Actually for any kinda language, listening is the very first thing you need to beat. Many people start learning Chinese by killing the most difficult part-grammar. I mean, grammar is important, while it is still better to place more importance on listening at the first stage.
As we already know, as a baby, when you start talking, you do not just think the grammar and sentence structure and say it. You probably repeat many words you hear the most from your parents. When you have enough inputs of a language, the words will naturally come into your mind when you want to say it.
You might say: i am an adult; it might not work in this way. All i want to say is (1) it is a pity since as an adult, it may take more time for you to remember things and to adapt the new languages on the basis of your mother tongue. And it also takes more efforts to have authentic accent or pronunciation. However (2) it is lucky since you have more control on what you are doing and how you are gonna doing things. You can make things right in a shorter period time once you know the trick.
Now you know you are lucky, why not try to beat the listening first? Before you want to beat your opponent, you'd better know him a bit. just like a Chinese saying: 知己知彼，百战百胜。
So what do you know about listening? Is it just about playing your audio or video and listening to it?
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Leave alone the definition; you just need to remember what listening process looks like.
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Forgive my bad imagination and poor kinda drawing. Listening process is like the steps with different stages(see above). It is not a straight line that goes up (see picture below). so when you start listening. you practice everday but you don’t see the improvement right after that. You need to keep practicing and after a long time, you start to realize the improvement (Just like you move from point A to point B on a new stage). E.g. when you are at A stage, you may just pick up 1 or 2 words from each sentence. When you are at B stage, you may able to understand half of each sentence. So my point is that before you move up to a new stage, you should know it takes long time to stay at the old stage and don't give up. Be confident!
So how to move up to a new stage effectively?
Generally speaking, two types of listening skills need to be improved. One is intensive listening. It is about really focusing when you listen to the audio or video. First time playing, you may just hear and have a general understanding of the structure and pauses of the audio. And second time playing you’d better write down whatever you hear. Of course it would be difficult. But bear in mind to write all the things in a notebook, you will see the improvement after a while when you go back to the first page. Third time, play the audio again, write more what you hear to complete the things you wrote. Then see or check the answer or the transcript. (before you check the transcript, it is up to you how many times you want to listen) Highlight the missing part. Remember them by saying aloud. (one more time) alouuuuuuud. Make sure you can hear yourself speaking. Keep trying and you will feel motivated and confident after it.
Dose: it depends on you. While if you like, maybe 30mins a day. :P
The other type of skill is (you know that) extensive listening. This is really broad. You can listen to all the things you prefer as long as it is Chinese (or any other target language). E.g. news, music, movie, talk show or chatting with native speaker. the broader, the better. Listen to it when you are eating, playing games, running, driving, taking showers, sleeping or whatever you prefer.
Dose: 1 hour to 2 hours a day. The more, the better. .Do not get overdosed or only take this easy way by ignoring the intensive listening. Especially when you are preparing to take an exam since if you get used to the extensive listening, it may affect you paying fully attention when you do the intensive listening. You will easily get distracted then. (side effect of overusing the extensive listening)
Two things must both be done in an organized way. You will see the improvement. : p
So the prescription is: 30 mins to 1 hour of intensive listening + at least 1 to 2 hours of extensive listening a day. It might be applied different depending on your energy of the day.
If you find it is useful, have a go. Good luck. :)
