Listening Practise & Chinese Media
By Leigh on January 07, 2025
One of the struggles I’ve found with learning Chinese is the ability to practise listening. Other than the natural to people in Chinese, it usually involves some form of media: podcasts, movies, songs etc. however, this is ultimately subjective based on what you enjoy watching.
There’s also an element of finding something that’s at the right level for you - if it’s too hard you won’t watch it and won’t learn much, if it’s too easy (or childish in a lot of cases) it become uninteresting. It’s a real balance of multiple variables.
One good approach is to try many different things, there’s lots of stuff around on Youtube in various formats, podcasts, live streams, TV shows etc. Keep trying the different formats until you stumble upon something that is tolerable and dare I say enjoyable? Keeping an open mind and ear really helps.
Previously I was watching a TV show called 小花仙 (XiaoHuaXian), a children's show about fairies and flowers. I quickly began annoying everyone I know with my newly learnt fairy magic vocabulary, the level was challenging enough but despite it all eventually the actual show started to become boring and repetitive.
Recently my wife played (樱桃小丸子) and I’ve been enjoying it. It’s a hugely popular kids show that’s quite old now. It’s still childish, but I find the vocabulary a little more realistic and learnt some things already.
You can find the first episode here.