
One of the biggest challenges while learning Spanish as a beginner is to be able to distinguish words when native people speak in their normal tempo. One can feel as if the syllables of the new language are being rushed at unreasonably fast rates. And you are right! You are not alone. There is actually a rhythmic difference between languages that may account for this perception. According to a study done by a group of researchers from the Université de Lyon, Spanish is claimed to be the second fastest language in the world after Japanese. This is because the syllables are expressed in greater ammounts per second, other reason is that native Spanish speakers do not articulate the words while talking in a normal speed, and in addition to this, the ammount of information that is provided play a big role too.
Many commited students (specially Spaans met Erika students) have been taking actions to develop their listening-comprehension skills while they listen to native spanish speakers. However, here are some tips for the ones that actually want to start understanding Spanish.
Types of listening: active vs. passive listening.
Doing your daily activities (i.e. cooking, cleaning) while listening to Spanish language on the background (songs, series or news programs) is passive listening and a positive action to take. Doing this will eventually make you familiar with the rythim and sounds of the language; however, how aware are you of the meanings they convey? In passive listening one is not actually listening to the meaning. Would this prepare you to have an actual conversation?
An action to take is Active listening. Here, you are actually looking for meaning while you listen to Spanish, here are some tips to practice active listening:
When you are listening and watching films, videos and music, get or download the scripts or the lyrics of what you will watch/listen. By doing this you are able to follow the words and find actual meaning. You can also slow the speed of the videos or films, it will listen funny, but it does the trick. Later you can play it in the normal speed.
While you are conversing, prepare some answers to be ready to engage in conversations. Remember, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, we learn by making mistakes.
3. Predict the content, if you are going to watch a video, (for example about recipes: “cooking paella”) try to predict the vocabulary they will use, (i.e. rice, seafood, cook, spoons etc.) then watch and listen the video and look at the words you don’t know. Listen closely and check if your predicted words where mentioned in the video.
You can dowload scripts of movies in the following pages:
subtitulos.es
SóloSubtítulos
aRGENTeaM
Asia-Team
SubDivX
OpenSubtitles.org
I hope this text has been useful for you, all the best.
Saludos.
Erika
References:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/...
https://www.yukei.net/2009/05/busca...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7e...
(University of Colorado Mesa, [last retreived July 2017])