I'm wondering if anyone can offer me level appropriate Spanish listening recommendations. I spend many hours per day driving and am currently only using that time for Pimsleur Spanish and would like to add another resource or two to better take advantage of that time.
I started as an absolute beginner on 07/03. Since that time I've used Linq to about halfway through the mini stories. I'm currently at Pimsleur level 1, lesson 18. I've completed most of PMP Basic Spanish, excluding the sections specific to verbs. I've started PMP Complete Spanish Grammar, working though the first section which is present tense of verbs. I'll carefully finish this book, front to back. I have a sizable Anki deck of various phrases I've come across.
My non-driving time is very limited and I don't have time to add anything at this point. I know it's early but I don't want to let all those driving hours go to waste.
Thanks for any recommendations!
Early Beginner Spanish Listening Recommendations
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Re: Early Beginner Spanish Listening Recommendations
I would suggest Notes in Spanish. It’s a podcast with different levels. I started with the intermediate level which is all in Spanish, but I think the beginner level is a mix of Spanish and English. I really loved this podcast when I was learning and I think it helped me a lot with listening comprehension. It was also something I could listen to while out walking. The podcast is free and is good on its own, but there are additional materials if you pay. I don’t know what they’re like though as I just listened to the podcast.
I would also recommend Language Transfer. I listened to it several times. It’s an excellent course to get an overview of the grammar and to learn to manipulate the language. I was surprised by how quickly I learned to say things and to actually construct my own fairly complex sentences rather than just parrot phrases from a dialogue.
I would also recommend Language Transfer. I listened to it several times. It’s an excellent course to get an overview of the grammar and to learn to manipulate the language. I was surprised by how quickly I learned to say things and to actually construct my own fairly complex sentences rather than just parrot phrases from a dialogue.
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Re: Early Beginner Spanish Listening Recommendations
Here's a series of audio clips that are mini-essays of a sort talking about various cultural things. The transcripts are also there. I'm not sure how convenient this site would be for listening in the car though. I'm not sure I'd call these beginner though.
https://studyspanish.com/comps/shuar
Early on, I spent a lot of time listening (and re-listening) to the Assimil course when I had a short commute.
https://studyspanish.com/comps/shuar
Early on, I spent a lot of time listening (and re-listening) to the Assimil course when I had a short commute.
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Re: Early Beginner Spanish Listening Recommendations
I'm a big fan of Dreaming Spanish. They're videos, but you could listen to them as podcasts - He makes gestures and writes things down to make it more comprehensible, but I don't think you would miss very much just listening to them through so long as you choose an appropriate level. There's Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and also "Super Beginner" if Beginner is too difficult. It's 100% Spanish at every level, but he speaks very slowly and does a lot of repetition which makes it super easy listening.
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Re: Early Beginner Spanish Listening Recommendations
Those are great suggestions! I briefly listed to some content from each and later when I have more time will review them further to see how I can use them while driving.
I noticed that the origin of much of the material is Spain. I'm in the US and my primary interest is communicating with Mexican, Latin American, and American speakers of Spanish. I certainly would like to understand and learn to appreciate the difference varieties of Spanish, but at my early stage of learning, would the mixtures of dialects be beneficial? I suspect that due to the large amount of time I have to listen, my brain will sort it out, but thoughts from experienced speakers and learners would be valuable.
I noticed that the origin of much of the material is Spain. I'm in the US and my primary interest is communicating with Mexican, Latin American, and American speakers of Spanish. I certainly would like to understand and learn to appreciate the difference varieties of Spanish, but at my early stage of learning, would the mixtures of dialects be beneficial? I suspect that due to the large amount of time I have to listen, my brain will sort it out, but thoughts from experienced speakers and learners would be valuable.
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Re: Early Beginner Spanish Listening Recommendations
I would recommend audiobooks.
Some graded readers come with an audio version.
If you are open to Castilian Spanish, I recommend this, because until now I've always just adored any of the graded crime stories from Circon:
https://www.amazon.com/-/es/dp/B07BNKV5B6/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=Circon+ataque+en+la+monta%C3%B1a&qid=1631648333&sr=8-1
If you want to stick to American Spanish, these resources might be an option:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MSDB1AY/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&tag=boorio-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=B01MSDB1AY
https://www.amazon.com/-/es/El-principito-audiolibro/dp/B00K1LEAC2/ref=sr_1_2?__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=principito+madrigal&qid=1631649133&sr=8-2
There is also the option to use videos for listening:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiqZIGpZl2Oc2kKd0EnK-vA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrreHSUa5rnuCVDeO8dX4eA
Some graded readers come with an audio version.
If you are open to Castilian Spanish, I recommend this, because until now I've always just adored any of the graded crime stories from Circon:
https://www.amazon.com/-/es/dp/B07BNKV5B6/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=Circon+ataque+en+la+monta%C3%B1a&qid=1631648333&sr=8-1
If you want to stick to American Spanish, these resources might be an option:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MSDB1AY/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&tag=boorio-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=B01MSDB1AY
https://www.amazon.com/-/es/El-principito-audiolibro/dp/B00K1LEAC2/ref=sr_1_2?__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=principito+madrigal&qid=1631649133&sr=8-2
There is also the option to use videos for listening:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiqZIGpZl2Oc2kKd0EnK-vA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrreHSUa5rnuCVDeO8dX4eA
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Re: Early Beginner Spanish Listening Recommendations
If I'm not mistaken there is a podcast called News in Slow Spanish, is a paid resource but they have older episodes available for free, you should be able to get 100+ episodes, I used the French counterpart (News in Slow French) and it helped me a lot in the first stages of my language learning journey. Give it a try.
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Re: Early Beginner Spanish Listening Recommendations
If you plan on continuing to go through Pimsleur, I would recommend not going beyond Unit 3 (the first three units are typically modeled after Dr. Paul Pimsleur's original French course, but I believe he died before he could make more advanced levels - Units 4 and 5, made after his death, just lose their effectiveness). Pimsleur will give you confidence, automaticity with a very limited vocabulary which you can later grow, and a very good accent assuming you have any kind of ear for it.
Mixing Pimsleur with dialogues is probably ok, but I would recommend not mixing Pimsleur with other audio training courses requiring production, such as Michel Thomas, since it kind of works against some of the Pimsleur method. I would highly recommend MT Spanish after Pimsleur though, for rounding out what you've learned in Pimsleur (introductory and advanced is probably good enough, but you can do the others like vocab one if you want, it doesn't take long). This will get you used to more advanced grammar as he goes through the full conjugation system, (except maybe vosotros, don't remember, and not voseo which you won't need now anyway). I've heard good things about language transfer, but haven't used it. I think it's free though (?) so that might be a good MT substitute.
Normally, I'd recommend Assimil here, but I too had the issue where my head wanted to explode from switching between LA Spanish and Castilian Spanish. If this doesn't affect you, go with Assimil.
Now to your real question. FSI Spanish is probably the best FSI course (and best free course) ever made. It's intense though, going from Pimsleur to FSI is like going from 6th grade to college. My recommendation would probably be to listen to the dialogues now to get used to faster speech until you finish the other courses, then dive in more deeply. The dialogues are great to use with blind shadowing. Did I mention it's free?
Alternatively, there are some pretty good YT channels such as "Spanish Around", "Easy Spanish", "Why not Spanish?", etc. that have transcripts available. You'll probably start to get loads of recommendations for others once you watch a couple.
Also, you probably won't be able to find it, but the Latin American Linguaphone course (2nd generation I believe, in the brown briefcase) was one of the best courses I've ever used in any language. I can't explain why, I just really loved it. Might be able to get it on inter-library loan.
Mixing Pimsleur with dialogues is probably ok, but I would recommend not mixing Pimsleur with other audio training courses requiring production, such as Michel Thomas, since it kind of works against some of the Pimsleur method. I would highly recommend MT Spanish after Pimsleur though, for rounding out what you've learned in Pimsleur (introductory and advanced is probably good enough, but you can do the others like vocab one if you want, it doesn't take long). This will get you used to more advanced grammar as he goes through the full conjugation system, (except maybe vosotros, don't remember, and not voseo which you won't need now anyway). I've heard good things about language transfer, but haven't used it. I think it's free though (?) so that might be a good MT substitute.
Normally, I'd recommend Assimil here, but I too had the issue where my head wanted to explode from switching between LA Spanish and Castilian Spanish. If this doesn't affect you, go with Assimil.
Now to your real question. FSI Spanish is probably the best FSI course (and best free course) ever made. It's intense though, going from Pimsleur to FSI is like going from 6th grade to college. My recommendation would probably be to listen to the dialogues now to get used to faster speech until you finish the other courses, then dive in more deeply. The dialogues are great to use with blind shadowing. Did I mention it's free?
Alternatively, there are some pretty good YT channels such as "Spanish Around", "Easy Spanish", "Why not Spanish?", etc. that have transcripts available. You'll probably start to get loads of recommendations for others once you watch a couple.
Also, you probably won't be able to find it, but the Latin American Linguaphone course (2nd generation I believe, in the brown briefcase) was one of the best courses I've ever used in any language. I can't explain why, I just really loved it. Might be able to get it on inter-library loan.
Last edited by AllSubNoDub on Wed Sep 15, 2021 12:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Early Beginner Spanish Listening Recommendations
Thanks for more recommendations. I've saved the links to my favorites folder for listening material.
I downloaded the first five beginner podcasts from Notes in Spanish and will start listening to them tomorrow. For some of the other links, I hate to say it, but they are a bit too fast and contain too much unknown vocabulary for me right now. I'm sure that will change as I start to listen to a broader variety and progress with my other materials. I'll also take a closer look at some of them to see if there are transcripts. That would help, as well as repetition.
I downloaded the first five beginner podcasts from Notes in Spanish and will start listening to them tomorrow. For some of the other links, I hate to say it, but they are a bit too fast and contain too much unknown vocabulary for me right now. I'm sure that will change as I start to listen to a broader variety and progress with my other materials. I'll also take a closer look at some of them to see if there are transcripts. That would help, as well as repetition.
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Re: Early Beginner Spanish Listening Recommendations
maxalmonte14 wrote:If I'm not mistaken there is a podcast called News in Slow Spanish, is a paid resource but they have older episodes available for free, you should be able to get 100+ episodes, I used the French counterpart (News in Slow French) and it helped me a lot in the first stages of my language learning journey. Give it a try.
I found the site. I'm not a huge fan of the news, but I can see how it would be helpful becoming familiar with more variety of speech. Balance is good. Thanks for the suggestion. And that actually gave me a semi-related idea. Perhaps I can find some Spanish talk radio when I get to the point that I understand enough to make it interesting and useful.
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