How effective have you found comprehensible input?

For those unfamiliar, comprehensible input is input which is slightly beyond your current level. It is content for which you understand maybe ~98% of what is said, and can easily engage with the subject matter, but which does nevertheless use some vocabulary or even some grammar which you do not know. For early learners, material usually has to be specially formulated in order to be formulated, but for advanced learners, comprehensible input could be as simple as watching a TV show or listening to a radio broadcast.

I have seen some people report having gone from absolute zero to a pretty high level of listening comprehension using literally nothing but comprehensible input. I am wondering if any of you have found comprehensible input useful in increasing your grasp of the language at higher levels. Do you feel like you passively acquire a lot of vocabulary over time, without having studied it?

Very interested to hear from the commentariat.

I learned about 2000+ characters and thousands of words without any memorizing, just by 

1. Annotating only unfamiliar characters with bopomofo.

2. Making a floating menu of several reference tools including Google Translate.

3. Reading online instead of YouTube, Facebook, games, or other electronic wastes of time. This amounted to at least an hour a day.

I've now gone back to flashcard games because some bujian families of characters defy my memory no matter how many times I see them.

This is all I have been doing. I read on Lingq, I started listening on TCB, now moved to YT podcasts and health and news channels. 

Did only about 15 hours of tutoring and literally only a single chapter in a HSK textbook. 

It is definitely effective. Is it the most time efficient way? Hard to say. Maybe not. But this is no factor for me. 

I’d aargue that focusing one’s learning on extensive reading and listening with material that is at that 98% comprehensibility benchmark is the only real way to break out of the intermediate doldrums. 
 

Many language learners get stuck on using highly deliberate, taxing learning strategies, especially with regard to vocabulary learning. I believe people get hooked on that because they feel it works early in their learning career. But it only sort of “works”. What’s actually happening is that they are learning the highest frequency vocabulary, and unless one is burying their head in the and, it’s hard not to be exposed to that stuff. The rote flash card stuff helps a bit at that stage, but it’s the easy, frequent exposure that matters most.

With any language, once one gets into learning mid-frequency vocab, the utility of flash carding and other deliberate, rote vocab learning strategies seems to fall off a cliff - but I’d argue it was never particularly effective. There’s just too much mid and low frequency vocab to learn that way. The only way to learn the mid-frequency vocab is through reading, and to a lesser extent listening, to as much comprehensible (I.e. you know 98% of the words) material as possible. Using rote strategies is actually counterproductive as one is constantly interrupting the reading process to focus on vocabulary work, and that constant switching back and forth results in poor vocab retention and less volume of and enjoyment from reading. 
 

The trick is in finding appropriately graded material. I’m aware of no mid-frequency graded readers in Chinese. This leaves one with tools like Chinese Text Analyser and Antwordprofiler for screening native material that’s at the right level, or alternatively, getting reading recommendations from teachers or native speaker acquaintances who know one’s reading ability and interests. The latter has only worked well for me with my wife and 1-2 teachers I’ve had over the years. 

I have been thinking about this question on and off for a few days.  It seems to me that after, say, about 15, we generally expand our vocabulary in our own language in natural ways - through work, reading, listening, etc.  Not by studying.  So I don't understand why the process or dynamics should be different in another language.  It's just that when it's another language than the one used where we live, we don't have enough exposure to the language. Right?  So the remedy should be to increase exposure.  Read more, watch more TV/movies, listen more.  Etc.  And do so mindfully and with curiosity.

On 3/5/2025 at 8:50 PM, Moshen said:

So I don't understand why the process or dynamics should be different in another language.

I agree. I might sound like a douche saying this, but I think learning a foreign language (at least the comprehension part) is pretty easy compared to other things. All you need is exposure and time. It is one of few things that pretty much all humans are good at.

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All you need is exposure and time. It is one of few things that pretty much all humans are good at.

I am not sure I agree with that.  I observed my father's attempts to learn another language after age 50 (not Chinese).  His biggest stumbling blocks were 1)He didn't have a good listening ear (he wasn't musical, which is similar in my opinion) and 2)He was reluctant to say anything that he wasn't 100% sure was correct.  I think there are certain mindsets you need for successful language learning as an adult, and possibly some aptitudes that are not equally distributed in the population.

I wouldn't be so quick to throw rote learning in the trash, but I agree that it is not strictly speaking necessary, and depending on your goals not always the best way to go about it.

I think if you want to very rapidly increase the size of your passive vocabulary, then SRS-based repetition is going to be the most efficient way of doing that. But at the same time, I also think that it won't give you a deep understanding of the vocabulary you are learning---things like what contexts the vocabulary typically shows up in, how each word differs from its synonyms, how the words are typically used, etc.

So I think that, strictly in terms of growing your vocabulary, rote memorization is most effective from 零基础 through late intermediate (which is when native materials become approachable). After that, I think the utility of primarily SRS vs. pure input vs. a mix of the two becomes debatable. I'm not sure what side of that debate I fall on, to be honest.

I'll have a better idea of what side of that debate I fall on in two years, I think. Because I'm studying Japanese for the next two years and do not have time to do anything other than passively consuming input when it comes to Chinese.

I think motivation is the greatest factor determining success in learning a foreign language. I think comprehensible input is important, but the precondition is that you are motivated to do it. If you have motivation to learn by rote with Anki, but no motivation for comprehensible input, then you will learn better with Anki.

But regardless, I think people inevitably use a combination of methods to reach a more than basic level. Comprehensible input misses the other half of the equation which is output. If you want to become proficient, at some point you will need to practice output. Otherwise it is like trying to learn to play the piano just by listening to music.

On 3/6/2025 at 1:59 AM, Moshen said:

I think there are certain mindsets you need for successful language learning as an adult

yes you are correct, I was talking just about the aptitudes. It seems that pretty much everybody can learn a language if they are disciplined and patient. It's like driving, I am always shocked that pretty much everybody is able to eventually learn. There are many things out there than even if I you were extremely motivated and disciplined most people would fail. But I was thinking of younger adults, you might be right that age is a bit factor as well.

I would say that I'm getting to a good place with listening comprehension; I can understand the majority of native content well enough to enjoy it. But the journey has involved years of frustrating work that has felt pointless at times. I asked myself, "Is this even working? Or am I just wasting time?" For me, it's not so much about vocabulary acquisition (I've already acquired most of my vocabulary from books). More so, it's a process of getting accustomed to the language, until common phrases are extremely familiar to me and I don't have to mentally work so hard to understand them. Some phrases, like "对我来说“ or "在这个过程当中” are used so frequently that they've already been burned into my head. Many words are getting more familiar to me all the time. It feels like a process of making Chinese feel less "new" to me. The more boring and routine it is, the better I get.

Another interesting dynamic is that although I'm a lot better at listening than I used to be, I don't *feel* any better about my listening abilities. I'm always up against my limit, challenged by the stuff I still don't understand. It's only when I look back in time that I realize I've improved. I never feel myself improving.