Chinese audio in the background

[Guest realmayo]

I was browsing a forumite's blog (while indulging impractical fantasies of a year sudying at ICLP) where I saw a post -- http://chinesequest.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/on-input/ -- recommending comprehensible Chinese audio playing in the background for a couple of hours a day, to help with acquiring (versus learning) the language.

On the one hand this seems a teeny bit like wishful thinking, or that old idea of playing audio while asleep -- but it's quite feasible for me to try: most of the time at work I'm alternating between doing nothing, and bursting into action like, I don't know, Imron hailing a potential Wubi convert or Skylee with a fistful of airmiles and a long weekend coming up.

So I can get away with a headphone in one ear for much of the day, there's a load of 锵锵三人行 on youtube, and I've found that I'm dipping in and out -- sometimes I just tune the noise out, sometimes I tune in.

The blog post links to a related Krashen article which reckons that not only should input be comprehensible, but suggests that "we acquire best when the pressure is completely off", and that "low anxiety situation" seems to be achieved perfectly by this method, in contrast to the self-imposed pressure that seems to arrive if I sit down at home and tell myself, 'right, now I'm going to listen to some Chinese for 30 mins and it will be good for me'. (锵锵三人行 certainly isn't 100% comprehensible to me but a few quick minutes scanning the transcripts for vocab makes a massive difference.)

Anyway I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on this? I'm really struggling to keep up my Chinese, let alone improve it, these days.

[Shelley]

I think that Chinese audio in the background is useful, it may not increase vocabulary, or improve your grammar too much but I do think it "tunes" your ear to tones, sounds and rhythm of the Chinese language.

I have access to Chinese tv, CCTV 4 and CCTV 9 (news) I sometimes have CCTV 4 on in the background and enjoy hearing the language.

I don't think it can hurt, it may even be helpful, maybe more than can be quantified.

[OneEye]

I'm sure I didn't make this clear in the article (I always sit down and write in one go without proofreading, so I never say what I originally meant to), but I think the reason this is effective is the whole "din in the head" thing. It's kind of like when you play a game like Candy Crush for too long, and then when you lay down to go to bed your brain keeps playing. You've told it that "putting these pieces of candy together is important" because you spent so much time and concentration on it, so it continues working on the problem so it can get better at it. In the case of language, you've told your brain that making sense of these words is important, so it continues working on it once the stimulus is off.

It's been hypothesized (though I can't remember where I read this...either Krashen or one of his ilk) that babies babbling is simply an outward manifestation of the "din." Their brains are trying to work out the language they've been hearing all day, and since they don't have the filter that older children and adults have to keep them from making nonsensical sounds out loud, they babble. I have no idea if that's true, but I thought it was interesting.

At any rate, I've found it useful. I don't think I'm learning anything new by it (except when I stop what I'm doing to look something up), but I'm definitely solidifying what I know. I've found that having Chinese running through my head all day makes speaking much more effortless. And if I listen to things over and over again, a lot of the sentences and phrases will stick, so they become part of my active repertoire quite painlessly, sometimes with comical results. I find that it works better when I find the content entertaining, so I've watched/listened to 讓子彈飛 a lot, and my use of 他媽的 is getting to be really natural and native-like.

Anyway, try it out for a few days and see if it's helpful. Let us know!

[Ruben von Zwack]

I believe I am in a bit different situation than you guys, because my Chinese is still so pathetic that I am more in the stage of acquiring, not maintaining. But I too find it useful to have Chinese audio in the background while I do something completely else. Unless it's a lesson from my books, most of it is naturally far far above my level. But I still find it good to a) get my ears tuned in to slightly different accents and pronunciations, female or male person speaking, formal and colloquial. And b) sometimes the meaning of a new combination word or phrase I just heard pops up in my head, because, apparently, my brain is stil subconsciously working at it. It's quite funny.

"Low anxiety" situation, as realmayo put it, is a great term for this. Unfortunately, I can't do it at work, but I listen to Chinese audios while riding the bike to work and while doing stuff at home in the evenings.

[tysond]

I think it's a good idea. Brain develops responses to what it sees and hears, and forgets information about what is not seen or heard. Actually I find I might not understand everything that said but the rhythms and intonations are still quite memorable.

Anyway, about immersion, I think John Candy explained it best.

[imron]

Anyway I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on this? I'm really struggling to keep up my Chinese, let alone improve it, these days.

Have you considered learning Wubi?