Participation
in Listening challenge, January 2021
300 minutes 5.0h
Stuff at work. Started adding fresh dialogues to my Chinesepod playlist. I haven't actually listened to these episodes so it's good practice to pick up on stuff by myself.
60 minutes 1.0h
Lesson with my tutor. We talked about a diversity of stuff including TV. His favorite American show is LOST and at after first I didn't understand him but eventually he talked about a plane crashing on an island in Chinese I knew immediately.
240 minutes 4.0h
Stuff at work and then watched an episode of Ipartment at home. TV is still frustratingly hard even though I can follow upper-intermediate Chinesepod episodes and intermediate LCTS pretty decently. I tried rewatching one drama I've watched before (Go Ahead 以家人之名) without english subs and it still was very demoralizing. Ipartment was considerably easier, they speak a lot clearer in it, maybe because it's set in Shanghai?
240 minutes 4.0h
180 minutes 3.0h
Different stuff at work. Ended the day by watching some Peppa Pig haha!
180 minutes 3.0h
80 minutes 1.33h
Went on a run and had a lesson with my tutor after.
90 minutes 1.5h
Mix of active and passive listening today.
60 minutes 1.0h
LCTS (听故事学中文)2.1.19 《怀素写字》and 《好久不见》Learned Eason Chan's song Hao Jiu Bu Jian. I've been listening to this song for a few months now so it's nice to finally know what its about. After the episode finished I put the song on and followed along with Mr. Chan.
300 minutes 5.0h
Different stuff at work. Did some more active listening at lunch by breaking down previously listened to Chinesepod dialogues.
35 minutes 0.58h
Mandarin Corner
240 minutes 4.0h
Different stuff at work. Some new Chinesepod episodes, while mostly listened to old dialogues and also broke some them down more at lunch and read the transcripts to catch stuff I've missed.
50 minutes 0.83h
Children's content on my run.
120 minutes 2.0h
Not nearly quite as big as my previous marathons. Tomorrow at work I'm back at it.
60 minutes 1.0h
Had a lesson with my tutor this morning. Our conversation went well, even compared to last week I feel my listening comprehension of him was way higher and I felt like was taking part more. So my marathoning is working.
40 minutes 0.67h
Started watching Mandarin Corner's opinion videos without English. These are a very under looked free resource and are great because it's real conversations and you get used to the regional accent differences. This was definitely more active listening because I was trying really hard to follow along with the subtitles in hanzi. Some of the topics are easy to follow like "What Kind of Guys do Chinese Girls Like?" While "What Do Chinese Like About Foreigners?" was a bit more difficult to follow.
30 minutes 0.5h
Chinesepod dialogues on my run.
30 minutes 0.5h
Mandarin Corner (What Do Chinese Think About Koreans?)
25 minutes 0.42h
Finished up today with a run and some listening. Goodnight yall.
480 minutes 8.0h
Another marathon. I used to think listening was improved in stages like going up stairs (or advancing Chinesepod levels) but now I feel it's more like big tree branching out. Sometimes I can really understand harder materials because I'm more familiar with the subjects, other times not so much. It's as if some of the tree branches go higher and have more twigs. I'm really enjoying listening to longer form content though. Call this sacrilegious, but I kinda like the new format of the Upper-intermediate Chinesepod episodes more than the classic duo of Jenny and John since the new ones just use Chinese. Even in the older ones John and Jenny code switched alot and it's a bit distracting, however Jenny is still a phenomenal host and I think the older dialogues were a bit more creative and fun. Also listened to a lot of 听故事学中文 today. I just left it on autoplay and it didn't really care what levels were playing.
420 minutes 7.0h
The singlest longest passive listening marathon I've done yet. I'm pretty much listened all day at work with some time deducted for breaks and such. Now my brain is very, very tired.
60 minutes 1.0h
Listened while working out.
256 minutes 4.27h
Marathon today at work. I've been doing what Olle says and trying listen to the Chinesepod Upper-Intermediates, by instead focusing on the hosts and not the dialogues. Also finished up with some 听故事学中文 。I particularly liked the one Coffee 《咖啡》It was fairly easy to listen to passively, so when I have time I'll actively listen to it and break down the words.
150 minutes 2.5h
Variety of content at work including the audio book version of Mandarin's Companion's 卷发公司的案子。
200 minutes 3.33h
A diversity of content today. ChinesePod, children's content, and 听故事学中文 (LearningChinese Through Stories). Wireless earbuds are the greatest invention ever. If you have a job that you can just tune out then drop the pop music and listen to Chinese content all day.
@Elvira https://www.amazon.com/Urbanista-London-Wireless-Bluetooth-Earbuds/dp/B08FGDKJLP/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3CLTL373H2HH4&dchild=1&keywords=urbanista+earbuds+london&qid=1611096362&sprefix=urbanista+earbuds+lo%2Caps%2C204&sr=8-3 These ones are quite good they are super comfortable and have great sound, though I managed to get them on sale. If you're trying bridge the gap to Upper-Intermediate I would recommend listening to just the dialogues of the Intermediates that's what Olle recommends. Also, Learning Chinese Through Stories is incredible. It's honestly even better than Chinesepod for comprehensible input because even the beginner lessons are entirely in Chinese, yet the explanations are simple . How she is able to explain stories simply and adjust to the beginner levels amazes me.
60 minutes 1.0h
Chinesepod dialogues on loop while I ran this morning.
50 minutes 0.83h
Listened to another upper-intermediate Chinesepod episode. It's funny some of the uppers depending on the subject I can understand fairly well, others not so much. I also have been going over previous listened to intermediates, reading the dialogues, and clearing up any vocab I'm missed.
20 minutes 0.33h
Upper intermediate Chinese pod video.
60 minutes 1.0h
Had a lesson with my tutor on italki. Our lessons are entirely in Chinese now and today he edited a story I wrote and gave explanations in Chinese. I tried really hard to listen and make sense of what he was saying. Some grammar explanations were a little fuzzy, but a lot I could get from context.
Challenge time progress: | |
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Goal progress: |
Score | 68.59 |
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Rank | 1st |
Hours reported | 68.59 |
Goal | 30h |
Hi, I see you are also a ChinesePod fan. In the past most of my listening outside the class was ChinesePod. I agree with you that Intermediate tends to be distracting if there is a lot of switching to English, unfortunately Upper-intermediate is still too diffucult for me. You mentioned that you are using wireless earbuds. Which brand and model do you use? I just can't find earbuds that would feel comfortable in my ears and not drop out :-( Btw, congratulations on your amazing listening run! Respect!