How can I listen to more Cuban Spanish content?

October 24, 2016 9:03 AM

I would like to relatively quickly train my ear to understand spoken Spanish better, especially Cuban Spanish. I'm a little past the "News in Slow Spanish" phase of language learning. Are there any podcasts, audiobooks, radio shows, movies produced by Cubans or Cuban emigres that I can listen to? Ideally, with subtitles or a written transcription that I can follow along with?

I've been taking Spanish lessons for years, including several months of immersion classes in Mexico and the DR. So my grammar and reading skills are pretty good, and my speaking not bad either. But I have always had trouble with listening comprehension and I want to improve that as quickly as possible.

I just returned from a trip to Havana (fantastic!) and I'll be going again in the coming months for my dissertation work. I realized when I was there, though, that I am especially terrible at understanding spoken Spanish in Cuba. I want to improve that in the next few months, and I figured the best way to do so was to greatly increase the amount of Cuban-produced audio content I'm consuming.

Like it says above the fold, can folks recommend any Spanish-language content produced by Cubans? If those have subtitles (English or, even better, Spanish) or transcriptions all the better.

I'm certainly open to listening to more Cuban music and to doing conversation exchange, but I don't think either would enable me to expose myself to the kind of volume of content that I need to improve quickly. I've also looked at the previouslies here and here but neither focus on spoken Cuban Spanish in particular.

posted by LeeLanded to Education (4 answers total)

Best answer: I'm a near-native speaker of Spanish and I have people in Cuba speak to me in English because I can't understand them half the time. Part of is definitely the unfamiliar accent, but part of is also that they speak VERY fast. So in addition to whatever Cuban content you can find, I would consider consuming any non-Cuban spanish you're listening to at higher speed, just to get your brain used to processing your audio input faster. Actual cuban is definitely best, but if you're listening to non-Cuban podcasts in Spanish, put the speed up to 1.5.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:21 AM on October 24, 2016

Best answer: This might not be exactly what you're looking for, but you might still enjoy watching a few episodes of Qué PASA, USA, an '80s PBS sitcom about a Cuban-American family. The show is bilingual and several of the characters code switch between English and Spanish, others only speak one language or the other. It's very particular to the Cuban-American experience but you might find it interesting and it really is entertaining. Looks like PBS has episodes you can watch for free online.
posted by Pfardentrott at 11:16 AM on October 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I'm a native spanish speaker (México) and I don't even understand Cubans sometimes, so from that perspective, it's not you, it's them. Something about the speed and rhythm in Cuban speak is kinda difficult even for other spanish speakers. I don't know about specific podcasts or shows but it occurs to me that there's a lot you can see on Youtube. Spanish interviews with Celia Cruz and other Cuban artists come to mind.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 12:45 PM on October 24, 2016

Best answer: There are a few adios stations that cater to local Miami spanish speakers. There is a list here. But you could Google that.

So let me suggest two in particular.

WQBA is very well known but is moving away from Cubanisimo, http://www.univision.com/miami/wqba-am

La Poderosa is real-deal Cuban oriented and many (most?) of the host speak in a Cuban cadence: https://www.lapoderosa.com/
posted by oddman at 6:10 PM on October 24, 2016