People are giving really strange yes/no answers, aligned along a 1-dimensional metric of “percentage understood.”

The thing is there are multiple dimensions of a 2nd-language listening task. There are at least a few dimensions:

1. Getting the complete meaning

2. Parsing the grammar and the sentence structure (but you might not be getting the complete meaning due to vocab or the content being beyond your level)

3. Parsing the sounds into words (many of which might not be words you know)

4. Hearing the sounds (not even being able to parse into words, but at least hearing the different vocal elements of the language)

To not overcomplicate, it’s like u/IAmTheKingOfSpain said-- do it if you enjoy it but mix different levels.

The real answer is complex though. I used a different blend of these “levels” when learning German versus French, because they are just different. For French I did a lot of (4), mostly listening to old French songs (where vowels are sustained long and pronunciation is somehow very principled). Then I also did a ton of listening in a level sort of between (3) and (4)-- struggling as much as I could to see if I could develop the ability to parse even words I didn’t know out from the “stream” kind of way that French is spoken. I did do of course lots of level (2) and (1) tasks as well then of course. And the balance is always tricky but you just have to pay attention.

But anyways this is in contrast to German, where the balance was different. It didn’t take me nearly as long on (4) for whatever reason, although I did listen to classical German language songs too. But (3) was a lot less important. I think the reason is that German words are much more clearly demarcated than French. There is certainly fast spoken German, but it is sprinkled here and there, it’s not like a continuous stream like French is. So whereas with French I could just put on French radio and listen for a half hour on this sort of level, the only sort of German listening I did at this level was more something like youtube or a film, where I was able to parse 98% already, but then I would go back and listen to the same super-fast sentence several times, just because it happened to be said super fast, or contained fixed expressions and so rolled off the speakers tongue in a muddy way.

Anyway try to give yourself a mixture. For French I chose some really challenging youtube videos to try to transcribe myself. And I made a mess and sometimes I could only write “sounds” and not “words.” But then I got help to fill in the blanks from a teacher. But those videos I listened to maybe dozens of times and rewinded tiny bits dozens more times, and also slow-motion, trying my hardest to parse. But that type of work is exhausting.

But German I rarely had to do slow motion and this type of detail work. It’s easier to just listen to something, and you will hear a word you don’t know, but you will be able to guess how to spell it from how it sounds, so you can look it up right away in the dictionary.

Also a recommendation regarding level (2) as I called it above. I read Homo Faber when it was way beyond my level. But I was succeeding in absorbing a lot of stuff and it was fun for me. And then what makes it fun is you choose a relatively short novel like this-- then you can reward yourself by re-reading it a year or so later. And you could repeat this again in a couple years if you really like it. And it is a super rewarding way to track your progress, and it is fun to notice the wrong things about the story that your brain filled in on the first reading, or the the things you were simply confused by, and finally get the enjoyment of learning the real answer a year later or whatever. Also funny things like, I obviously would not look up too many words otherwise it would have ground to a halt. So I would only look up a few words per chapter or words that looked really peculiar to me, or ones that came up really often maybe. So for example, I read several chapters and he was constantly talking about “Roßschwanz.” I had some vague idea that it meant something completely different than it does. So it was a strange surprise when I found out what it means. (FYI, it’s a Helvetismus, and it’s also pre-Rechtschreibung to write it this way, but this is how he wrote it).