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Improving Chinese listening ability is very important for all learners. It’s the door to all other skills. The other skills are also important, but none improves your general ability as much as listening. In addition, you can spend far more time listening than you can with any other skill. On this page, I discuss how to your Chinese listening ability.
Now over to more listening, though. The better your listening ability gets, the more you get out of listening. You can extract vocabulary from what you hear, you learn how words are used in context and you can polish your understanding of Chinese pronunciation.
The Fluent Listener: Navigating Spoken Mandarin Like a Fish in Water
Want to understand Mandarin naturally, at any level? This course guides you in building an immersive listening environment and equips you with essential listening strategies. Strengthen your listening ability to unlock conversations, connect with others, and dive into Chinese society and culture, making you feel 如鱼得水 (rúyúdéshuǐ), like a fish in water!
This course is an excellent resource for anyone looking to improve their listening skills in Mandarin. It provides a wealth of information and inspiration about what to listen to, how to listen, and how to listen more.
The course also includes detailed listening recommendations tailored to all levels, access to an exclusive learner community, a listening tracker, and much more. Learn more about the course here: The Fluent Listener: Navigating Spoken Mandarin Like a Fish in Water
Articles about listening comprehension
I have written a lot about listening ability, but some articles are more important than others. To begin with, I’ve written a series of articles about listening ability, containing the following articles.
Beyond tīng bu dǒng
- A guide to Chinese listening comprehension
- From sound to meaning in Mandarin
- Using what you already know to aid listening comprehension in Chinese
- Learning to process spoken Mandarin quickly and effortlessly
- Becoming a better listener as a student of Chinese
- Why is listening in Chinese so hard?
- How to master different kinds of listening in Chinese
- Building an arsenal of Chinese listening strategies for every situation
- The best listening exercises to improve your Chinese
Listening strategies
- Introduction
- Problem analysis
- Background listening
- Passive listening
- Active listening
- Listening speed
- Deliberate practice and i+2
- Listening resources
Apart from these articles, there are also others that focus directly on specific aspects of listening ability.
Articles directly related to listening ability
Listening ability, a matter of practice?
Make sure listening isn’t a practical problem
Listening to the listener
How to find more time to practise listening
Triggering quantum leaps in listening ability
Articles indirectly related to listening ability
The importance of knowing many words
Pros and cons with travelling to learn a language
Diversified learning is smart learning
Benchmarking progress to stay motivated
Reading manga for more than just pleasure
Mapping the terra incognita of vocabulary
Can you become fluent in Chinese in three months?
The 10,000 hour rule – Blood, sweat and tears
A complete list of all articles about listening ability:
- Benchmarking progress in Chinese to stay motivated
- Welcome to The Fluent Listener, a new course from Hacking Chinese!
- Four key principles to improve your Mandarin listening comprehension
- Do you really know how to count in Chinese?
- Three things I wish I had known as an advanced student of Chinese: The time machine, part 3
- Don’t learn Mandarin pronunciation by reading, listen and mimic instead
- Course discount: Hacking Chinese Pronunciation: Speaking with Confidence
- How to use YouTube and other video platforms to learn Chinese
- Three things I wish I had known as an intermediate student of Chinese: The time machine, part 2
- YouGlish: A free service to hear and see Chinese words in context
- Student Q&A, September 2024: Slowly spoken Chinese, passing listening exams and understanding numbers
- Chinese listening challenge, February 2025
- Three things I wish I had known as a beginner student of Chinese: The time machine, part 1
- The 10 best free Chinese listening resources for beginner, intermediate and advanced learners
- Insights from my recent trip to China: The importance of top-down listening
- Learning to hear the sounds and tones in Mandarin
- Student Q&A, May 2024: Understanding strangers, listening with transcripts, and which podcasts to avoid
- Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 6: Why is listening in Chinese so hard?
- Interview: Insights from Skritter’s Complete Guide to Learning Chinese
- Chinese speaking challenge, March 2025
- Is speaking more important than listening when learning Chinese?
- The best podcasts for learning Chinese in 2024
- Real communication: What it is, why you want it and how to get it
- The Hacking Chinese guide to Mandarin tones
- Listen more and learn more by building a personal Chinese audio library
- 8 great ways to scaffold your Chinese listening and reading
- Student Q&A, January 2024: Chinese music, too much Mandarin in the classroom, and listening in noisy environments
- How to best use flashcards to learn Chinese
- 100 hours of Chinese listening in 3 weeks: What I learnt and how to apply it
- Student Q&A, October 2023: Expanding vocabulary quickly, learning by watching videos and nailing dictation tests
- Listen more than once: How the replay button can help you learn more Chinese
- Student Q&A, September 2023: Listening more than once, assessing pronunciation and the merits of flashcards
- Should you throw away your Chinese textbook?
- Insights from the new HSK 7-9: Interview with Sara Jaaksola
- How narrow reading and listening can help you bridge the gap to real Chinese
- Why travelling isn’t the best method to learn Chinese
- Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 5: Becoming a better listener as a student of Chinese
- Beginner Chinese listening practice: What to listen to and how
- Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 4: Learning to process spoken Mandarin quickly and effortlessly
- Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 3: Using what you already know to aid listening comprehension in Chinese
- Learning the neutral tone in Mandarin
- Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 2: From sound to meaning in Mandarin
- Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 1: A guide to Chinese listening comprehension
- How to become fluent in Chinese
- How to learn Chinese pronunciation as a beginner
- Time quality: Studying the right thing at the right time
- How to start learning Chinese again after a break
- A guide to Pinyin traps and pitfalls: Learning Mandarin pronunciation
- How to improve fluency in Chinese by playing word games
- The building blocks of Chinese, part 5: Making sense of Chinese words
- Using voice messaging as a stepping stone to Chinese conversations
- A smart method to discover problems with Mandarin sounds and tones
- Chinese language logging, part 3: Tools and resources for keeping track of your learning
- Learning to understand regionally accented Mandarin
- Lost in transcription: Saylaw, Ice Island and Aristotle
- Chinese language logging, part 1: Why and how to track your progress
- What’s the difference between Chinese pronunciation and Pinyin? Does it matter?
- Learning the second tone in Mandarin Chinese
- Learning science in Chinese with 李永乐老师
- The most serious mistake students make when learning Mandarin pronunciation
- 9 answers to questions about Pinyin and pronunciation
- Review: Learning Chinese by video immersion with FluentU
- Why learning Chinese pronunciation by using English words is a really bad idea
- 7 ideas for smooth and effortless Chinese listening practice
- Diversify how you study Chinese to learn more
- Improving your Chinese while watching TV shows
- Should you learn to speak Chinese before you learn Chinese characters?
- Learning Chinese words: When quantity beats quality
- When spaced repetition fails, and what to do about it
- Text adventure games and how to use them in the Chinese language classroom
- How to figure out how good your Chinese is
- The simple trick I used to double the amount of Chinese I listen to
- Does using colour to represent Mandarin tones make them easier to learn?
- Can too much guidance make you learn less Chinese?
- Training your Chinese teacher, part 3: Listening ability
- New course: Unlocking Chinese – The Ultimate Guide for Beginners
- The nine principles of learning (and the mistakes from failing to follow them)
- Review: Mandarin Companion: Easy to read novels in Chinese
- 101 questions and answers about how to learn Chinese
- Free and easy audio flashcards for Chinese dictation practice with Anki
- How and why to learn and teach Chinese through games
- New text game for Chinese learners: The Magistrate’s Gallery
- Five text games for Chinese learners
- Training and testing your ability to hear Mandarin sounds
- Advanced listening and reading with Skeptoid Chinese
- Let’s play 迷霧中 (Into the Haze)
- Into the Haze: A new text adventure game for Chinese learners
- Comprehension-based listening vs deep end immersion
- 10 ways of using games to learn and teach Chinese
- A student’s guide to comprehension-based learning
- The benefits of a comprehension-based approach for teaching and learning Chinese
- An introduction to comprehension-based Chinese teaching and learning
- Transcribing Chinese audio as an active form of listening practice
- Accessing Chinese culture through cartoons
- Learning Chinese through comprehensible input
- ChinesePod review: Your companion to Mandarin fluency
- Listen before you read: Improve your listening ability
- The Hacking Chinese free tone training course
- Chinese listening practice with 锵锵三人行
- Learning Chinese through audiobooks
- Bite-sized learning isn’t enough to learn Chinese
- Three steps to more and better Chinese listening practice
- How knowing your best performance in Chinese can help you improve
- Learning how to ask for and receive directions in Chinese
- Change your attitude to enjoy life and learn more Chinese
- Love and language: Challenges and opportunities in learning Chinese with a partner
- A learner’s guide to TV shows in Chinese, part 2
- How and why to watch the world cup in Chinese
- A learner’s guide to TV shows in Chinese, part 1
- How and why to use television to learn Chinese
- The grand listening cycle: Improve your Chinese listening ability
- Improving Foreign Language Pronunciation: Interview with Hacking Chinese on Language is Culture
- Using Audacity to learn Chinese (speaking and listening)
- 14 extra songs to learn Chinese and expand your horizons
- The Cthulhu bubble and studying Chinese
- Measuring your language learning is a double-edged sword
- RTI, my favourite radio station
- 13 more songs to learn Chinese and expand your horizons
- Vocalise more to learn more Chinese
- 12 songs to learn Chinese and expand your horizons
- Learning Chinese with StarCraft 2
- Why learning Chinese through music is underrated
- Chinese listening strategies: Diversify your listening practice
- Chinese listening strategies: Deliberate practice and i+2
- Chinese listening strategies: Improving listening speed
- Chinese listening strategies: Active listening
- Playing computer games in Chinese: Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2
- Chinese listening strategies: Passive listening
- Chinese listening strategies: Background listening
- Chinese listening strategies: Problem analysis
- Chinese listening strategies: An introduction
- The 10,000 hour rule – Blood, sweat and tears
- Can you become fluent in Chinese in three months?
- Triggering quantum leaps in Chinese listening ability
- How to find more time to practise Chinese listening
- Improve your conversations by listening to the listener
- Chinese listening ability, a matter of practice?