Comprehensible Input Listening Experiment: Update 37 Hours
Colors meaning: pink is idea for how to study in future, blue is conclusions and results so far, red is question for others.
In the interest of figuring out exactly how 'comprehensible' the audiobook I am listening to, I took a random page out of my print book copy of MoDu volume 1, counted 400 words out, then counted how many I didn't understand to find the numbers I understood (378), then found the percent of words understood when reading: 94.5%. The words I did not understand per each 100 words were 6, 4, 4, 8 respectively. I counted each word I did not understand, counted it by hanzi (so a 2 hanzi single word I didn't understand counted as 2), and counted all the hanzi making up the word even if I knew some of the individual hanzi. I suspect a couple of the words were place or person names, because I jumped in randomly, but we'll just for the sake of simplicity treat all the words like regular words. So I guess my true estimate of understanding MoDu is estimated to be about 95% for some parts, unknown for others (but probably on average around that amount - for simplicity's sake lets assume this). I did count any word as known that I both recognized and could make a guess at pronunciation - so my pronunciation-known words is likely a bit lower than 94.5%, but it should be close enough that I will be able to eventually hear the words and recognize them if I hear them enough. That's the theory I'm hoping this experiment will prove or not prove - if I can pick up words known from reading (enough to guess at pinyin to look up) but that I don't currently recognize when listening.
I should have done a percent understood words check before starting this experiment, but oh well.
Somehow my reading skill has improved a bit since I checked last year with Guardian Zhenhun, as my comprehension was around 95% for that and I know MoDu has more words so I had guessed at the time it was 90-93% understandable and not quite easy enough to extensively read yet. Now, I could extensively read MoDu in print. That's a shock to me! Also a fun little note: I clearly learned a LOT of my words from priest novels, I went to read a Zhoudu fanfic on ao3 yesterday and only could follow the main idea - I totally misunderstood some details, caught other details, but overall the descriptive sentences threw me off and I misunderstood what half of them meant. I could enjoy the fanfic, but I struggled to read that person's writing style and word choice more than I do with a priest novel. That's how big a difference writer makes. I also tried to listen to a DMBJ novel on Ximalaya yesterday - I was excited Ximalaya seems to have added captions to MOST audio now, so I was reading along. It was HARD to follow, I managed to follow the opening was talking about narrators grandpa and dad, a curse, it might have been about the Mystic Nine or something? I was expecting the opening to DMBJ 1 which I've read before and jumps right into a tomb dig, instead this audiobook/captions was descriptions of people's life situations for 2 minutes and I gave up (more abstract compared to people DOING an action). I know I can read the Rain Village story, and dmbj 1 and 2, and it was definitely harder than that. Despite being familiar with dmbj, I found the audiobook/captions hard to follow anything beyond the main idea being communicated. I also found Fuermosi (Sherlock) for children on Ximalaya - perfect for learners, at least my level lol. Around 1 unknown word a paragraph, and I know the setup of Sherlock so they're easy to guess. Also the audiobook had captions so I could follow along reading (which is easier for me - without captions I don't think I could've followed the audio just because it's yet again a new writing/sentence Style I'm not listening to normally).
Side note: does anyone know how to make a Ximalaya account in the US? I have the app, but no account, so I can't bookmark/favorite anything to find again later, and can't make purchases.
The 2 things I want to test with the Chinese Listening to Comprehensible Input experiment are:
Can my instant recognition of words in listening improve, and get closer to the level of words I can recognize when reading? Answer seems to be yes, based on results so far.
Can I listen to audiobooks for comprehensible input, at this point in my learning, and learn new words/phrases?
Attached to this is: how comprehensible does the audio have to be to me, in order to use it to learn new words/phrases. Currently, because I'm mostly developing 'instant recognition' when listening to words I can already read, I can't really judge what audio is truly X known/unknown to me yet. That will probably come up in later hours of listening, once I can understand in listening mostly everything I can read. Much later in this process, using audiobooks for I can read less well because I don't know as many words in them like MDZS, wuxia and xianxia novels, would be a good material to use to test if I can learn new words from audio input only, or if I need say a visual like a show or manhua to learn that many new words.
How am I listening: partly focused, listening to audio while playing video games, working on busy work, chores, walking, driving. For stuff I have to look at the visuals for, I have to pay full attention, and that is harder to fit into my schedule (but easier for learning new words since you have visuals to use for context).
Note about my current improvements/descriptions of what I could comprehend so far: Another interesting thing I find about discovering I can read an estimated 94.5% of words in MoDu: that means when I described initially that listening felt like "I can figure out the scene I'm listening to, and on relistening can figure out some details like dialogue and key actions" that is the understanding level of someone who can read most of the words! Who has sucky listening skills! And that my current description of "I can figure out what scene I'm listening to, and some details like time/action/position/expression descriptions are easy to understand quickly" is the improvement caused by listening to things I could already read to around 95% (capable of reading extensively for pleasure). So all this 'improvement' in comprehending the meaning of stuff is purely, right now, from me being able to comprehend in listening better, the words I already knew from reading. So my conclusion of lessons learned is that if the issue is that you know a lot of words from reading and from TL subtitles, but struggle with listening skills: LISTEN to stuff you can read. Listen without reading is the personal takeaway from this, as I did listen a lot WHILE reading and it did not help as much.
So the materials I'm using to listen: Peppa Pig - understand everything if I'm looking at the screen and the main idea/most details if I'm not looking (I haven't heard any brand new words to me). Lazy Chinese - understand everything if I'm looking at the screen, main idea and some details if I'm not looking (when Lazy Chinese uses lists of vocabulary on the screen and doesn't actually explain their meaning in sentences they say, I can miss a lot if I'm not looking, like when she says regional food/drinks and just shows pictures). I recommend both of those resources if you're doing comprehensible input study too, and need to learn new words those videos contain - the visuals in those videos make learning new words doable from visual context. I would recommend those, then after you run out of content for learners, move to re-watch cdramas in chinese only that you've watched before in a language you know. Peppa Pig and Lazy Chinese only make up a small percentage of my listening, because they bore me and I struggle to follow some Lazy Chinese videos if I'm only listening.
Majority of my listening: MoDu by priest audiobook. I listen to chapters, then relisten 3-6 times to each 5 chapter section, since I'm listening while doing other things and want to hear enough to figure out the plot/scenes/key details before moving on. I apparently can read 94.5% of the words in MoDu, so I should be able (in theory) to keep listening and re-listening until I understand 94.5% of the words when listening only. After that, I can test if I can pick up brand new words from audiobooks only, and how much I need to already understand in an audiobook to use it to learn new words.
Other things I've listened to:
I'm watching Go Ahead on youtube with Chinese audio and Chinese subtitles - subtitles are fairly easy to read, first new word I hit was a teenagers 'period' starting. The speaking in this show is quite natural (versus dubbed with clear pronunciation), and reminds me of Qi Hun Hikaru No Go (which I also may use to practice since with that drama I can turn the Chinese subs off and rely entirely on hearing and visuals but no text). I figured since it's about everyday life, and I have watched it before and liked it, it would be a good show to relax and practice with. I am going to try to watch more episodes of Go Ahead ignoring the chinese subtitles, only looking at them to figure out a word, but it's an effort to make myself not look at the subs. I think Word of Honor in Chinese would be a much bigger challenge, both with chinese subs and me absolutely drowning without. Word of Honor could be a good test of understanding? But I just wanted to relax right now. I also wanted to check out the new gl drama Lies Never Lie (Xin Ling Mi Wu) but I expect it will take more effort to follow the plot and I'll rely on chinese subtitles, which won't really count as testing my listening skills/working on them. I listened to 5 hours of HP1 in chinese, which I've listened to the first few chapters of, before in Fall 2024. It is way easier to listen to now, which I'm attributing to the many hours listening to mostly MoDu which is a higher number of unique vocabulary/complexity.
I listened to a few chapters of SaYe, noticed it's easier to pick out individual phrases but still a challenge to place which scene I'm listening to/the main things happening. I know the reading level of SaYe is easier than MoDu, but I have not read SaYe before except chapter 1-2, so I am relying purely on listening to the audiobook to figure out the plot (versus MoDu where I have read it before in english and know roughly where the story should be as I listen). I've listened to chapter 1 of SVSSS and was surprised I could kind of figure out what was going on - figure out the scene main idea I'm listening to, so maybe understanding of the audiobook would improve with more listening to that genre of book (like MoDu did). It was still very hard to grasp most details, I could just pick out isolated phrases and words and guess what's going on from that.
Next update will probably be around 50 hours.