This paper is the report of a listening comprehension experiment conducted among 108 students from 14 countries. The author has, based himself on cognitive psychology, designed the experiment, analyzed the results and come to the following conclusions: 1) words with similar initials and finals, but with the same tones are difficult to distinguish; 2) words that are new to the student are the major obstacle in listening comprehension; 3) one of the key points in listening training is to enhance the student’s ability to distinguish and analyze differences in similar items; and 4) it is essential to develop the instinctive feel of the Chinese language. This author is, based on on cognitive psychology, designed the experiment, analyzed the results and come to the following conclusions: 1) words with similar initials and finals , but with the same tones are difficult to distinguish; 2) words that are new to the student are the major obstacle in listening comprehension; 3) one of the key points in listening training is to enhance the student’s ability to distinguish and analyze differences in similar items; and 4) it is essential to develop the instinctive feel of the Chinese language.