Looking for a good listening method

Looking for a good listening method
 

hello

there are so many CDs out there to learn spanish, but from the samples I 've heard so far, couldn't find something to suit my needs

among others, I really want to hear spanish sentences/phrases (and not only the "hola, que tal?" etc, but newspaper articles, essays, arguements, etc)

I want to hear them in spanish and after that to hear them in english and to try to match the words, eg "hola, como estas?" then "hi, how are you?", then "hola" = "hi", "como" = "how" etc

is there such a listening method for spanish?

because all I hear is plain spanish phrases with no immediate (per sentence) translation and with no eng/sp word matching

thanks

Yes. That's how I "acquired" English in a year. :)

Watch movies in Spanish with no subtitles nor captions in English. Read and write a novel in Spanish, of a theme that you really love and hopefully a novel you have already read in English, and translate it to English.

Bad method when you try to translate isolated phrases. It works only when you want to communicate immediate needs.

:D

I had the same problem with you have now, but I could to resolved the problem with this forums, because only I found some website but that website had short messages spoken in English and it didn't resolved my needs with the English then I had to turned with other methods then, as I said before, only you will find your methods in some chat room or in movies and TV on line.

I hope my commentary can help you.

@lingos: you can try news websites in Spanish, download podcasts, watch videos... Yahoo, MSN, BBC, RFI international, etc., usually have videos and sound files.

thanks for your replies

though, I think I need to make it more clear, I am not interested in general sources of audio in spanish language

I was talking about those learning methods with CDs, like linguaphone, roseta stone, fluenz, pimsler, etc that contain audio CDs with not just dialogues, like those you find in spanish movies, TV, radio, etc, but with specific supposedly methodical dialogues that help you develop your learning skills (listening, fluency, comprehension, etc)

the content of such CDs imo is inadequate, confusing, unorganized, unhelpful, and the arguements for this I posted them at first post: they don't translate each phrase by phrase and word by word and repeatedly (imo this way would enable mind to remember and make the appropriate connections between english and spanish, etc)

so I am basically interested in specific learning suite (primsleur, rosetta stone, etc), while I ofcourse do realize the importance of listening to TV, radio, etc, however this would not help as fast and methodically, as a specified dialogue presentation with accompanied translation (when listening to TV you miss words and you need to look them up in the dictionary, many of them too sophisticated etc, so you need to be advanced enough in spanish level, to be that way functional

I know why you are looking for that kind of way. It does work, however, it is slower than my proposition up there in red.


It great to be able to learn like this:

Can you show me where are the cartons of milk?

¿Puede usted mostrarme dónde están los cartones de leche?

It is understandable, and you can relate to it.

But it's not "real life", per say.

Ok, a little exercise:

You rent an English movie. It is a new release, so you have not seen it yet. You start it in the player and leave the sound in mute.

Will you be able to understand anything from that movie?

I will wait for some answers... :)

My :twocents:.

I believe we're trying to steer you away from accompanied translation, with your best interests in mind. One day you'll discover, as some of us have, that you'll loathe the accompanying translation. You'll dread having to translate everything you hear or want to say.

The connections you want to make instead are mental images. This is how you learned your mother tongue - with no translation. You heard someone speak and then, using as many senses as possible, you reasoned what it must mean and created associated memories. There was no need for a translation then. There still isn't.

Listen to Spanish. Watch movies in Spanish. Immerse yourself in Spanish. Find Spanish-speaking friends. Then build connections to the spoken language based on what you're seeing, hearing and feeling.