This post was originally posted on Babelhut.
I’ve been trying to improve my listening skills in Spanish. So far I’m terrible at it but I’m picking up more words the longer I listen. I’ve discovered part of the reason I have difficulty understanding words is because Spanish speakers like to compress their words together when consecutive words end and begin with a vowel sound.
For example: Listen to the jet-lag lesson on SpanishPod.com. Pay attention to the 4th line of the dialog (about 1:25 into the lesson). The man says “Ah, claro. Porqué aquí son ocho horas más.” but what it sounds like is “Ah, claro. Porquéqui son ochoras más.” This takes some getting used to, and I admit I’m still not good at differentiating each word when it all runs together, but I’m getting better. Practice, practice, practice.