I've been struggling with something that, from other comments on here, I know is hardly unique. I've been studying Spanish on and off for about the last 8 years. I first started studying it in college where I took several classes and studied abroad for a semester, and then started studying again a couple years ago after not doing much for a few years. It's mostly been self-study: watching TV/movies, reading books/newspapers, having conversations with native speakers, and looking up unknown works and phrases in the dictionary, but I can tell my abilities have improved a lot in the last couple years.
At this point, I feel like I have a good command of the language overall. I can read major newspapers and novels easily, express myself in just about any situation (including with Spanish-speaking colleagues at work), understand academic speeches easily, and understand almost everything in TV shows and movies (more on this later). And for context, I recently had to take ACTFL tests for some Master's programs I'm applying to and scored Superior on both the listening and speaking sections (didn't have to take the others).
But I've noticed that sometimes I can't understand the simplest things. This usually happens when someone first starts speaking, which I've attributed to my brain needing to "switch" to Spanish. But sometimes it persists throughout the conversation, particularly if the person speaks with a lot of regional slang, a heavy regional accent, or is elderly and speaks with a very soft voice. It also happens a lot in cabs/ Ubers, which I'm sure is related to not being able to see the driver's mouth and the driver speaking in the opposite direction from me.
The same thing sometimes happens with movies and TV shows. Usually I can watch them without Spanish subtitles and understand everything. But sometimes, especially if the characters are whispering or there are several people talking at the same time, I just won't understand something. It's hardly ever a problem, but sometimes I've found myself missing a critical detail of the plot this way.
For what it's worth, I think this is something I experience to some extent in English. Even in English I sometimes have a hard time understanding the words to songs (and I can't understand a word of most rap songs), and I've noticed that when I'm talking to friends in loud bars, I'll sometimes have to ask people to repeat themselves because I can't hear/understand them the first time. But the problem isn't so bad that it affects my communication abilities in any way at all in English.
I know the most obvious solution to this is to keep listening to more and more material in Spanish. And while I definitely plan to do this, I was wondering if anyone has found other methods to improve this type of listening more quickly. Has anyone had success working with a Spanish teacher on exercises to address this? Or is it just one of those situations where that last bit of improvement is going to be the hardest and most time-consuming?
[link] [comments]
from howaimbawai| Languagelearning https://ift.tt/2ThE6vX
via Learn Online English Speaking
Comments
Post a Comment