How To Improve Your Listening Skills
Wednesday June 18, 2008
From the forum: "I was wondering if people could share what has helped them to improve their listening comprehension. I find that mine fluctuates and I get frustrated sometimes. I suppose it's not just the comprehension, but the ability to hear the actual words, even if I'm not familiar with them. Sometimes I understand most of the words on my novela, but other times it's like I'm starting all over again. So, if anyone has some ideas, please share them." Share in comments here, or join the forum discussion.
Comments
Not knowing where you live, I can only offer what I tell my students–eavesdrop shamelessly at Walmart! Or wherever there is a great confluence of Spanish speakers in your area. Television AND short wave radio are a great help also.
One good thing about many of the shortwave broadcasts is that newscasters and announces usually enunciate carefully and speak fairly slowly. It isn’t too hard to find broadcasts from Radio Havana, and there are a fair number of religious shortwave broadcasters as well.
I believe that I made the greatest strides in comprehension after taking conversation classes where proper pronunciation was stressed.
My pronunciation was not as good as I thought it was and I know now that I needed to be corrected until I got it right. Following one particularly rigorous such class, where the instructor did not cut us any slack, my comprehension improved immediately and dramatically.
Interestingly enough, I’ve shared this with other students of Spanish and almost all have said, “Oh, I don’t need that. My pronunciation is fine”.
Watching Spanish tv and picking a favorite novela to watch REALLY helps! Once you find a favorite program, you will listen more carefully! If you don’t get any Spanish-language channels, you can watch novelas online from YouTube (which is another great resource!)
Visit anywhere where Spanish speakers might be present and eavesdrop on their conversations – just like another person suggested! Most good size cities have a Tienda Morelos, Mexican restaurant, car repair shops, etc!
Attend church services in Spanish! Many Catholic churches offer a Spanish Mass. Even if you aren’t Catholic it’s a good way to improve listening skills! It’s nice because the entire service is the same every week, so you can really practice and learn what is being said, but, the homily and readings from the Bible change each week, so you get some variation and practice that way too!
Music…listen to as much music in Spanish as possible! Not sure where to start? Go to AOL RADIO online (it’s free!) and listen to their Spanish language channels! You will soon learn the names of a few artists that you like! Look up the lyrics to your favorite songs to see how well you are doing at comprehension.
Get a Spanish speaking pen pal or phone pal and make some Spanish speaking friends. SEEK THEM OUT! The only way you will really get better and more comfortable speaking and listening is by doing it!!
Read in Spanish. Books, plays, magazines, newspapers…whatever! I can’t stress this enough! The more you read, the more your vocabulary will expand, and you will soon be understanding more and more of conversations because you will recognize the words!