🎧How to boost your listening skills 🎧

Tips for fitting listening practice into your day + resource recommendations for 🇨🇳 & 🇯🇵

Hello again!😊

If you follow my daily stories on Instagram, you will know that I’ve recently been focusing on improving my listening skills in Mandarin Chinese🔥.

Today, I would like to share the specific approach I am using, along with some resources and tips for finding time to practice effectively. Of course, these tips can also be implemented for Japanese (and I included some resources for it too)! 😉

Without further ado, let’s get started! ✨

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🙉How I practice🙉

My listening sessions range from 10 minutes to an hour. I primarily focus on active listening, paying close attention to understand as much as possible. However, I incorporate passive listening as well while multitasking to add some extra time.

In terms of difficulty, initially I focused on easier content that I could follow with greater comprehension to help my brain get used to the sounds of the language. However, now that I have become more comfortable, I am challenging myself with upper-intermediate resources. This way I can get exposed to some of the more advanced vocabulary I have been studying 😇.

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📻Resources📻

I have been using three types of materials to sharpen my listening skills:

Podcasts

Currently, my favorite way to practice listening is through podcasts 😍.

As there is a wide range of topics available, it’s easy to find something interesting and adapted to your level. Plus, you can simply just choose a podcast series and listen to all of it without having to constantly search for new content after each episode.

Here are my favorite podcasts for Mandarin Chinese and Japanese:

• TeaTime Chinese (茶歇中文) (>HSK 4 🇨🇳, easier episodes in the beginning)

• Comprehensible Chinese (>HSK 2 🇨🇳)

• 說說話 Talk Talk Mandarin Chinese (>HSK 5 🇨🇳)

• Talk Taiwanese Mandarin with Abby (>HSK 5 🇨🇳)

• Let’s talk in Japanese! (N5-N1 🇯🇵)

• Haru no Nihongo (she speaks quite fast, so N2-N1 🇯🇵)

Dramas, Cartoons, YT videos & Drama CDs

Besides listening to podcasts, I am trying to watch native content without subtitles 👀. In Chinese 🇨🇳, so far, I have managed to follow along these shows with varying levels of comprehension:

• 樱桃小丸子 (Chibi Maruko-chan, Chinese dub)

• 开端 (Reset): great show, can really recommend it.

• 别想打扰我学习 (Don’t disturb my study!)

For Japanese 🇯🇵, I mainly watch anime. Some good anime for intermediate learners would be ones with real life settings like:

• 月がきれい (Tsuki Ga Kirei)

• 四月は君の嘘 (Your Lie in April)

• 新しい上司はど天然 (My New Boss Is Goofy)

• 山田くんとLv999の恋をする (My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999)

Lessons

Finally, my last listening input source are actually my weekly lessons with my tutor. These are actually very useful, as my tutor will explain to me any words I misunderstood. On the other hand, if I get what she said wrong it might be a bit embarrassing 🙈.

I found my Japanese and Chinese tutors on Preply (disclaimer: referral link), but you can try to find yours on another platform.

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⌛Finding the time to practice⌛

Okay, okay. It is great to know what we can do to improve our listening skills but, how do you actually find the time to practice them?🤔

Well, here are some suggestions to when you can try to actively or passively do some listening:

• While walking 🚶 or commuting 🚋 (my personal favorite!).

• While cooking 🧑‍🍳.

• While eating 😋.

• While getting ready to go out (e.g., changing clothes, brushing your teeth).

• While doing household chores 🏠.

• While exercising 🏃 (e.g., at the gym, running)—my boyfriend tried this, though I personally find it hard to focus while working out.

• While waiting ⌚ (e.g., after ordering at a restaurant, in a queue, or while heating food in the microwave).

• While shopping 🛍️ (for groceries, clothes, etc.).

• While doing repetitive tasks at work that do not require a high level of attention.

See, you do actually have plenty of time to get a little bit of listening practice every day! 😉

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So, what are you waiting for? It’s never too late to improve, and even just 10 minutes per day will make a huge difference! 💪

I hope you found this post helpful🤗 If you have any further questions or other topics you would like me to discuss, feel free to leave a comment 😁.

See you soon with more meaningful content,

~𝙽𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚊