When you’re learning a living language like Spanish, it’s super important to make sure that you’re devoting enough time to developing your Spanish listening skills. Spanish is a vibrant language spoken in many different places around the world, which gives learners all kinds of opportunities to connect with and practice the language! In this article, we’ll tell you about 5 awesome resources that you can use to improve your Spanish listening comprehension and make sure that you’re studying Spanish effectively and efficiently.

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5 Tools for Improving Your Spanish Listening Skills

1. Spanish movies

I know we repeat ourselves a lot, but watching movies in your target language (whatever it may be) is a great way to help you improve your skills while also having fun. And taking the opportunity to sit back, relax, and have a good time is an essential part of healthy, sustainable learning.

With this particular Spanish listening exercise, you can get your ear accustomed to different pronunciations and the speed of the language, and get exposure to new words and expressions. Depending on the movies you choose, you might also get to hear a variety of different Spanish accents.

This is a great exercise for training your ear and, eventually, improving your Spanish listening. To push yourself toward faster progress, we recommend that you watch either without subtitles or with Spanish subtitles. Frankly, just watching with English subtitles won’t help you much at all. We recommend this practice method for intermediate and advanced learners. Beginners can certainly give it a try as well, but we recommend that you start with shorter films, or with movies that you’ve already seen in English. This way you’ll already be familiar with the plot and characters and you’ll be able to devote more of your focus to the language and its pronunciation.

This approach to Spanish audio practice can help you understand many facets of the language better. For this reason, we encourage you to find movies on topics that align with your interests and your learning goals. If you’d like to have a look at a few recommendations, check out our article on great Spanish movies with subtitles.

2. Shorter format: Spanish TV shows

Similarly, you can also watch TV shows in Spanish. The advantage here is that the time commitment is much shorter (usually between 20 to 50 minutes). This way, it’s a lot easier to sprinkle a little Spanish listening practice into your day on a regular basis. If you’re able to watch an episode every day or two, you’ll see much faster progress than if you watch a movie once a month. In our experience, this kind of regular exposure is much more effective over the long term.

Also, because TV episodes are shorter, you’ll find that you’re less overloaded by content. This also has positive effects, limiting burnout and feelings of over-stimulation. As we said above, full-length films are best suited to intermediate and advanced learners (with Spanish subtitles, or no subtitles at all), but if you’re a beginner wondering how to improve Spanish listening comprehension skills, we encourage you (and learners of all levels) to dive into TV shows right away. They can be a fun stepping stone along the path to fluency. And again, be sure to check out our suggestions for the best TV shows in Spanish.

3. Podcasts in Spanish

Are you a podcast junkie?

If you’re not familiar with podcasts, they are audio recordings about a particular topic. They can range from less than 10 minutes to over an hour in length. And there are podcasts out there on just about EVERY subject. You can find it all, from personal development to cooking, from politics to science.

There are even podcasts out there about language learning in general, and podcasts specifically for people who are learning Spanish.

Learn more about the power of the podcast in our article on podcasts for learning Spanish.

4. Songs in Spanish

There’s nothing better than music if you want to combine progress with pleasure! Especially if you’re a beginner. This exercise will help you with comprehension, pronunciation, and vocabulary – and you’ll hardly notice it! Just make sure that you’re listening to a group or artist you can actually understand.

If you’d like a bit of guidance, you can have a look at our list of songs in Spanish to get a few ideas.

You can also check out our article on how to learn a language through music and try the method we recommend.

5. MosaSeries: the MosaLingua series for improving Spanish listening comprehension

The advantages of learning language skills through stories are undeniable: a good story is a fun and very powerful thing! If you’re wondering how to get better at listening to Spanish, there’s no need to look any further than our innovative series: MosaSeries: El Hombre Sin Nombre. Sit back, relax, and listen to the first episode of this exciting Spanish series!

MosaLingua Premium (web and mobile) Spanish tool on a smartphone and tablet.

Why a “series”?

We use the term “series” because this exciting Spanish listening exercise is divided into 27 episodes. The story was created entirely in Spanish, and it captivates listeners with cliffhangers, like traditional Spanish shows that you can watch online or on TV.

Voice actors recorded every episode in Spanish, and they enunciate and speak slowly enough for you to become familiar with the language and to improve your Spanish listening comprehension. Of course, the pronunciation is still natural, because the goal is for you to understand a normal conversation in Spanish by the end of the series.

Every episode comes with a written script, flashcards, and grammar lessons. This way, step by step, episode by episode, you can improve your overall level of Spanish.

This method is easy and everything you learn builds on other skills you’ve already developed. It’s all about “comprehensible input,” an idea developed by linguist Stephen D. Krashen. His theory is that a learner makes the most progress when they receive “input” that is slightly more difficult than their current level.

So, to help you improve your Spanish listening skills, MosaSeries provides you with content that is adapted to a beginner-intermediate level and gradually introduces new ideas so that you improve your skills.

Is MosaSeries Spanish right for me?

A captivating story, 100% in Spanish… Sounds intriguing, right? But is it right for your level and your needs? MosaSeries: El Hombre Sin Nombre is suitable for beginner as well as intermediate students (A1 to B2 levels). It is also probably right for you if you:

  • love interesting stories and shows
  • have trouble understanding movies and TV shows in Spanish, or conversations with native speakers
  • want to strengthen your Spanish skills and improve your grammar, conjugation, and Spanish vocabulary
  • are lost in the learning process and don’t know where to begin!

How will my Spanish listening comprehension skills improve?

To fully benefit from this new language learning method, you’ll have to devote 10 to 15 minutes to it a day, every day, for 3 to 6 months. After that, you will:

  • understand conversations with native Spanish speakers, even on the phone
  • be able to follow along with Spanish movies and TV shows without any subtitles, thanks to the EasyAudioPrep® method
  • have a firm grasp of the Spanish language, including grammar, conjugation, and vocabulary.

Don’t take our word for it, click here to read what other MosaSeries users have to say about how the program has helped them.

What you’ll get:

MosaSeries: El Hombre Sin Nombre isn’t just an interesting story (even though it is pretty gripping, let’s be honest). This new course, designed to help improve your listening comprehension in Spanish, contains not only 27 episodes and audio recordings, but also:

  • Spanish listening comprehension exercises to help you to improve your skills
  • reading exercises
  • tons of flashcards with important Spanish vocabulary
  • grammar lessons with exercises (20+ lessons in total)
  • and video lessons!

And that’s not all. MosaSeries also comes with access to MosaLingua Premium (Web & Mobile) (reduced price or membership for life, depending on whether or not you’re already a subscriber), and a complete guide to watching movies and shows online. And as with all of our courses, our team of teachers will be by your side the whole time. Have a question or concern? Don’t worry, we’re here to help and guide you as you learn Spanish. All you have to do is ask!

I want to learn more about MosaSeries Spanish!

 

Next Steps

If you enjoyed this article and want to read more about how to improve Spanish listening, vocabulary, grammar – or even just more about the language itself, we have a few other articles you might like: