Talk on the phone in chinese

adam_p_lax
January 25, 2014, 05:43 PM posted in General Discussion

i've been studying chinese for 3+ years and i lived in china for 3 years. At this point I feel like im in upper intermediat pushing advance level in chinese. I feel like my listening skills are pretty good.

 

except when talking on the phone. Something about talking on the phone with someone in chinese throws off my listening. I find myself missing words and meaning at points. Im not sure why.

 

i don't know if others have this experience as well.

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mark
January 25, 2014, 10:58 PM

I think phone calls are harder than face-to-face communication.  By nature, there is only sound and no other clues of body language, etc. that you might pick up.  Also, the sound fidelity of phone calls is not 100%.  Anyway, I have the same feeling.

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Right-Wingnut

That is true. Yet ... we listen to CPod podcasts every day without visual clues. I wonder if we could actually see Jenny/Dilu speak, would we find the understanding somewhat easier.

(Oh that's right, they tried video lessons. What happened to them again?)

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adam_p_lax

well with the podcasts you can always listen to them over again and the chinese hosts usually speak in a more deliberate, somewhat more simplified way to help people follow along when listening.