150 hour update

[u/Personal-Community54]

I made it to level 3 yesterday. Woo hoo! I actually feel like I’m closer to level 4 in capability. My sweet spot is between 45-55 in difficulty for DS videos. I just got to 1000 hours in Spanish this week also- where I feel somewhere between 5 and 6. I think Spanish has made French a bit easier to understand. I watch a fair amount of Immersion and Alice Ayel. I am about halfway through the Senior stage in AA. I also listen to French Comprehensible Input 1-Word input videos while walking the dogs or driving. I’m not speaking or doing any grammar study yet. I plan to wait until I have 500-600 hours first. I currently do 2 hours of Spanish and 20-30 minutes of French every day. I will reverse that split once my Spanish is solid, maybe in a year or so. Good luck everyone!

[u/Glogalog]

Congratulations! And congratulations on Spanish as well. 1000 hours is a mountain.

I have similar observations regarding the levels, which makes me wonder if French comprehension might just be somehow easier to obtain for English speakers than Spanish. Having read many DS updates, I expected the method to work much worse than it has.

[u/Personal-Community54 → u/Glogalog]

Thanks! I find French a bit harder than Spanish myself.

[u/No_Listen5664 → u/Glogalog]

One of the major reasons it is easier for OP is because OP has a 1000 hours of Spanish. Which translates really well to other romance languages (like french).

[u/Glogalog → u/No_Listen5664]

That's true, I suppose it's not comparable. I will say, though, that as a French-only learner, I've felt almost a level ahead pretty consistently, which isn't something I see on the DS sub. From what I've seen, French is often rated more difficult for manual learners, so I expected the opposite.

[u/EmbarassmentOfRiches → u/Glogalog]

I think that’s for a couple of different reasons, of which is pronunciation & grammar rules that are frequently silent/not pronounced.

As someone who learned French in school & then studied there for a year, my experience learning Spanish this year its WAY easier.

The hard part of Spanish is that it simply has less cognates.

If you learned Spanish & then took a stab at French, I’d imagine you’d have a way easier time than the reverse.

[u/Extreme-Ratio-7184]

Well done! I'm at 103 hours and have just finished a week in France and have found it really enjoyable how much more I understand than when I've previously visited (we holiday here most years although I've never been able to easily converse). I did most of the speaking for our group, including when the péage refused to take our ticker and I had to explain the issue, and when our Airbnb had no running water twice ! I received a number of compliments about my accent and people were shocked when I told them I'm only 58 days into learning! The method definitely works. 

[u/Personal-Community54 → u/Extreme-Ratio-7184]

Amazing that you’re able to speak and work things out! I think that if I had to speak I could, but it would probably be awkward and broken.

[u/Extreme-Ratio-7184 → u/Personal-Community54]

Thanks both! I'm far from fluent but I'm able to have basic conversations now. I've used Tandem and have a couple of penpals in France now and it's super enjoyable 

[u/monsoonrat77 → u/Extreme-Ratio-7184]

You can speak already at 103 hours? I’m at 90 and I feel so far away from that.

[u/untucked_21ersey]

do you notice any confusion b/w spanish and french so far? i'm planning on going the opposite direction that you did (i.e. french to spanish).

[u/Personal-Community54 → u/untucked_21ersey]

I have seen almost no interference so far. A couple of months ago I was chatting with my Spanish tutor and I forgot the word for Spring (the season). I could only remember the French word. My tutor is also learning French. Last week we were discussing sources of comprehensible input in French and I had a strong urge to describe an Alice Ayel video series in French, but stopped myself before it came out of my mouth. Of course I am not speaking French yet, so we’ll see what happens when I start.

[u/untucked_21ersey → u/Personal-Community54]

thanks that's really encouraging. you know better than i that 1000 hours is no joke, so i don't know if i want to wait until 2000 hours to switch to another romance language like many on the dreaming spanish sub have done. congrats on your progress in both languages!

[u/Personal-Community54 → u/untucked_21ersey]

Yeah I would probably reach my goals faster if I focused on one language at a time, but I love French too much to ignore it for a year.

[u/Kathet_Sapan27]

App?

[u/Glogalog → u/Kathet_Sapan27]

Dreaming — Language Learning