I hear you – I often feel like a deer in the headlights when people are speaking quickly!
Have you tried the Shorties yet? I like playing through the audio multiple times because even if I don’t understand most of it, I might be able to pick out 1 or 2 more words than I did the time before. This mimics my experience trying to understand Portuguese in real life – I usually don’t actually know what someone just said, but if I can pick out even a couple words, I might be able to guess the meaning from context.
I also noticed recently that you can change the speed on the audio to 0.5x or 0.8x. The 0.8x still sounds pretty natural, but slows it down just enough sometimes.
I did not know you could change the speed of the vocals. No one told me that before, so I will look and see if I can do that. The only “shorties” I really liked was the one on the chocolate convention where the mother asked her son to speak “slower.” It was the easiest to understand.
As for listening many times, it IS possible to pick out a few words.
It is also worth noting that guys who want to learn to surf, do not start out on “ondas grandes,” but rather on “ondas simples.” Without learning “balance,” trying to compete with the experts is a losing proposition!
Obrigada, Molly! I did find the button for speeding up and slowing down the speech on the “shorties.” I did not try the speeded up ones, but tried the slower. The half-speed is too weird sounding, but the .8 seems good enough.
1 Eu proprio …
2…nos preposta
3. Calma calma eu decide nada pensar
4. Pois … näo sei estou ensino realemente
5. Tenho Bom Dia senior Joel prazer conhece
The correct answers were posted higher up by Joel. Here they are, in case you missed them: