Ideas on super-charging listening ability?

This isn't going to be much help, probably, but: listen more. You'll get there, I promise -- my listening lagged behind for a long time, but it caught up (and surpassed) my speaking eventually. Also, bone up on your vocabulary -- the fewer words you're guessing on the more comprehensible the entire sentence is.

chitty... lol...you may have guessed I'm old enough to remember Meatloaf...however, never owned a record....strictly a blues fan...but none of the Kings are on my MP3...only CPod downloads...no lie.

I can read whole passages of Chinese and understand every word, but I rarely understand a sentence. The same thing when I'm listening, each word is clear and familiar, but the sentence is word-salad. Why is that?

I find that I learn sounds better if I do lessons (or, in the case of memorizing lyrics, listening to songs) while driving. They just stick better. So I put the lessons on CDs and listen to them to and from work, in the car.

julesong, I like the idea. I learned to speak the same way...blabbing out Pimsleur in the car....looking like a raving lunatic talking to myself (although it's more common now with hands free phones). Problem with Pimsleur is that it prompts in English, then you speak in Chinese. Maybe I need a reverse Pimsleur that asks questions in Chinese and forces me to answer correctly in Chinese. I'll start with the CPod on CD. Thanks!!

I downloaded the ChinesePod pinyin chart and found it to be really helpful. I set it to say all four tones and then select across a consonant series (e.g., ba, bai, bao, ban...) and also down a vowel series (e.g., a, ba, ma, fa...). I was having trouble hearing things in the dialogs, but a couple of days of doing the above made a dramatic improvement. Also, I have started renting Chinese movies and try and see how many words I can pick out (I would appreciate any recommendations on good Chinese movies). I'm really new to Chinese, so you may be well beyond this approach being helpful.

dhohulin, I haven't checked out the pronunciation chart, but will do later today. My favorite Chinese Movies are : 1) Eat, Drink, Man, Woman; 2) Shanghai Triad;

dhohulin, Here's an old conversation with lots of movie goodness: Favorite Chinese Movies

If you don't want to read the entire thread, skip down to Laodai's very comprehensive list with details.

billm... re: Pimsleur, I once had the same thought as you (going in reverse by listening to an English program for native Mandarin speakers). In theory, seems like it would be a great way to test comprehension. If you get around to trying it, I'd be curious to know how it works.

Johnb Thanks. Good point on the vocab. The lessons here use a more natural colloquial vocab than most textbooks, for example, NPCR. I've been going off into never-never land on simple things like ken3ding4 and jing1chang2. I'll start to work the vocab.

Pinyin chart? Where is there a pinyin chart??

pinyin chart: http://chinesepod.com/pronunciation

Hi billm - I don't know if this will help you, but I've found that in learning Chinese in the beginning stages, I somehow got accustomed to hearing a sentence as a "long blurb of words I won't understand." Thus, I subconsciously developed the habit of tuning it out and not paying full attention. One day, much to my surprise, I realized if I forced myself to really focus, I was able to understand quite a few individual words and guess the meaning based on what I recognized. The moral of the story, at least for me, is to consciously focus in on every single sentence to grasp its meaning, rather than letting my subconscious habit of tuning it out and feeling frustrated at not understanding take over. Oh! And if you don't mind sappy dramas, check out Youtube. There are several Chinese/Taiwanese dramas that make for excellent (and free!) listening practice. Good luck!

billm Here's my suggestion (if you have an MP3): create a playlist of just the dialogues; play it continuously whenever you can i.e. every waking moment. The music of Mandarin will work itself into your noggin.

no nothing in me noggin Yes continuously listening to dialogues when you can is a good way. After a while youll be just listening to someone speaking to you...rather than it being someone speaking 'Chinese'.

mandomikey, If someone has a sample lesson I'll check it out. brooke, azerdocmom: Thanks. I've been doing both....I brainwash myself on the plane....I think I need to do the driving thing mentioned earlier.

If you need a good laugh Shaolin Soccer is great comic relief.

more MP3 Tips... Delete all the music on your MP3. Only have Chinesepod. That way you cant get lazy and listen to Meatloaf.

billm, calkins, Thanks much for the movies... I have added a bunch to my queue.