I have read quite a few Mandarin study books over the years and have a strong enough vocabulary to enable to construct sentences/questions to get me around China ; that’s all right assuming no one speaks to me because my listening comprehension is very weak.
Furthermore my wife (who is Chinese) watches Chinese TV from morning to night but I understand only about 5 per cent and now I have decided to make a concerted effort to improve my listening/understanding skills so I can understand her TV shows.
I do not have to be fluent but just get the gist of what is being said. At the moment I can catch most of the words but I do not their meaning.
I have started following The Growing Up with Chinese series but I find it quite difficult to understand as the conversations seem to be very fast. Also the presenter does not always explain the key words. Happy Chinese series is clearer but there is no script.
By the way I m English married to a Chinese woman living in Indonesia so we speak both Indonesian and English,
Please can you give some advice – my objective is to be understand the programmes on Phoenix, CCTV 4, Star TV’s.
Thank you