Jaleel10 wrote:TL;DR I want to improve my listening skills (and general comprehension) in the near future. How do I go about it ?
I have two cartoons with accurate subtitles in both Spanish and English. Each ~21 minutes in length and both with dedicated wiki pages for synopsis summaries. They are cartoons that I have watched in the past and know the plots well.
How do I go about this. ...I'd like to make it as "organic" as possible so please no flashcards ! But I'd like to keep a notebook handy. I can do one episode a day and alternate between shows. One is Castellano, the other mexican. So I am covering all bases, kinda. ...
OK, there are many ways to improve listening skills by actively working on it... but, you can't always get what you want. I don't know if you have the cartoons on dvd or mp4 video or what. Accurate subtitles are important in L2. Ideally, I would want to have an srt file of both L1 and L2. Assuming the L2 subs are accurate, I would make a simple parallel text with both sets of subtitles. Then the variations are endless- you can read L2 first, then listen, then read again; listen first then read L2 then listen and read L2 again simultaneously; you can read the parallel text as you listen; etc. Of course, this is contingent upon having the subtitles in srt form. You can search for subtitles online, but subtitle sites are starting to get evil with big download buttons and tricky ways to get you to download something you don't want. You have to be careful and avoid big green download buttons and don't download any exe files. Subtitles.org is where I usually go if I want subtitles. Of course, you have to check to see if they match. Srt files will open in ms notepad and then you can copy and paste them into a two column table in a word document, aligning them manually. It will take a little time but after a couple of these it gets easier.
The other way is to use emk's subs2srs. Again, you have to have the computer skills necessary to do this because subs2srs is not "plug and chug"/"out of the box ready" for a layman to do easily.
Of course, you probably don't have the subtitles in srt form (Why do they always want to do things the hard way?
). If you can't find them online There are ways to strip them from dvd's, but I am not computer savvy enough to do that. Perhaps you are. If you just want to use what you have, yes, you've answered your own question. Take notes. Compare your notes to what you hear with the subs off and then on. Write down the time stamps in your notes. I used my own shorthand- q = "que" and c = "como" for example, omit vowels and accent marks unless they're crucial, etc. Use the English version to check your comprehension going to the time stamp where you don't understand. You have to remember that in the interest of matching mouth movements to audio in dubs, sometimes the Spanish may omit certain words or phrase them differently.
It's tedious, but this can help to train your listening. Eventually, after 50 or 60 hours, you may get to where you won't need transcripts or subs anymore, assuming a good foundation of basic Spanish- i.e: knowing all conjugations, how reflexive verbs work, basic vocabulary, the difference between an idiom and words in isolation, etc. Whether you are ready to do this now, only you can answer, if you understand less than 75% of what you hear, it will be harder to do. You have to remember that your ultimate aim is to not use any subtitles. I'd point you to my posts about
Using GlobalVoices.org to make simple parallel texts and
How to listen to Latin American Spanish, but my image samples from postimage links have disappeared today. Maybe they'll come back at some point, or not.