Turning the Spanish Corner

Had to share! I feel like my Spanish listening skills have turned a corner this week.

Prior to this week, when I listened to Spanish, I could not really distinguish individual words very well, unless I knew the word for sure. So what I heard was something like this (example performed with help from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, as that's what I'm reading and most handy): 

"'What's going blahblah? What's going blah?'

Blah no blah by Malfoy's shout, Argus Flich came blahblahblahblahblah. Blah he saw blahblah and blahblah, blahblah face in blah. 

'My cat! My cat! What blahblahblahblah?" he blah.

And blahblah eyes blah on blah.

'YOU!' he blah. 'YOU! You blahblah my cat! You blahblahblah! I blahblahblah!'"

Now I feel like I'm getting used to the speed in which Spanish is spoken and can more easily identity singular words even if I don't know what they mean, resulting in the same thing as above sounding more like this:

"'What's going blah blah? What's going blah?'

Blah no doubt by Malfoy's shout, Argus Filch cam blah blah blah blah blah. Blah he saw Mrs. Norris and blah blah, blah his face blah blah.

'My cat! My cat! What blah blah to Mrs. Norris?' he blah. 

And his blah eyes blah on Harry.

'YOU!' he blah. YOU! You blah murdered my cat! You blah killed her! I'll kill you!'"

Perhaps it seems and looks like a small change to you. Let me explain. I can now more easily identify infinitives in more tenses, more easily unravel direct and indirect object pronouns, recognize more words that I sort of know and figure out which words I don't know, so if they're repeated a couple times, I can look it up real quick or use context clues to learn the new word.

I'm excited. I think this will lead to a larger vocabulary eventually, not to mention a better understanding of things that I have not heard in English before. 

Mostly I've been sticking to only movies that I've seen a bazillion times before dubbed in Spanish, aside from listening the radio and Pandora. I chose to focus my time on stuff I was familiar with because I found that if I used something I wasn't familiar with, I would get upset for not understanding the basic story line. I think I might be able to figure out what's going on a little better now with something I'm not familiar with like say... real live conversation, or a telenovela. 

Anyway, just wanted share a success and say that this method really does work! (Click the link if you're new here and want to learn more about what I'm doing to learn Spanish. Can be applied to other languages as well!)