Listening

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. Added to that, 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.

If you want more general advice, please sign up for my free introduction course. I will summarise and introduce the most important things to keep in mind when learning Mandarin:

[mc4wp_form id=”7547″]

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.

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.

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, September 2024
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, April 2024
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
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?