Learning to hear German

I'm trying different strategies to improve my German listening skills. I tried recording myself read a passage and then listen back and write down what I said. Interestingly most of it was easy to pick up, but I could only capture a few words at a time; up to three, and I would have to stop and rewind and re-check.

What I stuggle with is und, I keep hearing it as un. I keep leaving the r off of einer. And three words I struggled with were bewaldete, frütterte and wechselte. Even hearing multiple times I came up with wiewoltete, vertote and wuchselte. Funny I should mistake "b" for a "w", but understandable for thinking an "f" was a "v".

Then I tried recording a short vocab list and tried writing down the english. Interestingly I struggled writing the english unless I'd written the german down first for certain words.

My word I'm a world a way from hearing german and then translating it on the fly!

Location:UK