Ever think about switching language tracks on your movies then using subtitles after a couple of weeks? :shrug:
I have, but I really don't know how to do that fancy stuff. I guess I am just becoming an old fuddy duddy.
But I do make a point to watch a couple hours of spanish tv each week. I started out watching sitcoms, but found that the actors tend to be over dramatic and that makes it hard for me to understand them. I switched to watching spanish news, and I can comprehend what they are saying much better as they are paid to be very clear and not dramatic. I also watch some spanish documentaries, they generally speak as clearly as news casters, and they hold my attention better.
My goal is to one day be able to understand the spanish in movies and sitcoms, but if I cant understand spanish speakers who are intentially trying to be clear and have good pronuciation, I certainly can't understand more natural speach.
At this point, I have a pretty good understanding of grammer, sentence structure, and pronuciation, I just need to have a larger vocabulary. I have read that in almost every language, there are only about 2500 really commonly used words, but by the time that you add all the variations of those words, conjugations, tenses, and alternative words, that 2500 word list swells to around 10,000 bare minimum to be semi-fluent. Most native speakers have an active vocabulary of around 25,000 words (including variations), and can comprehend around 40,000 words.
I think that I am maybe at around 1000 words instant recall, and can comprehend maybe another 1500 (like I might not be able to think of the word quickly enough to use it in a natural conversation, but I can understand it if I see it written, or can understand it in speech if the speech is slower than normal conversational speed).
Spanish speakers often tend to run words together, just like speakers of every language do, but I think they do it more. Some spanish words are actually intentionally ran together to form one word out of two. In natural speech comprehension, just figuring out where one word ends and the next begins can be a challenge, and like you suggested I think the only way to be able to do that is by listening to natural speech - "natural" as like in real life situations as opposed to something in an academic language course.
Then there are zillions of spanish expressions, and these vary by region. When litterally translated to english, they are often nonsensical, thus they just have to be memorized as phrases and expressions. After I get my vocab to maybe double what it is, I think that concentrating on these expressions and phrases may be the next logical step.
I have discovered that there is not a single course or program or language learning tool that really can take someone from zero knowledge to even modest fluency. Not Pimsleur, not Fluenze, not Rossetta Stone (which I personally think is horrible) and not the Visual Link program which I purchased. You could even go through all of these programs, and still not be even close to proficient. Some of them do a great job with sentence structure and grammer, and a decent job with maybe the most commonly used thousand words or so, but not nearly enough active listening and responding, and not nearly enough vocabulary.
I have a couple who are frequent customers of mine, both speak very good English and Spanish. She is a native spanish speaker and is from Hondurus, so I assumed that he was also a native spanish speaker. I once asked him where he was from, he told me "Indianapolis", I said, "no, I mean origionally", he said "Indianapolis". I asked him where his parents were from, he said "indianapolis". Turns out, he is a native english speaker and didn't learn spanish until he was in high school. He said that when he was in the military he got frequently compliments on how good his english was, when actually they should have been complementing his spanish.
