tungemål wrote:I find that spoken Spanish can be rather tough to understand, and especially TV-series. Maybe it's because of the approximant sounds in Spanish. If you can follow TV and radio reporters, then I'd say your listening comprehension is good. Anyway, to practice listening the youtube channel "Easy Spanish" could be beneficial. They always interview people on the street.
Did you write somewhere about your Spanish B2 test? I would be interested to hear about your experience.
Thank you! I have been trying "Easy Spanish" but I think they lied on the "Easy" part
I usually watched RTVE 10 minutes news and usually I can grasp the general idea of a news on the 2nd or 3rd run if I devote my attention to it. Interestingly, I find some reporters easier to understand than the others and some accents (Spanish and Rioplatense) easier to understand than the others (of course provided that they are spoken clearly).
Spanish B2 test was pretty tough to me and I think I should have failed the test as I performed rather badly in the listening part. I think my reading should be enough to compensate the writing task but oral should not be enough to compensate the listening part.
I did oral in the morning and reading -> listening -> writing in the afternoon non-stop. It was mentally exhausting as there was only a short break between listening and writing task but frankly the weather is so cold that day that the short break wasn't helping at all.
I performed exceptionally well (much better than a marginal fail) in oral as I though I would be struggling. I was a bit nervous as it was my first time talking in Spanish face-to-face in my whole life. Somehow I calmed myself down pretty quickly and the examiner in the end asked me how long had I learn Spanish and he replied "interesante, interesante" after hearing that I self-studied and havn't taken any formal classes.
The reading and listening share the same answer book so I had all the right to prepare myself with the listening questions when the invigilators were preparing the audio. I think my mind had already been exhausted after the reading test and I struggled to focus in listening. The Listening test was sinfully difficult in the usual sadist DELE style. There can be questions where I fully understand the audio but still failed to figure out the correct answer. I just hope that I get somewhere near a marginal fail so that my oral performance can compensate for it.
Writing task is okay but I think I underperformed. For some reason we were required to use a black pen to do the task but we were not allowed to using any correctional fluid / tape so I crossed out quite a lot of words when I was polishing my work. I hoped that the marker can recognize my handwriting.
In hindsight, I think I would perform much better if I had chosen to take the May 2021 one instead. I rushed myself to complete the preparation books so much that I became a bit fatigue right before the exam. I may also write some comment on the materials I have used later. To be honest, the quality of even the best preparation books are a bit disappointing.
I like seeing more people in HK learn Spanish! It's such a fun and expressive language, it's a shame more people don't want to learn it.