Understanding Native Materials

[dakonglong]

Hi! I have been studying Chinese for a few years now and have finally reached a level where I can learn from native materials (books, radio, tv, etc...). However, I have noticed a huge gap in my ability to comprehend different content of approximately the same level. For example, I recently finished watching "The Ghost Bride" on Netflix. I watched this with only Chinese subtitles and was able to understand 70% - 80% of the content. After finishing that show I moved on to "Here to Heart" also on Netflix. I am three episodes in and I can understand no more than 20% of what is being said. I don't think the dialogue itself is any more complex, I just have difficulty parsing it. Does anyone else experience this range of comprehension in relatively similar material?

 

Is it possible that the difference is the accent (one show was produced in Taiwan, the other in Shanghai)? It almost sounds like there's less enunciation in "Here to Heart". Or maybe it's just a sound quality issue?

 

Would it be better to push through and try to improve my listening range? Or to move onto something that is easier for me to understand?

 

I appreciate the help!

[stapler]

I have the same experience. I just had a quick look at both shows with no subtitles. I don't know which one is produced where, but the "The Ghost Bride" is very easy to understand because it has a normal or southern style of Mandarin, which I've always found vastly easier to understand. The "Here to Heart" show is dubbed in Beijing/northern Mandarin and that makes it largely inaccessible to me.

 

My suspicion (no real way to confirm this) is that all the speakers and material we use when studying Chinese are much closer to the kind of mandarin they speak in the south and we don't get much exposure to northern accents. I also believe northerners speak quicker, and chuck in a bunch of their own dialectical tendencies in the way southerns don't because they treat Mandarin as a second language rather than just what their original dialect is (the analogy im thinking of is how its much easier to understand some Germans and Scandinavians etc speaking English than it is some Irish and African Americans etc).

 

I gave up a long time ago listening to shows dubbed into Mandarin with a Beijing/north accent (which is perhaps even the majority of mainland shows, even if the actors/shows are from the south).

 

Getting to a certain level with one mandarin accent/style doesn't entail you can understand the others. It will definitely help if you can understand one style of mando fairly well. But you have to train for them all.

[amytheorangutan]

I just seen a bit of both, is it possible because Here to heart has a lot of conversation about business and a lot of conversation happens in office setting that you’re not familiar with the topic and vocabulary? Try to fast forward to conversations in the drama that happens at home between friends or family and see if you can understand those dialogues then it means it’s a topic blindspot issue. This happens to me when I listen to my favourite podcast too, there are some episodes I can understand 80% then there are some I can only understand 30% and I find those episodes normally talk about topics that I’m not familiar with and therefore never come across the vocabulary. There was one episode when the host was talking about his work in design and therefore talk a bit about the software he uses and some editing thing and I was lost very quickly.

[dakonglong]

Thanks guys! I definitely think it’s a bit of both. It’s crazy how much comprehension can differ based on these types of factors, but it sounds like more exposure to the show could help with both dialect and topic-specific vocabulary.

[Woodford]

I can relate! I'm having similar experiences.

 

After focusing on reading skills for a really long time, I decided that listening skills would be really important, so I've been focusing on that this summer (with the hope that I can start climbing out of the listening rut I've fallen into). In the past, I've listened to intermediate-level podcasts (Learning Chinese Through Stories and iMandarinPod), and after casually listening to those for a couple of years now, I can usually get 99% listening comprehension. When I started as a beginner, I couldn't understand anything. So that's encouraging. However, since I've ventured into native-level material, things have gotten much more difficult. A lot of accents, a lot of slangy expressions, and no vocabulary limit. Intermediate content kept things limited to maybe 2000-3000 words. Native Chinese speakers seem to have a vocabulary of 20,000-30,000 words. 

 

It can get really frustrating at times. Sometimes I think, "I'm starting to master this stuff! This is great!" Then other times, I think, "I can barely understand anything! Am I actually getting worse? Is this a waste of my time?" In my training routine, I try to watch a video first without subtitles, then with subtitles, then without, then with, etc. I'm still amazed at how often I'm helpless without the subtitles. There are some exceptions to the rule, but I'd say that the majority of the time, I don't really understand the video until I've had the chance to read along with the subtitles. Then I understand everything (preferably, I'd like to understand more of it before looking at the subtitles, not after). I just try to understand what I can (a phrase here, a phrase there), and get myself accustomed to the spoken language. I don't know how much I'll improve this summer, but if my past experience is any indicator of what to expect in the future, I think long-term exposure to the language will pay off, and I'll eventually have good listening skills.

 

Another interesting observation is that I've found a relationship between reading and listening. I know that reading by itself isn't enough to improve listening skills, but I've found that when I do both of them together, they complement each other. Reading helps me grasp the language better, and learn the words and expressions that I hear in the spoken language. So I guess I'll just keep that exposure going, and the improvement will continue to come--very, very slowly!

[PerpetualChange]

The Ghost Bride is actually mostly an Malaysian production and I have a working theory that these kind of Mandarin productions from outside Mainland China and Taiwan are a bit easier because the Mandarin is still used more like a common language with far less slang, slower speaking and more clear pronunciation.