Great video! It kinda soothes me down to hear that it is a common challenge amongst learners. Though I know over 1500 words in Chinese it still doesn't help me to understand natives in real time. For me the biggest reason is due to the homophones everything sounds the same and my ear is not trained enough on processing short Chinese sounds quick enough. It is a slow process and the 听力 only improves slowly. So the only tip is as you said: continues exposure. It can only get better and not worse if we only stay consistent. We should not give up!
Thank you very much for your video ☺. I begin to have enough vocabulary to speak a bit with chinese natives, but i only understand if they give shorts answers. If they say too much things/too long answers or too complex answers, i cant understand yet. I think it s a matter of vocabulary and learning pronunciation of this vocabulary.