hi all,

I am approaching knowing 1,000 words soon I hope, and my reading skills are improving. However, my listening and speaking skills are not. I'm struggling with the speed that people speak the most. Any tips from more advanced learners?
Cheers
Xiao mai

Listen, listen and watch. It takes time for the brain to adopt to the speed and sounds of natural spoken Chinese. There are so many sources on the net where you can listen: radio, you tube, films, Chinese pods etc. You do not really have to understand all that is spoken, simply just let the brain get used to take in the sounds, patterns etc. I use Chinesepod.com (pods), fluentu.com( films),Chinese TV as well as my daily exposure(live in China). From understanding nothing I now can understand a lot. Even if I do not know every word in every sentence i do get enough to understand what it is about. Chinese TV have for me been a great source since they usually are subtitles and seeing the characters at the same time as they speak it makes it much easier to pick it all up.

What Mandarinboy2 is saying, is definitely right. But I believe, also reading a lot will help. Besides recognizing the sounds, you also have to understand sentence structures and language patterns. Of course, reading Tang poems will not help much (just kidding), but have you looked at the Chinese Breeze series: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chinese-Breeze-Graded-Reader-Series/dp/B00127AJG0
These are nice little books, easy vocabulary, more challenging on grammar and sentence structure. But the sentence structure is really everyday language. They come also with a CD with the whole text spoken at normal speed as well as slow speed. And the stories are interesting, not so boring like textbooks. They have in total now 16 books, more to come in the future.
You can also find the vocabulary in Skritter under textbooks.

I'm finding passive listening helpful, by adding in Chinese music to my commute playlists. Often I don't have the concentration for a ChinesePod lesson after work, but will happily listen to music. I find the repetition of most songs means I identify more words over time.

You can often find lyrics online too, to help identify that word you can't quite hear :)

Thanks guys...plenty of good suggestions there.