One think I am noticing in my listening comprehension is that I am slowly understanding phrases, not just individual words. And, as has been happening, I've noticed certain things in English as well. For example, earlier I heard someone say "He said something," in English, but his pronunciation was like this: "H- s- something." In other words, the first two words were reduced to just their initial sounds. Yet I understand what he was saying. When listening to Portuguese, I'll get stressed for a moment when I hear a rapid series of short sounds that I can't understand. But I'm seeing that part of being able to understand such series of short, common words is hearing the entire phrase, the context, enough times to be able to deduce what the meaning is, without having to hear each word enunciated. Context and comprehension sort of feed back on each other; the more context I can understand, the more sounds I can comprehend, and the more sounds I can comprehend, the more context I can get. And it keeps going like that.