According to my more than 10-year’s experiences, lots of learners have problems in listening section. I am going to show you the 5 effective ways to improve your Mandarin listening skill.

Why listening skill is important

The purpose of learning a language is to communicate with the others. Try to image, if you can’t understand what people say or talk, how can we really communicate with them? I have to say, “understand” is the first step of all.

5 effective ways to improve Mandarin listening ability

Vocabulary

Normally, when students told me that they have listening problems, it means they are not really familiar with vocabularies meaning and usage. So that when they hear something, they can’t respond quickly.

Secondly, is you don’t have enough vocabularies to understand what people saying. Under this situation, to learn more is the only way to improve it.

Pronunciation

We can also call it as phonological awareness. When our ear received a “sound”, our brain needs to process and analysis it. If our brain could not recognize what it is, how can your brain transform it into a useful and meaningful information?

Sometimes, students in my class told me they don’t understand what do the learning materials say. However, what they don’t know is something they just learned. After showing them the vocabularies, they catch the meaning immediately.

It shows that what they don’t understand is what they can understand, just they can’t catch the sound.

Background knowledge

This is another common situation. When students’ feedback is “too hard”, there are 2 reasons. The first is really harder than their level, another is lack of the background knowledge.

It means that my language ability is not the problem, my knowledge of the topic is an issue. So, we can’t focus only on “language” itself, but also need to develop our Mandarin basic knowledge in different field.

Translation

Don’t try to translate what people when chatting with others. If you do so, it means your speed is too slow to respond people. When you are too slow, you will become more and more nervous.

In the other way, it also means you used to think in your mother language, in stead of Mandarin. It is not good for your long turn learning.

Understanding

The last part is about your understanding ability, such as culture, grammar, how to break the sentences and so on. This is quite important in learning any language.

There is a saying: I understand every words you day, but I don’t understand what you say, will be a very good example.

Listening is a multiple ability. We need to have language ability, information processing ability and organizing ability. All these together will construct our understanding ability. This is also the last but biggest challenge to improve our listening ability.

Here you can read about How to practice Mandarin Chinese when you are not surrounded by it.

Here you can read about How to learn Mandarin Chinese Easily as a beginner

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蛋(dàn) probably be one of the most frequently used word in everyday Chinese. But do you know that “蛋(dàn)” can mean something other than food? Let’s see some funny Mandarin words with “蛋(dàn)”

笨蛋Bèndàn

Which means an Idiot. “他是一個笨蛋”, which means he is an idiot.

皮蛋pídàn

When we want to say someone is naughty, we will call that person as “皮蛋(pídàn)”

窮光蛋qióngguāngdàn

Which means a pauper. “他現在是個窮光蛋”, refers to “he is a pauper now”.

混蛋húndàn

This is a bad word. When we are really mad about someone, we can call that person as an asshole.

壞蛋huàidàn

It means a badass. 混蛋only means I am mad about someone, however, 壞蛋really means a bad gay.

王八蛋wángbā dàn

Which means a bastard. The usage is similar like 混蛋.

臉蛋liǎndàn

When we want to describe a person’s face looks cute, nice, fine and so on, we can say”他的臉蛋真好看”, which means “his face looks so beautiful”.

糊塗蛋hútú dàn

Which means absent-minded person. When someone always lost, forget things, very confused, we call that person as 糊塗蛋.

滾蛋gǔndàn

If we are angry to somebody and want that person to get out, we can say 滾蛋. But this is not polite at all.

完蛋wándàn

If I made a mistake and that will bring me a big result, I will say “我完蛋了”, which means “I’m screwed”.

Here are you can read about Funny Numbers in Mandarin in Taiwan

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In Taiwan, there are some numbers with special meanings and they are quite funny. Have you ever heard about them? Let’s some examples here.

543

This comes from Minnan Language (one of dialects in Taiwan). It means “saying something which is not important” or “say something which is not helpful”.

In Taiwan, when somebody says”他跟我說了一些543的話(tā gēn wǒ shuōle yīxiē wǔsìsān dehuà)”, it means he came to me and said something not important, or I don’t really like, or not meaningful.

2266

This also comes from Minnan Language, which means can’t managing things well, always forget lots of things. In Taiwan, when somebody says “他做事2266的，我不放心(tā zuòshì èr’èrliùliù de, wǒ bù fàngxīn)”, it means he can’t do things properly, so, I really worried about it”.

8+9

This also comes from Minnan Language. The pronunciation of “8+9” is very similar to “八家將(bā jiā jiāng)”, which is a local religious activity/dancing. There is no problem of the activity itself. The problem is some of their members are pretty much like gangland.

So, when we refer someone as “8+9”, it with bad meaning.

87

This also comes from Minnan Language. In Taiwan, if we want to say someone is an idiot, we will say “白癡(báichī)”. The pronunciation of “87” in Minnan Language is very similar to “白癡(báichī)”, so we use this two numbers refer to “idiot”.

520

This comes from Mandarin, which means “我愛你(wǒ ài nǐ)”. If you still don’t understand why, read it faster！The pronunciation between “520” and “我愛你” are very similar!

Here are you can read about 10 need-to-know Mandarin Chinese sentences in Taiwan

Here you can read about Top 10 NOT-recommended Foods when you are traveling in Taiwan

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In Mandarin, there are a lot of characters with 2 or more pronunciations. And the differences between/amount different pronunciations normally related to its meaning. Let’s some commonly used examples about Mandarin Characters with Multiple Pronunciation and Meanings.

更

gèng：when pronounce” gèng”, it means “even more”. Such as 更多、更好、更熱。The part of speech of this pronunciation is adv.

gēng：when pronounce” gēng”, it means “update”. Such as 更新、更換。The part of speech of this pronunciation is Verb.

便

biàn：there are several meanings under this pronunciation. Such as 方便、便利

pián：the most common combination is 便宜, which means cheap.

Not like “更”，”便” itself has many different meanings. We choice pronunciation according to the meaning.

行

xíng：there are 2 popular usages under this pronunciation. One is “行/不行”, which means can or can’t. another is related to “move”, such as 行動、行為、行人.

háng：there are 3 popular usages under this pronunciation. One is “銀行”, which means bank. Another is row. The last one is about jobs, such as 行業, which means one’s professional or industrial.

還

hái：when we pronounce “hái”, it means “still”, such as 還沒、還要、還有. The part of speech of this pronunciation is adv.

huán：when we pronounce “huán”, it means “return something to somebody”. Such as 還錢、還給他. The part of speech of this pronunciation is Verb.

空

kōng：when we pronounce “kōng”, the first meaning is empty. Such as 空房間、空教室. The part of speech of this usage is adj. The second meaning is space, such as 空間、天空. The part of speech of this usage is Noun.

kòng：when we pronounce “kòng”, it means “free time”. Such as 有空、空閒. The part of speech of this pronunciation is Noun.

了

le：when we pronounce “le”, it is a grammatical word. Which means only use it when there are grammatical needs, such as 我吃飽了(I am full), 太貴了(too expensive).

liǎo：when we pronounce “liǎo”, there are 2 popular usages. The first usage is also under grammatical needs, such as 我吃不了那麼多(I can’t eat that much), 我沒有錢，買不了那麼貴的東西(I am not rich, I can’t pay for such expensive thing). The second usage means “understand”, such as 了解.

假

jiǎ：when we pronounce “jiǎ”, it means fake. Such as 假人,假錢. The part of speech of this usage is adj

jià：when we pronounce “jià”, it means “off day” or “vocation”. Such as 放假,假日. The part of speech of this usage is Noun.

長

zhǎng：when we pronounce “zhǎng”, it means grow. Such as 長大,長高. The part of speech of this usage is Verb.

cháng：when we pronounce “cháng” it means long. Such as 長髮, 長褲. The part of speech of this usage is Adv.

處

chù：when we pronounce “chù”, it means “placae”. Such as 到處, 四處. The part of speech of this usage is Noun.

chǔ：when we pronounce “chǔ”, it means “to deal with”. Such as 處理, 處罰. The part of speech of this usage is Verb.

種

zhǒng：when we pronounce “zhǒng”, it means ”type”. Such as 種類, 一種水果. The part of speech of this usage can be either measure word or Noun.

zhòng：when we pronounce “zhòng”, it means “to plant”. Such as 種花, 種樹. The part of speech of this usage is Verb.

Note：The above information is just for examples, not including all meanings/usages/ pronunciations.

Here you can read about Mandarin Chinese confusing word pairs ~ the near-synonyms in Mandarin

Here you can read about 8 Confusing Mandarin Chinese Word Pairs

Here you can read about How to practice Mandarin Chinese when you are not surrounded by it.

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