spanish listening

does anyone else think spanish listening is very hard? i understand everything else apart from listening and i realy want an A* can anyone help???!!

Reply 1

sexysax

I didn't do it, but if you are struggling why not spend extra time on it, and get help from your teacher.

thanks

What textbook do you use? I use Listos 3 and my teacher copied all the tapes for me, and I try to work through it. :smile:

Reply 4

Piggy

I did Pronto 1 and 2, and I think you just need to really practice LOADS ans speak more, it'll help to pick out sentance structure and tenses etc. Also, learn lots of vocab and useful phrases to pick them out from a load of jargon (which is what Spanish sounds like to me at fast pace!)

Reply 5

lil groovy dude

our school does the listos books excalibur! :biggrin:

Reply 6

Hashshashin

I use Listos 3 (rojo) too. Listening is by far my weakest area too. A good tip would be to try self study (TY, Colloquial, something with Audio material) and just go over and over the dialogues. Try to listen out for specific words rather that the whole sentence. Watch out for verb endings in particular, and ask your teacher if she could help you, perhaps by giving you listening materials or running an extra-curricular club at lunch.

Hope that's some help! :smile:

Reply 7

Excalibur

Good to know y'all using Listos 3. :smile:

I sometimes get the feeling we're so behind with most people my age, because my teacher in year 9&10 (started Spanish in Year 9) was utter crap and we learnt hardly anything, and this year with the new teacher, it's as though we're starting from scratch again... well, most of the class is anyway. I just read ahead because I actually want to get a good mark!

Anyhow... if you ask your teacher for tapes for your textbook, you can practice at home. You could try the languages section of bbc.co.uk. It's probably practice. As people are saying, don't try to listen for every single word - pick out keywords. For example, if there is a whole conversation you haven't a clue about, but one person says something about "el coche" and it "tiene avería", you can guess it's something about a car breaking down.

Reply 8

lil groovy dude

we've started spanish this year as well, year 9! i am lucky however, we got the best spanish teacher, the other classes are complaining about their other one and now shes not allowed to teach GCSE, just Year 9! im hopefully gonna continue it to GCSE! :redface:

Theres this rite snob in our class, we are a grammar, you always get one snob! anyway when he was in year 6, he made his parents do french and german coz we do them in y7, he made them do it at GCSE level at a adult education centre so they can help him with his homework! and now hes making them do Spanish as well, hes only gonna do one language at GCSE, the one he chooses, hes gonna make them do it at A-Level! snob or what?! no one likes him!

Reply 9

Excalibur

He's making his parents learn a language just for his behalf? The parents are being a bit passive, aren't they, being told what to do by their own son?

Reply 10

lil groovy dude

i know! but i guess the parents want whats best for their son, and if they think their son saying you have to do languages, they think they could help him and they would! :biggrin:

Reply 11

SAZZY12345

thanks people for your help!

Reply 12

slk999

Hmm, you could watch videos in spanish? When i did it, I asked for cassette tapes from my teacher and i did extra excercises.

Reply 13

Hashshashin

If you can't get hold of foreign language films, stick Spanish subtitles on an English film, and make sure you read them thoroughly. Pause if you need to when you start.

Reply 14

jaybones

Hashshashin

If you can't get hold of foreign language films, stick Spanish subtitles on an English film, and make sure you read them thoroughly. Pause if you need to when you start.

That wont help with their Spanish listening though. Just reading.

Id recommend as others have said, is speak to your teacher about it and see if you can get extra work, dont be afraid to ask! Its always better to be enthusiatic about something and show it rather than keep it secret!

Id also HIGHLY recommend listening to some spanish radio on the internet, (see link below), although its most likely you wont understand it at this level, it will really help you get in the mood for listening to spanish, and youll find that your listening tapes and exams become much easier, trust me it really helped me at GCSE and A level!

http://www.rtve.es/rne/r5/

go on this, and click Radio 5 en vivo under Escúchanos..

If anyone here uses Skype, i'm willing to give a bit of Spanish speaking practice over that! Anyone from GCSE - A level anyways hehe. Just give me a PM and hablaramos un poquito!

wow they talk fast

checol

wow they talk fast

Don't expect to catch much at all, they WILL NOT speak that fast on your Spanish oral, but it's good to get accustomed to listening for words you know in context.

That's a very useful link BTW.

Reply 17

SAZZY12345

thats good, thank God they wont speak that fast.. though i could make out some of the words

Reply 18

jaybones

thats good, its just training yourself to try and pick out words! Having done a GCSE, and taught GCSE I can honestly say your listening is MUUUUUCH slower than that, you'll be fine! :smile:

just put that on for half an hour each night whilst your doing homework or whatever and youll be fine!