Hi Clay,
Some things that may help you:
Firstly, don't forget that here on Kwiziq there are lots of articles and stories read by our wonderful teacher Inma. As you listen to these articles, the Spanish text is there for you so that you can read whilst listening. When you hover over the sentences, you'll see everything translated into English for you with links to grammar etc. Start by just doing all the A1 levels. Listen and read at the same time. Then practise listening without the text.
Additionally, something that I have found really helpful and has vastly improved my listening skills is the following:
On Netflix or YouTube, TED Talks or whatever medium available to me, I choose a film or programme that I am very familiar with in English. In my case, English is my first language. So, whatever your mother- tongue is make sure that you initially choose something you know well in your first language. On Netflix there is the option to change the language to Spanish. So initially I watch e.g. a film in Spanish with English subtitles. Sometimes I watch the film in English with Spanish subtitles. Then I watch the same film in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. When I start to feel that I'm following and understanding the Spanish more easily, I then watch the film in Spanish without any subtitles. I continue doing this until I know the film really well in Spanish. I do this all the time and as I said it has really helped me.
As you start to feel more confident you'll be able to watch films & programmes that you're unfamiliar with and ones that have only been produced in Spain or Spanish speaking countries.
Just keep rotating the subtitles as I've explained.
TED Talks (www.ted.com) also has the option to use Spanish and English subtitles for many of it's talks. I'm not sure if they offer subtitles in other languages but it's likely that they do.
I also find that reading written Spanish helps my listening skills. When you see the 'written word' it helps you to make better sense of words and sentence structures when later listening to Spanish.
So, another thing I do... I buy (or use what I already have at home) copies of books that I know well in English that have been translated into Spanish. I read the English version first, then the Spanish. Of course there are also books originally written in Spanish that have been written in other languages. One of my favourite Spanish authors is Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Another great Spanish speaking author is Isabel Allende. I have both the English and Spanish versions of these author's books. I also listen to their books being read on Audible.
One final thing, if you have access to YouTube, watch childrens programmes in Spanish. This way you'll be listening to a more basic level of Spanish which will help to strengthen and build your listening skills for later more complex Spanish.
Sorry for this extremely long reply but I get excited about sharing what's worked for me.
I hope this helps a little.
Clara :)
