How difficult do you rate this snippet of audio?

[Guest realmayo]

How difficult do you rate this snippet of audio? Personally I find it comprehensible reading the transcript but listening to the audio for the first time cold, I was really struggling. It's from a textbook for second-year students! Same-level reading/grammar textbooks etc are not at all problematic. Does this mean my listening is way behind my other skills? Or does anyone else think this audio would be challenging for second-year students?

 

news1.mp3

[abcdefg]

I think it's real tough, Mayo. Not sure exactly why, though. Speed is not excessive for a newscast and the pronunciation is very standard. Second time through, I got more of it; but a good 30 or 40 percent still just whizzed in one ear and out the other.

 

Background: I watch lots of Chinese TV: news, movies, dramas, and shows on a nearly daily basis when I'm in Kunming. But I rarely if ever listen to radio. Seems easier somehow when I can see the person doing the talking. I get clues from facial expression, body language, context and so on.

[li3wei1]

I recognized about three of four words the first time through, but couldn't figure out what it was about. It involves 1998 and a sum of money, but that doesn't narrow it down much, does it? It's the kind of thing that I could probably understand more of each time I listened, though.

[roddy]

Oh, that voice. She's like an old friend. Is it this set of books? Sounds very much like it. 

[mouse]

Yeah, I guessed it would be BLCU just from the voice. 

 

As for difficulty, it seems standard news style. Probably even slightly slower than real news. A handy reminder that I need to listen to the news more, as it was a bit of a blur for me on the first listen.

[Wurstmann]

Hard! But I've never listened to the news before. 

Can anyone post the transcript? I want to check if it's because I don't know the words or because of my bad listening ability.

[abcdefg]

I recognized about three of four words the first time through, but couldn't figure out what it was about.

 

Agree. I couldn't "dial in" the overall subject. Had the feeling that if I learned that, more of the actual language would have fallen into place.

[L-F-J]

在许多人心里，华西村几乎就是乡镇企业的代名词。据统计，1998年华西村乡镇企业的总产值达到30亿元。这个数目是1978年华西村工农业总产值的150倍。站在特意保留下来的旧厂房旁边，华西村党委书记吴仁宝对记者说。

[Guest realmayo]

Can anyone post the transcript?

 

在许多人心里，华西村，几乎就是乡镇企业的代名词。据统计，1998年华西村乡镇企业的总产值达到30亿元，这个数目是1978年华西村工农业总产值的150倍。 站在特意保留下来的旧厂房旁边，华西村党委书记吴仁宝对记者说：...

 

As for difficulty, it seems standard news style. Probably even slightly slower than real news.

 

I agree, it's just the book is aimed at people who've been studying for around 1.5 years! Pretty impressive no?

 

[L-F-J]

For second year, I would definitely say it's difficult, unless students have done a lot of study of this type of material, which I wouldn't expect.

 

But, I've never had formal instruction in Chinese, so I can't say if it's level appropriate or not.

 

Some terms you'd have to be familiar with and that probably flew by are;

 

乡镇企业 Township & Village Enterprise

工农业 Industry & Agriculture

总产值 Gross Product

党委书记 Party Secretary

 

I wouldn't expect most people to catch these cold unless they have a particular interest in/ familiarity with this field.

I personally only know them through years of translation experience.

[Guest realmayo]

I watch lots of Chinese TV: news, movies, dramas, and shows

 

I find this kind of news-script speech so much more difficult than listening to people in conversation. I'm sure that's partly because it is simply harder. But I'm hoping it's partly because up until now I've kind of avoided this kind of listening material....

 

I don't know if Chinese is any more difficult than all other languages in this regard, but I often find such a difference between reading and listening ability. If I see 乡镇企业, even if I'm not familiar with the combination of 乡镇 + 企业, I can work it out in an instant. And I might well remember that 乡镇 + 企业 can go together like this next time I come across it. But hearing them together at speed ... is so much more difficult! I think it's one of the pitfalls of testing yourself on vocabulary, using characters as the 'question': if 乡镇企业 was in a deck of flashcards I'd answer correctly in a second and tell myself I knew the word ... but as this audio sample shows I clearly don't.

[Guest realmayo]

Ha! L-F-J is ahead of me on the last two posts

[roddy]

You need to look at what the *task* was. You've gone in and listened to it cold, which is always going to be difficult. But if the task is "what year do you hear mentioned?", that's first year. Maybe in a second year business class they'd be asked (perhaps with multiple choice) to identify the type of business mentioned, a job title and an amount of money. Etc. 

 

In real life you pretty much never listen to anything 'cold' - you know what you're hearing and why you need to listen. Listening tasks should be the same. Similarly, it's not just about the difficulty of the material, it's the difficulty of the task. You could do a unit on nationalities with elementary students and then get them to listen to a rapid fire news bulletin and see what countries they can pick out. Can be quite a confidence booster for them to realise that despite their low level they can pick out bits of info - and similarly, at a train station all they need from an announcement might be a train number, a destination, a time...

 

Can we get a look at the actual page of the book? What are students meant to be doing?

[Guest realmayo]

Oh, that voice. She's like an old friend. Is it this set of books? Sounds very much like it.

 

Almost Roddy, it's the specifically 新闻 course though:

 

I've just been transferring its long-stored cassettes into mp3 format. The book has a full transcript so it's exactly what I need before bingeing on real news reports.

 

Here's a bonus for you, bring back some happy memories no doubt:

 

qing.mp3

[L-F-J]

Yeah, 乡镇 and 企业 may be known separately, but if you don't know that 乡镇企业 is a concept in China, you wouldn't automatically understand it in listening like this, especially cold. Some experience in the field would be necessary.

 

So, if something like that slipped by you, it's not an indication that your listening comprehension is weak. It's simply a matter of experience and familiarity with the topic.

 

Roddy makes a good point. Are 2nd year students expected to understand the entire excerpt, or specific pieces of information in it only?

[mouse]

Wow, I didn't realise this was a listening textbook. That is hard. But quite cool! A challenging textbook based on near-native Chinese. Start as you mean to go on and all that.

[roddy]

“Are 2nd year students expected to understand the entire excerpt, or specific pieces of information in it only?”

And is this immediately, or after some vocab reminders, and two or three listenings while doing easier tasks?

[Guest realmayo]

You need to look at what the *task* was.

Can be quite a confidence booster for them to realise that despite their low level they can pick out bits of info

 

You're right, here's the relevant question:

 

1998年华西村乡镇企业的总产值是1978年的150倍。 (a true/false question)

 

And especially if the students are reading the questions in sync with the pace of the audio then yes, it's definitely a lot easier, it's almost an exercise in matching a partial transcript with the words being spoken.

 

I think what unnerved me most was comparing this 听力 to 阅读: I'd expect to understand pretty much everything in a second-year 阅读 textbook, even though the students who the book would be targeting would not be expected to but instead, as you say, understand only enough to complete the task.

[roddy]

If you look at the sample pages on studychineseculture (near the bottom, and loading a bit erratically for me at least)

http://www.studychineseculture.com/cn/book.asp?id=2565

 

You can see that new vocab and proper nouns are presented before listening, and while it doesn't explicitly say 'read the questions before listening', you certainly could. How you'd actually manage it in a classroom would depend on the level and what you wanted to do. 

[889]

华西村 and 代名词 kept flying past me. But I'd say this is reasonable if nonetheless challenging for second-year students, provided they've been given the word list beforehand. Remember, it's course work so it should be challenging to a degree.