This study measured the difference of the effect on students' learning of Chinese as a second language with the use of Chinese television commercials with both audio and video and Chinese commercials with audio only. Subjects were students (n=201) at Brigham Young University (Utah). Approximately 60 hours of commercial television videos, most in Mandarin Chinese, were recorded from Taiwan television. A pilot test of 5 commercials was conducted. Ten students were given pretests and posttests for each of the video and audio lessons during a 12-lesson course. There was a significant difference in student comprehension between video and audio sessions. Results of a statistical analysis suggest that although both methods produce gains, the use of video is shown be more effective in developing student comprehension than the use of audio alone. The audio-only approach did not offer as many cues to meaning and students were dependent on the instructor to explain things not seen. It is suggested that the potential impacts of teacher bias and training and test design be investigated in more detail as well as the potential impact of television commercial impact versus television programming impact. (Contains 86 references.) (NAV)