tips to get a higher grade and improve listening in Spanish ab initio

I'm currently at a level 5 for spanish and right now my main worry is listening and speaking where I am getting constant 4s which is bringing down my grade. When practicing listening past papers, the audio sounds like gibberish in my ears – so do you have any tips to help improve my listening to the point that I can understanding what they are saying?

Original post by XxFabGachaxX

I'm currently at a level 5 for spanish and right now my main worry is listening and speaking where I am getting constant 4s which is bringing down my grade. When practicing listening past papers, the audio sounds like gibberish in my ears – so do you have any tips to help improve my listening to the point that I can understanding what they are saying?

Yes of course! I did Spanish GCSE and A-level and what really helped was learning new vocab every day, whether it was 30mins-1hr, it's really important to stay consistent with vocab learning so that when you hear words you become more familiar with them and understand them. The best thing for language learning is exposure so the more you listen to the audio clips the easier it will get. It's also worth listening to Spanish podcasts, music and news.

Hope this helps!
Z
UG Arabic & IR

Reply 2

XxFabGachaxX

OP

14

Original post by SOAS Student Rep

Yes of course! I did Spanish GCSE and A-level and what really helped was learning new vocab every day, whether it was 30mins-1hr, it's really important to stay consistent with vocab learning so that when you hear words you become more familiar with them and understand them. The best thing for language learning is exposure so the more you listen to the audio clips the easier it will get. It's also worth listening to Spanish podcasts, music and news.

Hope this helps!
Z
UG Arabic & IR

How do I learn from listening to Spanish audios? because I am watching a tv show in spanish but I feel like I’m not making any improvements

Reply 3

Buzzinglion

3

Original post by XxFabGachaxX

I'm currently at a level 5 for spanish and right now my main worry is listening and speaking where I am getting constant 4s which is bringing down my grade. When practicing listening past papers, the audio sounds like gibberish in my ears – so do you have any tips to help improve my listening to the point that I can understanding what they are saying?

I am assuming that you're doing GCSE, I did Spanish higher for GCSE, and I am now also doing Spanish for A Level. Something that I would suggest you do is immerse yourself in the Spanish language such as podcasts, music and television. But you will have to learn the vocabulary first, as it can be quite tricky to understand the language if you don't know the vocab fully. I also think that in some Spanish television they can speak too fast which at times can be difficult to comprehend, what I do is put subtitles in Spanish, so I will be practising my reading skills as well as listening. Carry on doing that relentlessly, and I am sure that you will improve. I was at a predicted grade 3 in year 9 and managed to get a grade 8 in Spanish GCSE. A Level listening in some aspect is easier as you get a laptop and headphones so you're allowed to rewind the audio at anytime or stop.

Reply 4

skypispanish

3

Original post by XxFabGachaxX

I'm currently at a level 5 for spanish and right now my main worry is listening and speaking where I am getting constant 4s which is bringing down my grade. When practicing listening past papers, the audio sounds like gibberish in my ears – so do you have any tips to help improve my listening to the point that I can understanding what they are saying?

Hi- it will certainly help if you're watching cartoons, movies etc.
It will help more if you watch the same video three or four ( or even more ) times as when your brain gets used to the content it will stop trying to focus on everything at once and will instead start to focus on the parts it remembered that it didn't understand the last time.

TURN OFF THE SUBTITLES- if you don't you'll end up just reading subtitles and not absorbing the audio.

You'll also benefit from slowing down the video- usually slowing it down to about 75% of normal will do the trick, though you may wish to slow it down to a greater or lesser degree depending on the original speed as a function of what works for you.

I'm a private Spanish tutor and if you feel you'd like to try some lessons to help boost your abilities and explain points of grammar then just let me know. I do charge for lessons but there is a free trial session to see if it would work for you.

¡Suerte!

Original post by XxFabGachaxX

How do I learn from listening to Spanish audios? because I am watching a tv show in spanish but I feel like I’m not making any improvements

I'd recommend listening without english subtitles. Then pause the listening and write down any new/challenging words and write what you understood from the listening. Then replay the clip with the subtitles to check your understanding. You can also slow the audio down to help understand it. The more you listen to different listenings in Spanish, the more accustomed you'll be to the pronunciation and the easier it will be to understand the language.

(edited 3 months ago)

Reply 6

kaipahead

6

Listening is very difficult mainly because unlike reading you have no control over it. The first thing is to learn to listen for gist. This allows you to accustom yourself to letting the gram/ lexico words go but to identify key nouns and adjectives and verbs. There are also non- verbal clues- tone of voice, emphasis. Topic knowledge helps also. It is hard to improve listening over a shirt period. You need constant exposure ( daily) to it and very importantly INPUT. By input I mean you need listenings where you are initially introduced to new vocabulary. Learn the vocab and practice saying it repeatedly before the actual listening. This way you will recognise when you hear it. Without input like this you won't really improve efficiency irrespective of how much you listen to.

tips to get a higher grade and improve listening in Spanish ab initio

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