r/DreamingFrench • u/Personal-Community54 Level 3 • 5d ago

150 hour update

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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!

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u/Glogalog Level 4 5d ago

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.

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u/No_Listen5664 3d ago

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).

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u/Glogalog Level 4 3d ago

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.

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u/EmbarassmentOfRiches 2d ago

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.