How long does it take to begin to understand a conversation?
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15 Answers
He estudiado por dos años y aún lo es dificile para mi comprender conversación. Voy a ir a Peru en noviembre por dos meses y espero que ayudar.
I've studied for 2 years and still it's hard to understand conversation for me. I'm going to Peru in November for 2 months and I hope that helps......
This website is great!
5 months, 4 days, 17 hours, 12 minutes and 32 seconds.
You will not be able to really understand the gist of a conversation unless you have been listening for about the same amount of time or longer. I learned this the hard way in school. I spent three years in advanced French. One day the teacher brought some French Canadian students to class so that we could have conversations. I could not understand a thing they said. All that work for nothing.
I decided I would not repeat that mistake with Spanish, so I started "listening" from the beginning. What a difference! My listening skills are still behind reading, writing and speaking, but at least I have a fighting chance this time. I usually wind up saying más despacio por favor with most of my conversations, but at least I can communicate.
I have this one friend, he travels on business all the time. He says, Everyone has learned English where I go, but they don't understand me. I just laugh. He only speaks one language. Plus he's a hot head and I didn't feel like fighting, so I let it go. Truth is, they don't understand him, because he speaks english in a way that is fluid, normal, and natural to an english speaker. They learned in a classroom. They didn't teach alot about real world english. Same in spanish. As long as everyone around you speaks a little slow and in a standard format, you'll understand just fine. But...that's not real. Some people speak slowly...we all around here speak like we have an Uzi in our mouths. People from different place use all kinds of crazy combinations (like: me llevo bien) that aren't taught in school. So...long answer short? If everyone around you speaks standard school taught spanish, very quickly. If they speak the way they normally speak, then it will take a while. Help yourself by listenting to news, music, shows, etc. When you pass someone speaking spanish, slow down and listen to them. It will take a bit, but you'll get there.
This is kind of like the question about the owl licking the tootsie roll pop. The world may never know. I have been studying hard for about 3 weeks and I can pick out a few phrases from movies. I figure in a couple of months I will be able to understand enough to find a bathroom in Mexico.
I did think about watching English movies en Español, or animated films, but lip reading's quite important to me in my native English (especially if there are other sounds to contend with, so I can pick out the sounds I'm trying to listen to by which ones match the lip movements) which is why I've been picking genuine Spanish movies so it's not dubbed. But then I did think about the advantages of watching something like Shrek, which I've seen with the kids -so- many times I practically know it word for word, which would remove the step of having to look up much of the Spanish I don't understand! Maybe will give it a try 
Truth is, they don't understand him, because he speaks english in a way that is fluid, normal, and natural to an english speaker. They learned in a classroom. They didn't teach alot about real world english. Same in spanish. As long as everyone around you speaks a little slow and in a standard format, you'll understand just fine. But...that's not real. Some people speak slowly...we all around here speak like we have an Uzi in our mouths.
Yes and no. Most people teaching language to foreigners tend to "slow down" and pay attention to careful pronunciation (and avoid "slang" expressions). The result is somewhat mixed. With regard to speed, eventually you will need to deal with the language as it is normally spoken (some people may slow down to accommodate you but many will not). Basically, the same is true of enunciation and the use of slang. People with some experience of speaking with "foreigners" may make certain adjustments to their normal speech in order to help you but many will not. Mostly this depends on the experience/sophistication of the person that you are speaking with. If they recognize that you are a foreigner (as they probably will), they may try to accommodate you (by speaking more slowly and/or being more careful in their pronunciation).
In "real life" you cannot rely on any of these sorts of concessions. The person with whom you are speaking may be completely unaware that he is using slang/non-standard (less than clear/local) pronunciation but he's the person with whom you have to deal.
I read where someone said they learnt Spanish became fluent went to Spain and was completely lost as the Spanish had obviously used a different text book !
That wasn't a racist joke! It was a statement! I have a very good friend, vietnamese, and his name is Haung. Se sale "Hung". You can only begin to imagine the jokes we get out of that, all of which are lost on him, because his first language isn't english. I could have written it Hau Launge is a Chinese, but obviously in that form, it would have been lost. I didn't mean to be racist, it's just a pun. Sorry if anyone took it that way! 
How Long is a chinese. This is a statement, not a question. If you say this to someone, they will go on for hours trying to figure it out, not realizing it's a statement, not a question.
How long is a piece of string?
Depends on if they're using words you're familiar with or not. 
It's really cool if they happen to use words and you understand most of them or all of them, and you immediately understand what's being talked about.
Someone responded to my question that I should watch some movies in Español. As it turns out, it´s quite easy to do.
Most DVD´s have language options.
I tried to listen to Cinderella en español and I did better than I thought I could with regards to understanding the conversation.
Try this out.
You may not be able to converse yet, but you can probably pick up the gist of what´s going on.
I'm trying Spanish movies, with switchable English/Spanish subtitles. My reading/writinng/speaking is coming along leaps and bounds (but still a -v-e-r-y- long way to go) as these are easy to drill, but listening, that's going to require some hard brain rewiring. I watch film with English subtitles so I know what's going on (and I'm not trying to figure out two things at the same time), entonces con los subtítulos en Español (para connectar los sonidos con las palabras en Español) y entonces intentaré remover los subtítulos por completo. Pero hablan tan rápidamente! No es muy facil.
I have been casually self teaching myself for about 6 months. Using some textbooks, learn spanish cds and listening to Radio stations in Spanish at work. I can now recognise lots of words, some short phrases here and there, but generally it is very difficult to understand or follow a conversation. Whereas I find it much easier to read spanish, where it's largely my lack of vocabulary that lets me down.
So for me, at my rate of learning, I'm hoping I'll be able to semi understand conversations maybe by the 12 month mark. But who knows.
