Em Casalena
Last updated:
27 Practical Resources for Chinese Listening Practice at Any HSK Level
When you’re studying Chinese, learning to listen can be a bumpy road.
If you struggle with listening in Mandarin, you’re certainly not alone. But you’re also not out of luck!
This handful of stellar Chinese listening practice resources can completely change your Mandarin listening abilities.
Each resource has been tagged with a difficulty level and the corresponding HSK levels so you can easily find the right resource for you!
Contents
- Coffee Break Chinese Podcast
- FluentU
- Learn Chinese—Easy Situational Mandarin Chinese Audio Lessons
- Slow Chinese Podcast
- Learn Mandarin Now Podcast
- Learn Chinese Insights Podcast
- Learning Chinese Through Stories Podcast
- Top Chinese Songs 2021 YouTube Playlist
- “42 Essential Sentence Patterns—Intermediate Chinese Listening Practice”
- “35 Minutes of Chinese Listening Comprehension for Beginners”
- TiffwithMi
- Easy Languages Mandarin Chinese
- Slow Chinese Listening & Reading Practice
- Learn HSK Vocabulary While You Sleep
- “Living Language Mandarin Chinese”
- “Pimsleur Chinese”
- “Learn Mandarin Chinese with Paul Noble”
- “Chinese Flash Cards Kit Volume 1”
- “Learn in Your Car: Mandarin Chinese – Level 1”
- “Chinese for Kids”
- Chinese-Tools.com
- HelloChinese
- Nemo
- Melnyks Chinese
- 50Languages
- Viki
- AsianCrush
- How Can I Use These Resources to Improve My Chinese Listening Skills?
- How to Nail the HSK with Chinese Listening Practice
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
Coffee Break Chinese Podcast
Difficulty Level: Beginner to Intermediate (HSK 1-4)
Available: Website, iOS, Android and Spotify
Designed for learners, this 40-episode podcast is ideal for beginner and intermediate Chinese speakers. Each episode is hosted by Mark, the founder of Coffee Break Languages, and Crystal, a native Chinese speaker. During the episodes, Crystal answers Mark’s questions about Chinese and corrects his pronunciation.
The episodes are 15-20 minutes long because they’re structured more like lessons than regular podcast talk shows. But if you want to improve your listening and learn how the language works at the same time, Coffee Break Chinese is a great place to hang out.
Each episode is free and makes for perfect on-the-go learning material, but Coffee Break goes even further and offers courses based on their episodes on Coffee Break Academy. These courses feature video and audio lessons, a lesson guide and transcript and a bonus audio episode.
FluentU
Difficulty Level: Beginner to Advanced (HSK 1-6)
Available: Website, iOS and Android
FluentU is a website and app focused on providing authentic, immersive video content. You can choose from hundreds of engaging videos on various topics such as culture, politics, science, tech, movies and music. These videos were made by natives, for natives, so you know you will be learning Chinese the way it’s actually used.
All the videos have expert-vetted, interactive subtitles. When you hover or click on any word, you can see its definition, audio pronunciation, example sentences and clips from other videos where the word is used. These definitions are contextual, which means you’re getting the definition of the word as it’s used in the video.
Save words from any video as flashcards—or search for a word to see its flashcard and videos where it appears. Then, make flashcard decks for the specific level of the HSK and target your practice with personalized quizzes.
You can toggle Chinese, simplified Chinese, pinyin and English in the subtitles or any combination of them. Alternatively, you can turn them off completely to focus on your listening skills.
Learn Chinese—Easy Situational Mandarin Chinese Audio Lessons
Difficulty Level: Beginner to Intermediate (HSK 1-5)
Available: Website, iOS, Android and Spotify
Listening skills are so important if you want to be able to hold a conversation with a native speaker. This podcast from Melnyks Chinese is a perfect tool to reach this goal. Each podcast covers situational dialogues that you may have to use at some point if you travel abroad. The speaker pronounces each word slowly and clearly, and leaves time for listeners to repeat.
Members can access PDF transcripts of each episode, plus worksheets to help further improve comprehension skills. These podcasts are suitable for almost all levels of learners, though advanced learners may find some of the dialogues too easy to understand.
For a little culture mixed in with your Chinese listening practice, try out the episodes “Visiting Hot Springs” and “Expressing Condolences.”
The first 100 lessons are free, but you’ll have to sign up for an account to access the rest.
Slow Chinese Podcast
Difficulty Level: Beginner to Intermediate (HSK 1-4)
Available: Apple Podcasts, Podbean iOS and Android
If listening to native Chinese speakers talk at their natural speed stresses you out, you’ll love the Slow Chinese Podcast. While the podcast is made by native speakers, they intentionally talk at a slower rate so Chinese learners can keep up. An authentic podcast that’s not only designed for learners but also doesn’t contain any English? That’s something you don’t see every day!
The lessons are two to three minutes long on average, making this podcast perfect for shadowing or transcribing material. It was last updated in 2018, but with over 200 episodes, you won’t be getting bored anytime soon.
Learn Mandarin Now Podcast
Difficulty Level: Beginner (HSK 1-3)
Available: Podbean iOS and Android
Learn Mandarin Now is another great podcast for Chinese listening practice, which ran until 2017. This Podbean podcast features a ton of Chinese language content, including how-to guides, Chinese language lessons and even success stories from other Mandarin learners.
This is a strong resource for beginners because it features a lot of inspiring listening content to get newbies motivated when the going gets rough.
I recommend listening to “How to talk about success in Mandarin Chinese,” a thought-provoking episode that explores what it means to be successful and how to talk about these concepts in Chinese. If you’re learning Chinese for business or just want to learn technology-related vocab, “Fixing technical problems in Mandarin Chinese” is a good listen.
Learn Chinese Insights Podcast
Difficulty Level: Beginner (HSK 1)
Available: Website, iOS and Android
This entry is a little different from the previous podcasts I’ve mentioned.
There isn’t a ton of spoken Chinese in every episode. Instead, the purpose of Learn Chinese Insights is to interview people who have learned Mandarin as a second language and explore the approaches they took to improve their language skills throughout their own journey.
Much of what you’ll hear from interviewees involves perfecting listening skills. Sometimes, a little advice from the ones who’ve made it can go a long way!
This podcast resource last updated in 2016 but there are plenty of episodes available for Chinese audio practice. I suggest listening to the Alex Trup and Xiao Fei interview episodes.
Learning Chinese Through Stories Podcast
Difficulty Level: Beginner to Advanced (HSK 1-6)
Available: Website, YouTube and Spotify
Learning Chinese Through Stories is another resource with exclusively Chinese audio to help you hone in on your listening skills.
Each episode is led by two narrators who read and discuss one short story or song. They speak at a natural pace, which may be slightly intimidating for complete beginners, but the content or discussion is never more challenging than the given level. Their discussions are also very conversational.
Speaking of levels, the episodes are also divided into nine levels, from Low Novice to High Advanced, to accommodate all learners across the proficiency spectrum.
While you’re following along with the story, I highly recommend that you add words to your personal flashcard set when you listen through the website. To access vocabulary annotations, full transcripts and other handy extras from each episode, feel free to support the podcast on Patreon.
Top Chinese Songs 2021 YouTube Playlist
Difficulty Level: Intermediate to Advanced (HSK 4-6)
Available: YouTube
If you need some help finding Mandarin music, here are nearly 60 music videos waiting for you to explore. These songs aren’t great learning tools, they’re also relevant and popular. The advantage of this is that you’ll be learning with and listening to music that’s up-to-date and that you can talk about with Chinese friends or language partners.
It’s also important to note that since this is a playlist of recent music videos, it’s subject to change and is regularly updated. But the good news about this is that you’re consistently being exposed to new Chinese jams!
Plus, many Chinese pop songs are slow, making them perfect shadowing material.
“42 Essential Sentence Patterns—Intermediate Chinese Listening Practice”
Difficulty Level: Intermediate (HSK 3-4)
Available: YouTube
It’s crucial to learn sentence patterns when studying Chinese, especially as a novice learner. Once you have sentence patterns down, you’ll have some grammatical context to work from when learning vocabulary words throughout the rest of your language learning journey.
This video from Mandarin Corner is an excellent crash course in 42 essential sentence patterns in Chinese. The comments section is loaded with happy learners who found this video to be quite a lifesaver.
It would be wise to watch this video as a beginner or intermediate learner, especially if you’re learning these sentence patterns in an already established course but are struggling to keep up when you hear them in real life.
“35 Minutes of Chinese Listening Comprehension for Beginners”
Difficulty Level: Intermediate (HSK 3-4)
Available: YouTube
Visual learners, you’re in luck. This half-hour video guide from ChineseClass101 is an incredible condensed lesson on listening comprehension in Chinese.
While the video is marketed toward Chinese beginners, many learners in the comments section have noted that the dialogues are notably more difficult than advertised. I recommend checking this video out if you’re an upper-novice to upper-intermediate learner.
TiffwithMi
Difficulty Level: Intermediate to Advanced (HSK 4-6)
Available: YouTube
These Singaporean YouTubers are extremely entertaining, addicting to watch and subtitle their videos in Chinese and English. Their channel is full of challenges, pranks, vlogs, travel videos and much more. Needless to say, it’ll take a while before you get bored with their content.
If you want to learn some useful Chinese vocabulary and phrases, their vlogs are packed with unintentional learning material. And the fact that there are Chinese and English subs make it even easier to recognize grammar patterns and learn new words through meaningful context.
Their videos are about 10-15 minutes long, so they aren’t ideal for shadowing, but if you want to chill in bed and binge-watch YouTube while feeling productive and improving your Chinese, this channel will suit your fancy!
It’s also worth noting that they haven’t uploaded any new vlogs in a while (though there’s still plenty of content to work with on their channel).
Easy Languages Mandarin Chinese
Difficulty Level: Intermediate to Advanced (HSK 4-6)
Available: YouTube
The YouTube channel Easy Languages is known for turning unscripted interviews with native speakers into valuable language lessons. The channel has playlists for many languages, from Hungarian to Vietnamese, but their Chinese playlist is among the largest.
Each video features a new topic, such as “What do you like about Taiwan?”, “Politics and elections in Taiwan,” “What does freedom mean to you?” and much more. Plus, each video is subtitled in English, Chinese characters and pinyin, so you’re bound to pick up some new vocab.
The videos are recorded in Taiwan, so if you want to study Taiwanese Mandarin and the Taiwanese accent, in particular, these videos are the perfect study materials. However, the difference between Standard Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin isn’t huge, so Standard Mandarin learners will find them just as beneficial.
Slow Chinese Listening & Reading Practice
Difficulty Level: Beginner to Intermediate (HSK 2-5)
Available: YouTube
This playlist by Everyday Chinese is a compilation of stories told in Mandarin. Not only are they good for practicing your listening skills, but they’re also very entertaining and give deep insights into Chinese culture.
Many of the videos are labeled “Beginner” or “Intermediate/Advanced,” so you know exactly which videos to focus on. Some are even labeled with their corresponding HSK level!
Similar to Easy Languages Mandarin, each video in this playlist is accompanied by English, Chinese characters and Pinyin subtitles.
Although these stories are great for listening to at any time of the day, I recommend you listen to each story twice in one day: once in the morning, and then once more right around bedtime so you can learn Chinese in your sleep. This brings me to the next point!
Learn HSK Vocabulary While You Sleep
Difficulty Level: Beginner to Intermediate (HSK 1-4)
Available: YouTube
If you haven’t tried to learn while you sleep, it’s about time you did.
Despite sleep learning being a controversial subject with research indicating varying levels of effectivity, lots of educators seem to be on board with it. This clip is just one of the many videos on YouTube teaching common Chinese vocabulary words in your sleep.
On the other hand, one study demonstrates that language learning while sleeping only improved information recall, meaning that new information couldn’t be retained but previously learned vocab and structures were reinforced.
Only you can be the judge of whether it works on not, so it doesn’t hurt to give it a shot. As long as you treat sleep learning as a review session rather than a new listening lesson, you might even see some benefits!
“Living Language Mandarin Chinese”
Difficulty Level: Beginner to advanced (HSK 1-4)
Available: Website, CDs and coursebook
“Living Language Mandarin Chinese” isn’t just audio—it’s actually a multimedia package that includes coursebooks, a Chinese character guide, online learning and, of course, audio.
This package is the complete edition of “Living Language Mandarin Chinese,” so it offers three coursebooks for beginners through advanced students. In total, there are 46 lessons accompanied with cultural notes, exercises and more.
Online learning activities include flashcards, games and quizzes to reinforce your learning.
And if you’re looking for audio, this program offers plenty of it. In fact, you’ll receive nine CDs, which feature audio exercises, vocabulary, dialogue and more. You can listen to them while you’re using the printed material, or use them separately for hands-free learning.
If you don’t have a CD player anymore, don’t worry! Downloadable audio is also available with your purchase.
“Pimsleur Chinese”
Difficulty Level: Beginner (HSK 1)
Available: CDs
If you want to learn Chinese with an audio course, “Pimsleur Chinese” is a great choice.
This conversational course focuses exclusively on audio. The audio CD language course offers eight hours of audio-only instruction.
This course is designed for beginners and features 16 lessons that introduce basic vocabulary, structure and conversation. You’ll learn useful vocabulary related to greetings, numbers, shopping, asking for directions and more.
The course places particular emphasis on pronunciation and comprehension, which are great foundational skills you can build upon down the road.
“Learn Mandarin Chinese with Paul Noble”
Difficulty Level: Beginner (HSK 1)
Available: CDs, audiobook
Looking for a more relaxed approach to learning Chinese? “Learn Mandarin Chinese with Paul Noble” could be your perfect fit.
This course may have a laid-back vibe, but it doesn’t skimp on Chinese learning content. In fact, it offers over 12 hours of audio content intended to help complete beginners learn Chinese skills they can use in real life.
“Learn Mandarin Chinese with Paul Noble” is available via CD or you can search for it on Audible, making it a convenient choice if you have specific audio preferences.
If you like “Learn Mandarin Chinese with Paul Noble” and want to continue your study, or if you’re already at an intermediate level, you might try “Next Steps in Mandarin Chinese with Paul Noble,” which is a follow-up course.
“Chinese Flash Cards Kit Volume 1”
Difficulty Level: Beginner (HSK 1-2)
Available: Flashcards
Why would anyone use a flashcard set if they’re looking to learn Chinese with audio? Well, this isn’t an ordinary flashcard set!
In addition to 349 flashcards and a 32-page study booklet, this set provides audio of over 2,000 words and phrases. The audio comes on a CD with native-speaker pronunciations, so you can listen from a CD player or rip it to have it handy on your favorite device.
This kit was developed specifically with an eye on HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test) and AP test prep, so it can be a particularly useful tool for students considering taking these tests. However, the kit is at an HSK 1 or HSK 2 level, meaning it’s best for beginning students.
“Learn in Your Car: Mandarin Chinese – Level 1”
Difficulty Level: Beginner (HSK 1-2)
Available: CDs and downloadable lessons
Make the most of your commute! “Learn in Your Car: Mandarin Chinese” is designed for hands-free learning wherever you are.
This program offers 28 downloadable lessons that teach the basics related to popular themes, such as transportation, money, hotels, directions, numbers and so much more. Lessons range in length from about two minutes to nearly 20, so you’ll have plenty of material to help you learn Chinese while you’re on the go.
You can download each lesson individually, buy the whole album or search for it using an Amazon Music Unlimited subscription. Want to try it out a different way? You can also find “Learn in Your Car: Mandarin Chinese – Level 1” on Spotify.
If you like the series and want to continue, or if you’re already at a more advanced level, you can also check out additional works in the series, “Learn in Your Car: Mandarin Chinese – Level 2” and “Learn in Your Car: Mandarin Chinese – Level 3.”
“Chinese for Kids”
Difficulty Level: Beginners (HSK 1-2)
Available: Books
Whether you’re a kid or a kid at heart, “Chinese for Kids” can be a great tool to study beginning Chinese.
“Chinese for Kids” is intended for early beginners between the ages of three and eight. However, the same learning principles that help kids can also help adult learners.
This set includes 10 reader books, and each book highlights 10 vocabulary words, teaching you common words on themes like colors, animals, clothing, family and more. Texts feature both pinyin and simplified Chinese. English translations are available at the back so you won’t be so tempted to lean on English too heavily.
Plus, all this comes with online audio by a native speaker! You can listen online or download the audio for easy listening on the go.
Chinese-Tools.com
Difficulty Level: Beginner to intermediate (HSK 1-3)
Available: Website
Want to take a beginning Chinese course without spending a dime? Head over to Chinese-Tools.com.
Chinese-Tools.com offers 40 online lessons. The lessons teach pronunciation, common characters, vocabulary, grammar and basic Chinese skills.
Each lesson offers audio examples to reinforce what you’ve learned. And because the audios are MP3s, you can choose to listen online or download them to enjoy the audio even when you don’t have internet access.
Chinese-Tools.com is designed to be used for just 10 minutes each day, making it a great choice for Chinese students with limited time available to devote to studying.
HelloChinese
Difficulty Level: Beginner to advanced (HSK 1-4)
HelloChinese is a super popular Chinese learning app for beginning students.
And it’s popular for a reason! It offers tons of great features for students learning Chinese, including speech recognition to practice your pronunciation, handwriting to help you learn characters, videos to help you practice real-life conversations, games for a fun learning break and more.
But let’s get to the audio! The app weaves audio by native speakers throughout the activities. Plus, new podcast lessons are added weekly to provide you with additional audio learning content.
Once you have the full course downloaded, you can access materials without internet access, making it a perfect tool to use on a plane or wherever you can’t access Wi-Fi.
Also, the main course is free! But if you want access to games, you’ll need to purchase a premium subscription.
Nemo
Difficulty Level: Beginner (HSK 1)
Available: Website, iOS and Android
Nemo is a Chinese phrasebook that features audio by native speakers.
Online, you can use Nemo to study 100 common words and phrases. Each entry is accompanied by Chinese text, pinyin text, English translation and audio.
While the website is great, the app is where Nemo truly shines. The app features downloaded audio, so you can listen offline, whether you’re on a plane or just don’t have access to Wi-Fi. The app also has a speech study that invites you to record yourself speaking to compare your pronunciation to the teacher’s.
And if you’re using the iOS app, you’re in luck! It even offers a hands-free mode, enabling you to use the app when you’re cooking, exercising or driving.
Melnyks Chinese
Difficulty Level: Beginner (HSK 1)
Melnyks Chinese is a downloadable audio course you can put on your computer or your favorite device.
The lessons are designed for absolute beginners, so you’ll receive plenty of useful information, like common vocabulary, basic grammar, dialogues, language structures and cultural information. Lessons focus on realistic situations to provide practical vocabulary and communication skills you can use in real life.
You can listen to the audio lessons wherever it’s convenient for you, whether that’s the car, the gym or on public transportation. However, if you have time to do a little reading, Melnyks Chinese also offers PDF transcripts and review worksheets that accompany audio lessons.
50Languages
Difficulty Level: Beginner (HSK 1)
Available: Website, iOS and Android
Want to build your Chinese vocabulary quickly? 50Languages is a great tool that can help beginning learners build a strong vocabulary foundation to build on down the road.
50Languages provides 100 lessons to teach basic vocabulary with the goal of giving students the ability to form basic sentences. You’ll learn words related to common themes, such as numbers, people, family members, school, feelings, animals and so much more.
One of the highlights of 50Languages is that it offers downloadable audio files that you can use on any device. This makes it easy to listen to audio every day and go back and re-listen to previous lessons for additional reinforcement.
Viki
Difficulty Level: Intermediate to Advanced (HSK 4-6)
Available: Website, TV and streaming apps, iOS and Android
One of the most popular resources for streaming Asian movies, dramas and game shows, Viki is the perfect place to find entertaining Chinese media for improving your listening skills.
You can even choose from Mainland Chinese films and Taiwanese films. Plus, each movie and drama allows you to add or remove subtitles in multiple languages, so whether you want to follow along with the Chinese subs or none at all, you can do so.
AsianCrush
Difficulty Level: Intermediate to Advanced (HSK 4-6)
Available: Website, iOS and Android
Who doesn’t love dramas and movies? Watching entertaining content is a fantastic way to work on your listening skills, especially if the content in question is heavy in dialogue.
AsianCrush is a free streaming website for movies and shows complete with Chinese, Japanese and Korean content. There are quite a few genres available on this site, so you’re sure to find something that suits your taste.
Luckily, AsianCrush usually provides subtitles in both the native language and English for their videos. For beginners, I suggest putting on English subtitles to help you with listening comprehension. For intermediate and advanced learners, Chinese subtitles would be preferable to help you associate spoken words with their written counterparts.
Some videos don’t have subtitles, which would be useful for advanced learners who really need to hone in on their listening skills overall.
How Can I Use These Resources to Improve My Chinese Listening Skills?
- Use these resources daily. Remember, practice makes perfect! But it’s important to do more than just recite Chinese words daily. Utilizing these resources—even just one or two of them—on a daily basis with your study routine can help you attain your larger Chinese-learning goals.
- Incorporate them into your regular Chinese-learning plan or routine. The beauty of these resources is that they can accompany an already established learning schedule. Whether you’re taking a college course or trying to learn Mandarin online with a self-made plan, these resources can complement what you already have in place.
If you’re still searching for a primary resource, many of these programs can work as your main learning materials, which you can base your study routine on, too.
- Quality over quantity. Fifteen resources for Chinese listening practice is a lot—I get that. You don’t have to use all of them! First, I recommend trying as many of these resources as you can, to see which ones resonate with your learning style. Then narrow your personal list down to two or three resources and use them daily. Once you find the right resources for you, they can have lasting value throughout your language learning journey.
- Practice the shadowing technique. The shadowing technique involves listening to audio materials in Chinese and then repeating after the native speaker almost instantly. Not only does it improve your listening comprehension skills, but it also improves your accent, pronunciation and speaking skills.
While shadowing might be a bit overwhelming for beginner Chinese learners, it’s the perfect challenge for intermediate and advanced speakers. Plus, you get to use your favorite Chinese audio sources as practice materials! From movies and TV shows to entertaining vloggers, anything you can listen to, you can shadow.
- Use Chinese subtitles instead of English. Something else you should be doing if you’re an intermediate Chinese learner is becoming less and less reliant on English subtitles. There are several Chinese resources out there that not only allow you to completely remove the English subtitles but also allow you to replace them with Chinese subtitles. (FluentU has that feature!)
The advantage of using Chinese subtitles is that it becomes easier to learn new vocabulary and recognize grammar patterns in your audio. Plus, if you still don’t feel 100% confident in your listening skills, following along with Chinese subtitles gives you the reassurance that you haven’t missed anything important.
- Transcribe everything you hear. Similar to shadowing, “transcribing” refers to writing what you hear almost instantly after hearing it. Instead of repeating after the native speaker, try writing on a sheet of paper what you think they said. The best resources to use for this exercise are songs and podcast episodes that include transcriptions of the show. The first step is to listen to the song or podcast and write down what you hear.
After you’ve finished, look up the actual lyrics online or refer to the podcast transcription to compare your transcribing to what was actually said. Correct yourself where you were wrong, then listen to the audio again while reading the right transcription to correct your hearing.
How to Nail the HSK with Chinese Listening Practice
Imagine watching Chinese-language media without English or hanzi subtitles.
Now imagine communicating effectively with native speakers.
Those are just a couple of reasons why you have to practice Chinese listening, a vital language skill to master if you want to make your way up to fluency.
It’s also necessary if you plan on taking the HSK or the 汉语水平考试 (hàn yǔ shuǐ píng kǎo shì). The HSK has 6 levels that measure your reading, writing and listening skills.
In terms of listening skills, this is what you’ll need to pass each level:
HSK 1
- Recognize familiar everyday expressions and basic phrases
- Can answer personal questions about age, nationality, where you live, what you have, etc.
HSK 2
- Understand expressions related to basic topics like family, shopping, jobs, etc.
- Communicate in simple exchanges
HSK 3
- Answer questions and draw comparisons
- Understand expressions and ideas related to work, school, travel
HSK 4
- Understand main ideas on concrete and abstract subjects
- Understand native speech with little to no difficulty
HSK 5
- Understand the news and other settings where formal language is used
HSK 6
- Understand all spoken Chinese and effectively express yourself
However, these testing standards will be changing in the near future.
For starters, new levels (7-9) will be introduced to test advanced fluency. These levels will be going through their first trial in December 2021 and possibly be available to the public by March 2022.
Levels 1-6 are currently undergoing some changes as well to increase demands for proficiency and update language so that it’s applicable to the modern world. The new model will also measure all related language skills. On top of reading, writing, listening and speaking, it will also test handwriting and translation skills.
Even if you have no plans to take the HSK, it’s good to know what listening skills are expected now and what will be expected in the future to give you a sense of your own proficiency level. Many books, apps and websites use HSK levels to gauge difficulty, so knowing your levels will help you find your way among learning and listening resources.
Here’s what you need to know about the New HSK listening portion:
New HSK 1
- Slow speaking speed (around 100 characters/min)
- Understand simple dialogues using basic words and simple sentences
- Understand basic information with the help of pictures
New HSK 2
- Relatively slow speaking speed (around 140 characters/min)
- Understand simple sentences and some compound sentences
- Recognize basic information with the help of gestures and facial expressions
New HSK 3
- Relatively normal speaking speed (around 180 characters/min)
- Understand long simple sentences and simple compound sentences
- Observe details with the help of voices, intonation, changes in speaking speed, etc.
New HSK 4
- Understand both informal and formal dialogues and speeches
- Normal speaking speed with natural and authentic intonation (180-200 characters/min)
- Understand inflections like humor and sarcasm, cultural knowledge, etc.
- Recall accurate information in audios, regardless of unnecessary pauses and redundancies in speech
New HSK 5
- Understand both informal and formal dialogues and speeches
- Normal speaking speed with natural and authentic intonation (200-220 characters/min)
- Understand cultural implications
- Recall details, regardless of unnecessary pauses or redundancies in speech
New HSK 6
- Understand both informal and formal dialogues and speeches
- Normal speaking speed with natural accent and non-exaggerated intonation (220-240 characters/min)
- Understand others despite speech impediments or differences in proficiency level
- Recognize speakers’ intentions and related cultural factors
New HSK 7
- Normal to slightly fast speaking speed
- Understand facts and perspectives accurately and any related social and cultural implications, regardless of environmental disruptions
New HSK 8
- Normal to slightly fast speaking speed
- Summarize audios
- Understand details and know their logical order, regardless of environmental disruptions
New HSK 9
- Slightly fast speaking speed
- Analyze and make observations and speculations
- Understand social and cultural implications correctly
With so many resources online, the road to Chinese fluency won’t seem so grueling anymore. Once you improve your skills through Chinese listening practice, you’ll be able to sit back and enjoy the ride!
Most recently updated by Sheena Dizon on 10/14/2021.
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
