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Welcome to the forums, Chris!
Distinguishing words is a skill that you pick up gradually. Knowing all the individual words isn't enough when it comes to conversation. What you'll learn over time is that words are blended together, especially final and initial vowel sounds. Some consonants morph when followed by particular consonants. Some words, particularly those that end in 's', aren't fully enunciated (the 's' is elided). There are regional variations.
For example, Spanish courses may teach how to pronounce an 'n', but may fail to teach that it is pronounced like an 'm' when certain consonants follow (like 'm' and 'p'). 'Un minuto' sounds like 'um minuto'. 'San Pedro' is pronounced 'Sam Pedro'. Likewise, the 's' is pronounced like the English 'z' when certain consonants follow it. 'Riesgo' is pronounced 'rree ehz goh'.
There is a great tendency to elide word endings. 'Tenemos que' becomes 'tenemo que'. In some areas, the word 'para' becomes 'pa'.
We do much the same thing when we speak English. For example, 'What are you going to do?' becomes 'Watcha gonna do?'. The really nice thing that Spanish has going for it is that they don't get lazy with the vowel sounds. If they're not elided/blended, they have a consistent pronunciation.
Hope this was helpful.
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