Participation
in Listening challenge, September 2019



96 minutes
1.6h
67 minutes
1.12h
53 minutes
0.88h

I missed a day of listening. My scheduled filled up with things that I have to do for my upcoming trip to China! Yay! Trying to get a few more listening sessions in before the end of the Challenge.

82 minutes
1.37h
80 minutes
1.33h
82 minutes
1.37h
95 minutes
1.58h
63 minutes
1.05h

My word of the day is 砍价,'to bargain'. I already knew the characters, but not in this combination, but it came up in a conversation with my teacher. Later on the same day, I was watching a Chinese soap opera, where one of the actors asked another to show him how to '砍价’。Now this is stuck in my brain for good.

93 minutes
1.55h

I've decided to focus only on materials that are interesting - that I would read or watch because they deal with topics I'm interested in - mainly art and culture. I'm done with with materials designed for second language learners - no more buying stamps at the post office dialogues.

85 minutes
1.42h

Afu is taking a German visitor to eat bull frog hot pot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxZKqbXkuxs&t=101s.

91 minutes
1.52h

In two weeks, I'm leaving NYC to spend a month in China. All the people I'm watching and listening to for this Challenge speak so darn fast. Soon, it will be sink or swim time.

加油!Good luck!

111 minutes
1.85h

Today's new phrase is 凑热闹. Literally, "gather together, hot, stir up trouble", but is better translated as "come to see what the fuss is all about." Afu Thomas at the opening of Costco in Shanghai translates it simply as "Come to take a look."

85 minutes
1.42h

Concentrated on Afu Thomas review of Costco opening in Shanghai. Shadowing really helps with listening comprehension - you understand and you hear EVERYTHING. This is in contrast to student comprehension where you sort of understand and are just guessing at the likeliest meaning.

83 minutes
1.38h
113 minutes
1.88h

I discovered a series of watercolor tutorials on Youtube, 水彩篇- 从入门到精通, with a guy who speaks deliberately and repeats a lot. He treats all his materials as if he were in a Japanese Tea Ceremony. Good for learning watercolor techniques and for Chinese.

101 minutes
1.68h

I've added Youtube videos on painting and cooking to my listening mix. These don't come with subtitles, but because of the subject matter, they are comprehensible. I should have thought of this a long time ago - to listen things I'm interested in!

101 minutes
1.68h

I'm using Viki.com to view Chinese soap operas. They have a dialogue repeat feature with Hanzi subtitles. It keeps repeating one line of dialogue at a time until you decide to proceed. I usually know all the characters and they are really very simple, but when spoken by the actors, half of them seem to be dropped and the other half have pronunciations that are unexpected. I'm trying to go with the flow, but it is really hard.

that is a nice feature (学习模式), but I still think it would be best for you to listen to videos without subtitles, just ignore what you can't understand.

If you use subtitles in two languages is very good. At least it has worked for me becuase what I don´t understand in chinese I can guess it with english.

you could try 《绝对隐私》 from 2005

97 minutes
1.62h

Finished the Ruyi Love in the Royal Palace series - all 87! It took me months. Learned the vocabulary for emperor, empress, noble consort, concubine, eunuch, and getting framed.

82 minutes
1.37h

Listening is my weakest skill. I know grammar, I know characters, but my listening is lagging way behind. For this challenge, I will be using Afu Thomas videos, FluentU audio scripts and Chinese soap opera series (just finishing up Ruyi Love in the Royal Palace). All come with subtitles, so I listen to each with and without subtitles several times until I can follow along in Chinese associating the Chinese pronunciation with meaning.




Challenge time progress:100%
Goal progress:92.2%
Score27.67
Rank1st
Hours reported27.67
Goal30h