Help! HSK Advanced Listening

[Horse]

Got the HSK Advanced coming up in a couple of months and while everything else seems to be on track my listening is still a weak spot (as it has been in all my other exams). Anyone got any good tips or good materials that can boost the old ear skills? Would be much appreciated.

p.s any advice, tips or recommendations for all other areas of the exam also gratefully received.

Cheers

Horse

[renzhe]

I'm not qualified to talk about the HSK advanced, but it has been my experience that the only way to improve listening skills is to do a lot of listening, preferably at a level that's just out of your reach.

As for materials, at your level, any material designed for native speakers should be fine, so there should be plenty. You could have a look at some of the Chinese-language radio stations and broadcasts, you could have a look at Chinese television (for example, our Grand First Episode Project), and there are probably plenty of conversation/listening opportunities in Qingdao. I found the "advanced" and "media" lessons from Chinesepod to be quite a challenge, for example. My listening is also lagging (I don't live in China), but I've found that watching TV and listening (and understanding) daily has helped immensely.

There are probably HSK-specific tips that could improve your score (I've heard that reading the questions ahead of time helps a lot), but developing general listening skills through lots of concentrated listening will probably help the most.

[roddy]

If you search 'excellent listening course' you'll find a set I recommended waaaaaaaaaaaaay back, which are still available and still relevant to the HSK. However they get a lot duller at the higher ends, which wasn't really reflected when I wrote about them, as I hadn't got that far. But they're still useful.

Besides that and any specific HSK listening material you can find, I'd stick to authentic language sources, but stay away from anything with any clarity or structure, as the HSK advanced listening has little of either. Try the phone-ins on Radio Free Asia's Mandarin broadcasts (search RFA), or just random scanning of FM or online radio. Try taking notes. And brush up your maths skills, for those 'What is Hebei's population squared, divided by the date that was mentioned in the passing five minutes ago, plus the number of pandas you heard mentioned." questions. Might be worth looking at Chinesepod's advanced stuff, but last time I looked they were pitched significantly below HSK advanced level.

[renzhe]

There is a "Media" level at Chinesepod, which is more advanced than "advanced", and which is basically two native speakers discussing current events at full speed. This is still geared towards learners, so it may have more structure than the HSK tests, but it could be a good resource for someone with a high language level, but who needs to improve the listening component.

[imron]

It still doesn't compare to what you apparently get on HSK, which is poorly recorded interviews from TV and radio thick with local accent and going at a mile a minute.

[Horse]

Cheers for the info. Yeah, i have to say that Chinesepod Advanced is somewhere near low-end HSK intermediate, nice and slow and clear, definitely useful though. The Media i havent really got into yet but will have a better look.

The HSK advanced listening is definitely infuriating, there's some old guy they use with this yokel accent you can hardly make out. Sounds like the sort of bloke you get sitting on park benchs rambling to himself

[ajax]

Back when I was first preparing for the advanced HSK, I spent about an hour every morning watching the CCTV news channel and trying to learn every unknown word (using Pleco flashcards with repetition spacing). Boring stuff, especially when Hu Jintao is on a world tour, but it really helped to find stuff without subtitles. I still tend to read subtitles instead of listening. Amazing how quickly my listening skills improved, though -- or at least news listening skills.

Also good to listen to podcasts every day while walking around. Chinese street noise is good for simulating the less than ideal conditions of the HSK.

What happened to the revised HSK? Haven't heard anything about it lately. At any rate, I found the listening section on that to be a lot easier.

[Scoobyqueen]

What about this resource http://collections.uiowa.edu/chinese/0_advanced/advanced_unit16.html#

extract

据民生银行产品经理郭建宁介绍，这只理财产品募集的资金初期有80%投资于国际市场表现优异的荷银新兴市场债券基金保本票据*，20%投资于无风险资产。其后，根据市场情况，资金将在两种资产间动态配置

They class this as advanced.

Would this fall in the advanced category. A lot of people have recommended the site here. I am at intermediate level but the site as mentioned also has advanced texts being read.

Edited August 29, 2008 at 01:53 PM by Scoobyqueen

[imron]

That seems like a great resource, however it might not be appropriate for HSK advanced preparation. Although the content could be classed as advanced, the speaker is reading very clearly (although some minor pronunciation mistakes e.g. 银行 as yíngháng) and at quite an even pace. Compare that to the speed used for something like radio broadcasts http://www.globalfm.cn, which is supposedly where they get interviews recordings from. Even though a normal radio broadcast might not contain such advanced content (e.g. it might just be talking about everyday simple things, rather than say international finance), it can be far more difficult to understand if you can't listen fast enough.

[wushijiao]

I think listening to news podcasts everyday is really useful. Also, watching those CCTV interview or investigative shows would be good, as that's where they get a lot of their material.