Chinese listening challenge, February 2026

Hacking Chinese Challenges is about building language skills through daily practice and friendly competition. By focusing on one specific area of learning over a limited period, you will be able to learn more!

I regard listening as the most important skill when learning Chinese. It has more positive carry-over to the other skills than anything else, and improving listening ability also makes it much easier to socialise in Chinese. A poll I did earlier also strongly suggested that listening is the hardest part of learning Chinese.

This is your chance to ramp up your Chinese listening practice!

Chinese listening challenge, February 10-28, 2026

Tune in to the Hacking Chinese Podcast to learn more about Hacking Chinese Challenges (episode #31):

Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and many other platforms!

Join by following these steps:

1. Sign-up (free)
2. View current and upcoming challenges on the front page
3. Find the listening challenge and click “Enrol!”
   
4. Set a reasonable goal (see below)
   
5. Report your progress on your computer or mobile device
6. Check the graph to see if you’re on track to reach your goal
7. Check the leaderboard to see how you compare to others
8. Share progress, tips and resources with fellow students

Please note: The challenge starts on the 10th, so even if you can join before then, you won’t be able to report progress until the challenge starts!

The Fluent Listener: Navigating Spoken Mandarin Like a Fish in Water

Want to understand Mandarin naturally, at any level? This course guides you in building an immersive listening environment and equips you with essential listening strategies. Strengthen your listening ability to unlock conversations, connect with others, and dive into Chinese society and culture, making you feel 如鱼得水 (rúyúdéshuǐ), like a fish in water!

Here’s a video where I introduce the course:

This course is an excellent resource for anyone looking to improve their listening skills in Mandarin. It provides a wealth of information and inspiration about what to listen to, how to listen, and how to listen more.

The course also includes detailed listening recommendations tailored to all levels, access to an exclusive learner community, a listening tracker, and much more. Learn more about the course here:  The Fluent Listener: Navigating Spoken Mandarin Like a Fish in Water

 

This month’s Chinese listening challenge: What should you listen to?

Start by looking here: The 10 best free Chinese listening resources for beginner, intermediate and advanced learners

The 10 best free Chinese listening resources for beginner, intermediate and advanced learners

Here’s the index from that article (links go to my introduction of each resource):

• What to listen to, how to listen and how much you should listen
• A few practical tips for improving listening ability in Chinese
• Course: The Fluent Listener: Navigating Mandarin Like a Fish in Water
• Beginner
  1. Slow and Clear Chinese
  2. Mandarin Click
  3. Bumpy Chinese / Comprehensible Chinese
  4. Learning Chinese through Stories
  5. Melnyks Chinese
  6. Mandarin Bean
  7. Chinese Tools – 40 lessons
  8. Du Chinese
  9. Popup Chinese
  10. Mandarin sound and tone references
• Intermediate
  1. Learning Chinese through Stories (听故事说中文)
  2. TeaTime Chinese (茶歇中文)
  3. Maomi Chinese
  4. Speak Chinese with Da Peng
  5. ChinesePod
  6. Dashu Mandarin Podcast
  7. Convo Chinese
  8. Learn Taiwanese Mandarin
  9. TV and movies
  10. Music and songs
• Advanced
  1. Video-sharing platforms
  2. Science in Chinese with 李永乐老师
  3. 锵锵三人行/圆桌派
  4. Audiobooks
  5. Podcasts for native speakers
  6. Sports and game streaming
  7. Good old radio
  8. TV and movies
  9. Lectures and academic content
  10. News and current affairs
• What’s new?

If this is not enough, there are currently 136 links tagged with “listening” over at Hacking Chinese Resources! You should also check out my up-to-date list of recommended podcasts for all levels: The best podcasts for learning Chinese

The best podcasts for learning Chinese in 2025

And this one is about the best YouTube channels: The best YouTube channels for learning Chinese in

The best YouTube channels for learning Chinese in 2025

If you’re a beginner, you might want to check this out as well: Beginner Chinese listening practice: What to listen to and how

Beginner Chinese listening practice: What to listen to and how

How and why you should listen

I’ve written a lot about improving your listening ability in Chinese. I have also written a few articles about listening more, which is a challenge worth taking seriously. It’s perfectly possible to fit a lot of listening into an already fairly busy life, but you have to use the right method and spend some time finding solutions that work:

• How to find more time to practise Chinese listening
• The simple trick I used to double the amount of Chinese I listen to
• Make sure listening practice isn’t a practical problem
• Why is listening in Chinese so hard?

How to find more time to practise Chinese listening

If you want to dig deep into listening comprehension, check out my series Beyond tīng bu dǒng: A guide to Chinese listening comprehension, currently with four parts:

1. Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 1: A guide to Chinese listening comprehension
2. Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 2: From sound to meaning in Mandarin
3. Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 3: Using what you already know to aid listening comprehension in Chinese
4. Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 4: Learning to process spoken Mandarin quickly and effortlessly
5. Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 5: Becoming a better listener as a student of Chinese

Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 1: A guide to Chinese listening comprehension

Your challenge: Set a high but reachable goal

It’s hard to know what a reasonable goal is for you, but I think anyone interested in joining should aim for at least 10 hours of listening. That’s about 20 minutes per day.

If this isn’t your first challenge or you spend a significant amount of your time learning Chinese, double or triple that, so twenty or thirty hours. That’s still “only” about an hour per day, which isn’t that much if you spread it out.

How high you want to go is up to you, but an hour per day on average is doable for most people. In previous listening challenges, some participants have clocked over 100 hours in one month! Can you beat that? Post your goal in the comments below and let us know how you plan to achieve it!

100 hours of Chinese listening in 3 weeks: What I learnt and how to apply it

Preliminary challenge schedule for 2026

Here is a preliminary list of challenges for 2026, but I’m always open to ideas. Based on user participation, surveys, as well as my own opinion, reading and listening challenges, are particularly helpful for a large number of people, followed by those focusing on vocabulary. These will recur more often throughout the year, with other, more specific challenges in between.

Challenges last for roughly three weeks. They always start on the 10th of each month and last until the end of that month. Three weeks is enough to get a significant amount of studying, but not so long that people lose focus. This also leaves ten days of breathing space between challenges.

1. January: Writing
2. February: Listening
3. March: Speaking
4. April: Reading
5. May: Vocabulary
6. June: Listening
   
7. July: Writing
8. August: Reading
9. September: Speaking
10. October: Listening
11. November: Vocabulary
12. December: Reading