how do i understand spanish when it is spoken i seem to understand perfectly when it is written?

Question

I have been studyign spanish since agust 25 of last year and i have taught myself alot of stuff but when someone speaks to me in spanish i dont understand what they have said can anyone please help me with understnading better when it is spoken any help would be wonderful

Answer 1

Practice makes perfect.. try speaking with any friends that speak Spanish. Watch Spanish TV.. it helps a lot. You may also want to take a Spanish class at your local community college. You can get one of those "learn to speak spanish" tapes as well, where you read the booklet, and then listen to the tape/CD. I think it would all be helpful to you :o) The reason you probably don't understand as well is because the spoken language goes so much faster than when you read it. But again, the only way you'll ever really learn is to immerse yourself in it, focus on the words as they speak, but also listen to what they're saying in general. Don't try to catch every word. Watch Spanish TV, it really helps. Good luck..

Answer 2

I was a Spanish major in school, and I had the same problem that you are having now. Truly the best way that you will solve this problem is to so somewhere that speaks Spanish. When you have no way to communicate other than to speak the language and listen carefully to what they're saying your ear will pick it up. If you need to ask someone to repeat something, you'll ask because you won't have much of a choice. Here at home you know you always have English to fall back on when you get frustrated. Unfortunately, I was never able to follow my own advice due to lack of funds. I knowledge of the language is purely textbook. I do plan on doing just what I say one of these days though, and I can't wait until I'm able. I love to travel, plus I'll finally get to feel like I know how to "speak" Spanish.

Answer 3

The best way to understand spoken Spanish and all its glory, is to train your ear to recognize the sounds and words by immersing yourself in the language. Watch Spanish channels and listen to the radio. You'd be surprised how at first you will only pick out certain words and then you will understand sentences. You can also try speaking to native speakers so that you can get more exposure this way. A good way to find people to do this with is to check on meetup.com. They have clubs that meet for this specific purpose.You will find that your understanding of spoken Spanish will increase and get better. Espero que todo te salga bien y que mi opinion te oriente un poco! :)

Answer 4

Trying to watch too much Spanish TV or hear conversations may result in frustration for you. The best and easiest way to learn how to listen, identify and understand Spanish is by SPEAKING IT. If you hear yourself saying words and sentences being put together, you can then later start understanding what you hear.
You need to consider this: when you learned how to speak your own native language you first learned how to talk. Forget about the trying to understand what you hear on TV or "Novelas", first speak it, speak it as if your life depended on it. Short, crooked, wrong, however it is; your practice will make you the master.
Moving on to the listening; consider this:
In English it takes a couple of syllables to pop an entire word and at times a sentence! In Spanish our words are much longer than words in English....ie:
murcielágo (bat as in batman)
a-mi-go (friend, and friend is just one sound....amigo is three sounds)
Hence the why non Spanish speaking people think we talk too fast.
We are not, we are just trying to fit your same number of words in our sentence.
Hope this is of help.

Answer 5

You have to train your ear to the language. Try to listen Spanish music or watch Spanish speaking films and get somebody who could speak Spanish to you. You could also borrow some tapes from your library.

And, if somebody speaks to you in Spanish ask him/her to please speak slowly. With time and a lot of practice you will be able to understand it without problems. Good luck.

Answer 6

because you did not learn it by sound. You need to practice actually having conversations in spanish so you can hear the tone.

Answer 7

i have a similar problem in french, listen carefully for words or phrases you know and recgonize easily and peice them together, that way you should get an idea of what they are talking about.

Answer 8

watch TV(Spanish channels)

Answer 9

try to listen people from the same country, accent matters

I'd learn the phonetic tables so that you know how to place your lips/ tongue.. etc, etc.. so that you can actually read the other person's lips.. it helped me when I learnt English and French

Answer 10

Talk to the native speakers, in all levels, as many and often as you can. (which I did not really do, now I kind of regret.)