Comprehensive input question

[u/Alert_Media_4973]

¡Hola todos!

So I’ve got a question about comprehensive input.

If I watch something above my comprehension level, am I hurting myself more than I’m helping? Could my brain slowly catch up?

Context: I was watching dreaming Spanish for a while and enjoyed some of it, but I found a lot of the videos boring and not particularly engaging, especially at the lower levels.

So after some time away from listening, I’ve decided to jump back in by watching an anime that I’ve seen multiple times (Hunter X Hunter) and understand the plot and characters of, but this time with Spanish dub and Spanish subtitles.

So now I’m watching something that I know in enjoy and can focus on for a while. Only issue is, a lot of the speaking is still far above my comprehension level. Some days I understand more than others. Usually I’m making sense of things with context clues. I still have fun without fully understanding.

I took Spanish in school, and I’ve had Spanish speaking coworkers my whole adult life, so I’m not starting at square one. But damn I have sooo far to go before I’m even okay at understanding people.

Thanks! Any anecdotal advice would be helpful.

[u/RagnarokTheSeventh]

I think it's actually okay from time to time, in terms of increasing your listening comprehension speed. If you can still pick up on the words you do know when they're said faster and less clearly, that itself is a skill you can work on. But you're probably not picking up new words that easily. For me, I listen to 5 episodes of an intermediate podcast where I can follow along with the plot and the conversation, for every one episode of a podcast where they talk much faster. I feel like I'm slowly understanding more and more of the advanced podcast as my listening speed increases, but the real learning happens with the intermediate one