so you listen to a lot of Spanish but
still can't manage to understand most of
it today we'll give you some tips on how
to improve your listening skills in
[Music]
Spanish Maria and if you haven't
subscribed yet and you are interested in
learning Spanish getting tips and
listening activities make sure to hit
that subscribe button below we had a
question from nice dog one from the UK
asking why is it that when he listens to
Spanish audio he doesn't understand a
thing but when he looks at subtitles he
understands most of it this is actually
a very common problem so today we will
explain to you why this happens and we
will give you some tips on how to
actually start understanding what you
hear in Spanish first let's start with
the why a lot of people when learning
Spanish find it really hard to
understand Spanish speakers in regular
conversations there are two main reasons
why this might happen and one of them
might be because most Spanish speakers
don't articulate words when they
speak also Spanish is a fast language in
fact is the second fastest language in
the world after Japanese now when it
comes to listening there are two types
passive and active most people do what
is called passive listening which
basically means that you will put
Spanish in the background or any type of
audio in Spanish in the background while
you do other activities like doing the
dishes or while you are in bed the idea
behind this is that through the process
of prolonged exposure to the sounds of
the language you will eventually get
used to them and you will eventually
start understanding the problem is that
just by listening you won't really
achieve much this might help you
identify the sounds of the language and
the musicality of the language but it
won't really prepare you for a
conversation with another person the
second type which is what I recommend
you do is active listening this is
basically the process of you listening
to something and actually taking action
like what you do in a conversation when
you are actively listening to something
you are not just sitting there hoping
that the sounds will make sense someday
but you're actually paying attention to
the conversation or to what is being
said and you're actually looking for
meaning on what you hear if you have
watched our lessons with Codi where I
teach him Spanish you will notice that I
often include you in the lesson this is
not for me to look cool but it's
actually for you to take a moment and
pause the video and actually respond to
the questions that I'm asking like in a
conversation even if you do it in front
of the computer so here's some ways you
can practice active listening the first
one would be obviously to have a
conversation with someone in Spanish but
if you don't have the chance to do that
or if you're not ready for a
conversation yet there are other ways or
other things you can do to put in
practice active listening one of them is
getting subtitles or getting scripts
when you are listening to videos try to
get a transcript of the video or
activate its subtitles if they are
available when you are reading Spanish
at the same time as you here you
actually have time to look at the words
you actually have time to look at the
sentence structure and at the context
that is the reason why when you are
reading subtitles in Spanish you are
able to understand a lot more than
without them this is of course a
training wheel and you will eventually
have to do without it also if you are
listening to music don't just sit there
and listen to music try to download the
lyrics of the of the song you're
listening to and sing the song as well
the next tip I have for you is to slow
it down when you listen to slower
versions of the same audio you will have
more chances to increase your
comprehension YouTube provides this
option for example when you watch a
video go to the settings box look for
the speed option and select a lower
speed it will make voices kind of funny
but it does the trick write the words
you get from the general audio and then
listen to it again in normal speed when
you are listening to audio in Spanish
always look to write something down and
when you are conversing always try to
look for a way to respond or to say
something back this active practice will
help you or will prepare you for the
moment when you are asked something that
you don't expect you are always prepared
to say something back our third tip is
to predict the content if you're
watching a video about a recipe predict
the vocabulary they are going to mention
look up the words you don't know and get
familiar with the pronunciation when you
listen to the actual audio material
listen closely to see if any of your
predicted words are mentioned if you
look at some of the listening activities
we have you will notice that we give you
the words before the video starts this
is based on this concept
now let's practice what we've learned
the topic for the next audio you are
going to listen to is going to be how to
draw a dog or pero it will be all in
Spanish and you will have to predict the
vocabulary you think I am going to
mention in this audio there will be
subtitles in Spanish in this part of the
video so if you need them make sure to
activate them with a Clos caption button
below I will also be asking you some
questions in Spanish in the video so you
can pause the video and actually respond
to it but if you want a more detailed
quiz with the transcript and audio of
this activity you can go to the link
that I will put in the description below
so are you ready let's start
Al
for
fore for
which of the tips we mentioned did you
follow how else can you use active
listening to improve your listening
skills let us know in the comments below
if you have any other idea or any
another suggestion or if you found these
tips useful or not next week on
Wednesday Cody will give you some tips
on things he's doing to study Spanish
well this is it for today's video thank
you for watching and remember to
subscribe if you haven't done it yet and
remember if you're going to learn a
language why not Spanish
ciao so you listen to a lot of Spanish
but still can't manage to understand
most of it um so you still listen today
we'll give you some tips on how to
okay if you are
no while you do other activities like
doing the dishes or or
while the sounds of the language but it
won't really prepare you to a
conversation prepare you for a
conversation for a
conversation okay pushing yourself to
find meaning like what you
do all right so here's some ways you can
practice so here's some ways you can put
in practice a when you listen to the
same when you listen to
the okay when you listen to slower
versions of the same audio you will have
to predict the vocabulary for this audio
so look for looking
perito