Does it help to improve English as a Chinese if spending years abroad as a grown-up? My experience told me the answer would be yes, but not in Listening comprehension! I met lots of frustrations when I just arrived Australia. I could not even catch a word from conversations between local people, in spite I got band 7 in IELTS listening. I watched TV every day and tried to avoid to contact with my countrymen, and did not help my listening to everyday English. Reading, writing and speaking improved significantly. Now I am able to write down my idea without much thinking, and able to think in English. I am not anxious to start a conversation with native speakers any more. As for reading, I can read English much faster, as fast as my first language when I was a high school student. Listening is the hardest as a grown-up, maybe because my ear has tuned to Chinese sounds for decades, not for English sounds. On the contrary, my son mastered Listening in a year. He could catch all the words he knew. He acted as my interpreter, to translate English from local accent to the accent that I could understand!