Men listen to women all the time without understanding a word they say.

It is good at a certain stage, it will help you pick up the accent and revise some words and phrases you already know. You said you could understand some phrases ,so that is already kind of a practice. It is of course more beneficial, if you could use audiobooks to listen and at the same time be able to read the spoken text,using both the visual and audio resources simultaneously helps you memorize the vocabulary and phrases more efficiently.

This is a good site for listening to English http://www.audioenglish.net/ Watch free movies with subtitles see: www.itv.com and www.free-tv-video-online.info/ and you can also Watch CNN News online for free Various TV channels for free: www.tvchannelsfree.com Free online translation service: http://free-translator.imtranslator.net/ You can also watch The Daily English Show here: http://a4esl.org/tdes/ Listen to speeches on line about a variety of current issues at: www.ted.com

ABC National has good clear pronunciation but you may have to get used to the Australian accent which is different from the British and American accents.

Indeed, you will learn the pronunciation and usage. Meanwhile you should increase your vocabulary. Slowly you will get to understand the meaning of sentences and the way natives put words together to make a sentence. Another good way is to watch movies/dramas with your native subtitles and catch phrases from them. By the way ABC is a great radio station. You will learn heaps of things from it’s talk shows.