Hablespanolporfavor

It seems to me that spoken Italian is easier to understand than Spanish, but Spanish is easier to speak.  That's probably an over-generalization and true only in certain respects, but there is some evidence that it's at least partially true. 

I find that when I using my Pimsleur recordings for Spanish, I sail right along, with very few words and phrasing presenting a lot of difficulty in pronunciation or articulation.  As soon as I switch to Italian, though, I'm faced with being asked to say things like "Would you like to drink something?" (Lei vorrebbe bere qualcosa?).  Getting that 'vorrebbe bere' out is difficult for me and makes for a real mouthful of quickly spoken Italian.  So many b's and e's.  Though the Castillian Spanish 'c,' as I've stated in previous posts, does present some difficulty for English speakers, it seems to me that for the most part Italian words are longer and contain a lot of tongue-twisting sounds.  But oddly, on the other hand, when I watch a TV show or movie in Italian, I find that even though I my Italian vocabulary at this point is probably about half of my Spanish one, I can understand so much more of the spoken Italian. 

The problem is that to me Spanish spoken a a normal pace seems faster than Italian because Spanish requires so much more elision and running together of words.  Also, often d's and v's and b's are sort of slurred over which makes them hard to hear.  Thus it's sometimes difficult to tell when one word ends and another has begun.  In Italian, though there are some contractions and elisions, quest'anno for example, it seems to me that for the most part in Italian every letter is distinctly pronounced and there is a tiny pause in between words.  This makes such a tremendous difference.  Even though my grammar and vocabulary are more advanced in Spanish, often when I listen to long period of spoken Spanish, I comprehend practically nothing. 

This is a huge problem, since one of the main reason I'm studying these languages is to be able to watch TV show and movies and to understand the lyrics of songs.  Also, even if I learn to speak either of these languages fluently, it's not going to do much good if I can't understand what my speaking partner is saying to me.  I suppose the solution is to concentrate on listening when I study Spanish and on speaking with Italian.  It's all a mystery to me.