We examined the effects of note taking on listening comprehension of Japanese sentences in an advanced class of Chinese students learning Japanese as a second language. We conducted an experiment to examine how working memory capacity is related to the performance of listening comprehension when note taking. We divided the participants into two groups: one group took notes during the listening comprehension; the other group did not. The main results were as follows: (1) participants with low working-memory capacity demonstrated better performance when note taking; (2) participants with high working-memory capacity showed better performance when they were not taking notes. Because the rehearsal effect occurs with visualized language information in note taking, it leaves a stronger memory trace than when not taking notes; this is particularly true for learners with low working-memory capacity. The results suggest that Chinese students learning Japanese with a high working-memory capacity can appropriately distribute their attention to processing and maintaining auditory language information by taking or not taking notes.