I have a frustrating problem with listening which persists despite a lot of practice.
Most people tell students of English to listen to English as much as possible, and then the listening will improve. However, it is not the case for me. I have spent really a lot of time watching English TV shows (with and without subtitles), radio and everything which allows me to listen to English profusely. However, for years, my listening ability seems to have plateaued and remains inadequate. It has become frustrating.
When I talk to people in person, generally I can communicate with them pretty well although I still cannot catch everything they say. However, it is especially hard for me to understand English TV series.
All other aspects of my English have reached satisfactory levels of proficiency, but I can't say the same about my listening.
Has anyone had similar experiences? If yes, how did you overcome it?
Even native speakers do not understand every single word that is spoken on tv. Sometimes we just figure out what they said from context and sometimes we don't have any idea what they said. The actors sometimes do not enunciate their words very clearly. If you understand almost all of what is said, this is probably as good as you can expect. Also, it could be that it is difficult to guess what they said because they are using current slang or an idiom. I don't know if this helps, but I think sometimes English language learners think that a native speaker would understand 100%.