hanzi for subtitled videoclips several times to make flashcards of them. Still takes a fair amount of rewinding for some of the unfamiliar characters. With writing hanzi the tones are no issue making it a lot easier. Nevertheless I need to reroute to a dictionary or character recognition regularly.