Beginner to Intermediate
Tell me what you think on how I do listening comprehension.
I listen alot to telenovelas because they are dialog rich, compared to a movie. They are constantly talking, using alot of words, rather than action.
I find videos with spanish english subtitles. telemundo.com is a good source
Now comes the interesting part. I feel that the spanish subtitles are actually becomes more important than listening at this transition point. I can listen to the dialog, and even if I understand the individual words, I have no idea what they actually mean.
I am familiar with the phrases where a couple or three words have a specific meaning, not from looking at the individual words. But this goes beyond that -- chunking of words and phrases. There may be one or two sentences conveying ideas, and telenovelas are great at this. "You are very mistaken if you think that I am going to pay any attention to your crazy ideas." This whole sentence conveys an complete idea.
Listening to this sentence will not help me very much, and I remember how frustrating it was to try to do "listening comprehension." I pulled out the individual words or even a phrase, but the sentence was lost on me.
Listening comprehension is all about understanding dialog, complete ideas.
So, I listen to the dialog with the spanish subtitles turned on, to get the general drift of the conversation (perhaps 2 or 3 minutes). I may then do it again with english subtitles to understand what they are talking about, if the dialog is "crazy".
I then focus only on the spanish subtitles to get a translation, and finally listen to the audio with the subtitles to match the audio with the words.
I often find that I have misheard the word. Anyway, I have found myself gradually understanding new dialog as words and phrases are repeated in other parts of the dialog.
Anyway, any ideas, suggestions, criticisms.
9 Answers
Good work but like others have said turn off the English sub titles. Also break out the dictionary and note pad when in question. Because the effort is greater you will retain more. Watch the news on Spanish channels also this has helped me alot in explaining and describing things when talking. I remember when I was paying attention to the words and loosing alot. Now I am focusing more on the grammer and pick out things like "... de el mundo" mis-spoken. Another good source is Spanish preachers no TV because you can follow along with a bible topic and they always reference chapter verse that you can read in English. Then listen to their preaching on the topic. This is actually easier to follow than other media. But beware of many, Titus 1.10-11 and 1Tim 6.5 and more, their goal is to gain more to the millions they already have. But their good for learning Spanish.
I often put the captions on so I can read along in Spanish while I listen. I absorb spelling and grammar that way, too.
In fact, sometimes I put the Spanish subtitles on when I'm simply watching TV in English. Plenty of TV shows have second program captions, and with DVDs, it's near universal.
What I DON'T do is put the ENGLISH captions on. That just makes me translate in my head rather than comprehend.
When I was more beginner, I would often find it helpful to watch a TV show I was already familiar with, but this time in Spanish. When we first moved to Spain, it was really frustrating watching TV in Spanish, even shows meant for the younger set, like Patito Feo (though I was good with Pocoyo, haha), but then I discovered that Spaniards LOVE Family Guy and the Simpsons and at least one channel runs a bunch in a row all afternoon. Well, I've seen pretty much all of them already, and watching them again in Spanish was really helpful. I didn't remember all the details, but took away some of the guesswork and I knew where it was generally going, so I could just let it in. The series Game of Thrones aired in Spain after it had aired in the U.S. and I re-watched the season in Spanish with Spanish captions. By the time we moved home, I was pretty good with TV.
Now, I can watch something I've never seen with not too much difficulty, and if I have any difficulty, turning on the captions IN SPANISH gets me to near 99% comprehension.
I wish Netflix had more options for foreign movie captions, because movies are a great way to increase comprehension. But often a foreign movie simply has English subtitles built-in to the video picture, which means you can't turn them off or change the language. I find myself simply reading along because I can't help myself. If it's there, I'll read it. And then I often tune out the audio no matter how hard I try to focus on it. I have even taken the drastic step of covering up the bottom of the screen, but then that's almost as distracting to me. Sometimes you can find the same movie in the Latino section without subtitles, but then many of those lack caption options. So I would prefer if the subtitles were a separate track and you could load whatever language you wanted. Then I could read and listen in Spanish, which mostly occupies my brain enough to stop it from doing that internal translation thing that slows me down so very much.
Oh, the other thing I do is listen to morning radio programs. That's really difficult because without any facial cues, it's difficult to discern context. Especially when it's the type of radio show that is meant to be frenetic and crazy, like Anda Ya, which airs in Spain in the mornings. I have a program on my iPhone that allows you to tune into foreign radio stations and record them. I get the first two hours of Anda Ya each morning while I'm still sleeping (six hours behind) and listen to it on my drive into work. It trades in a lot of prank calls, which are meant to confuse, and shock with non sequiturs and surprise developments you don't see coming. Punchlines and weird stories with no prior context, plus a lot of insults and base language and obnoxious innuendo so I can get seriously lost and frustrated. But then they'll air a commercial and with a voice actor who enunciates and isn't laughing through it or generally acting like an a-hole, I'm all over your sale at El Corte Inglés, or the new promotion at Burger King. Plus, they actually do air music, so I can decompress from the enormous effort and get ready for the next prank call whose premise is not immediately obvious.
Believe it or not , I started really understanding when I turned off the subtitles. Make your brain do the work in Spanish. You want to go back and forth but please do not translate to your native language , think in Spanish. Very hard at first but then Wow!!!
Have you considered listening to podcasts? Notes in Spanish has some good ones. Notes in Spanish podcasts are free, and they have four different levels: Inspired Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced, and Notes in Spanish Gold. They are also available on iTunes.
Netflix is now adding spanish audio and captions to some of its content. I discovered that all of the Disney cartoons have them.
As a beginner currently working toward an intermediate level, I have been listening to latin music. Celia Cruz, Mecano, Vicente Fernandez, Chavela Vargas, Paulina Rubio, and many other artists have helped me think (in Spanish) and added melodies that have also helped increase my vocabulary. There are many different genres of music to choice from. This also has developed my knowledge of popular culture throughout the Spanish-Speaking world. Thank you for your added wisdom. I will also try those suggestions.
I think you are doing excellent.....just keep doing it everyday
Of couse, I have listened to many podcasts, but they do not have the spanish subtitles unless you purchase the pdf) which is the point of my new method -- read and listen in streaming. Besides, they are in European spanish, and I prefer the Latin American idiom
I used to use only the Spanish subtitles, but I tried an experiment using english on my first view of the video.. I found that it helped me enormously -- I listened to the spanish audio and tried to match it to the subtitle. I then had a good idea of what was going on and THEN used the Spanish subtitles.
I found this was very helpful in understanding the spanish. Eventually I have been able to take on more of the spanish without using the english.
Anyway, try it and see what happens.
