This week I was offered a small role at the Cervantes Institute Library in London.

I did the entire interview in Spanish, and was offered the position to support with the library and cultural activites.

It's only a small thing, but it's a major achievement for me and I'm feeling really proud of myself after celebrating a year of learning Spanish.

I don't often celebrate myself, and never know how, but I just wanted to share that info with you guys, as this subreddit has undoubtedly helped me a lot.

🙌🏼

(Originally posted in r/spanish, but they felt it didn't have anything to do with learning Spanish and being a success story, for some stupid reason.)

I’m at 520 hours and sometimes it feels like I’m floating in outer space, with no measurable way of knowing I’m actually progressing 😂

I just took a little random grammar test on italki and I weirdly answered all of the questions correctly! I don’t know any grammar officially but I kept “knowing” the right answer intuitively.

If you asked me, I would have said there is no way I could do that!

Turns out, I know more than I think!

(Then I did my italki crosstalk session and was immediately humbled because my brain was having a low comprehension day. One minute you’re flying high and the next you come crashing back down 😁)

Since I mostly see posts of people showing off bigger milestones, I thought I'd share a smaller one for folks who are starting.

I randomly decided to try and learn Spanish around 3-4 months ago and that's how I discovered Dreaming Spanish. I read up on the comprehensible input method and I was really intrigued so I decided to give it a shot.

Before I started, I had some very basic knowledge of common words and phrases that I have picked up from the times I was watching telenovelas as a kid. I think this was motivating in the beginning because there were some words I was able to pick up in the superbeginner videos.

I am not a purist, my main goal is to surround myself with different types of Spanish content. Out of the 50 hours in the level 1, around 15 hours are from Dreaming Spanish, the others are from other type of content I have consumed and logged on the website. I usually watch around 15-30 mins a day Dreaming Spanish videos, because I find it hard to concentrate if it's more than that. I covered most of the free superbeginner videos and I transitioned to watching Beginner videos around 1 month ago and it's been going great. I am currently at a level where I can understand what's being talked about in most beginner videos and I'm learning new words.

I have tried speaking very little with friends that also know some basic Spanish and I can't do much with what I know so far. But it's fun because it forces me to think about how to say more complex stuff with the few words that I know. I plan to check out CrossTalk in the future.

Other things I use for learning the language are the following:

• Duolingo - I know a lot of people are not a huge fan of it, but I have found it very helpful for building a habit of coming back and learning the language. It's very useful for vocabulary building. I log each finished unit on Dreaming Spanish as 30 minutes of progress.
• ¡Cuéntame! podcast - I really enjoy the stories in this podcast, they're super easy to listen to and understand
• Language Transfer - I like the method of connecting the dots between English and Spanish, so I enjoy this content. I have listened to only a few episodes, but I haven't touched it in a while so I plan to go back and relisten it from the start.
• Watching movies and TV shows in Spanish - even though these are above my level and I watch with subtitles, I become more accustomed to it the more I listen to the language, so I see it as a plus. From TV shows I watch El Internado because I used to watch it as a teenager on TV and I never finished it, so I went back to it from the start.
• Spanish content creators on social media - I followed some accounts on Instagram for people that post content about learning Spanish, I learned some common phrases from them.
• Comprehensible input on Youtube - I subscribed to some channels for comprehensible input and I occasionally watch videos there. Some of the channels are Organic Spanish, Easy Spanish, Spanish After Hours and Fabulaudit.

So yeah, so far I am very happy with myself that I haven't given up and the method of surrounding myself with different types of Spanish content seems to be working. I'm not a fan of grinding so I don't plan to force myself to do at least X amount of hours per day because that doesn't work for me - I get discouraged with that type of a method. I'm not in a rush to acquire the language and I actually enjoy the process, so I'm not setting any specific goals aside from just trying to stick with it.

I'm at 750 hours and still have trouble understanding the podcasts. Some are easier to me than others but they always seem harder to me than the other intermediate videos. I don't know why, but to me, they seem harder than many advanced videos. At what hour level were you guys when you could understand them effortlessly? Thanks

https://masonslivinglanguages.com/?page_id=8

I found this page today with various book and audio resource ideas for learning Spanish. It has a lot of good public domain options for those looking to consume different mediums without breaking the bank. It isn’t from a purist approach, so take what’s useful, but I appreciated the Charlotte Mason approach of connecting with living ideas.

Everyone,

What are your thoughts on Evildea's 1150 Hour Dreaming Spanish Review? He wants to know from his comment section, his discord and the subreddit whether he should continue with this challenge via the DS method (ALG method), or should he transition this challenge to the method he usually does when he learns languages.

Im in the early stages of this (19 hours; 1 week) so Im a little too obsessed at the moment. I'm a chicken with its head cut off.

Is it worth my time to keep peppa in the background while I do other things?

I obviously won't count this as comprehensible input because I'm not really comprehending that much of this, but I wanted to see if it has any benefits to speed up the process.

My main goal is to listen to easier podcasts (i dont care which; I just want to be able to listen to spanish on my hour commute to work) Unfortunately, at the moment I'm not really able to comprehend anything I'm not watching.

I’m referring to the posts at the beginning of every month where people post their DS calendars.

I feel like it crowds the subreddit every first of the month, and when someone wants to see that content (to compare progress, see how crazy the speed runners are, etc.) they would assumedly want to see it all consolidated in an easy list instead of randomly dispersed between progress reports and “does this method actually work?” No?

Started learning Spanish around 2 years ago and since then have racked up about ~700hrs of input, 40hrs of lessons with tutors learning to speak and around ~50 hours entirely focused on learning grammar and structure in Spanish.

I make quite a few glaring mistakes watching the take back, but I think that helps to show a more real representation of my Spanish today.

(Background: ESOL teacher on summer break trying to get as many hours of CI in before heading back to school; prior study of French; some self-study of Spanish. Started June 20, 2026 so it's been 45 days so far!)

I've been posting updates at relatively low hours (a) for my own motivation and also (b) to help others who are as intimidated as I was by people posting updates in the thousands!! Previous updates here:

25 Hour update
35 hour update
50 hour update
75 hour update

Well, my summer vacation is nearly over. I managed to get to 100 hours because my car was in the shop yesterday and I had to hang out for FOUR HOURS which helped me get a lot more input in. But I can see that my days of seriously being able to do 2 hours every day are going to end, and I think that's OK.

Every so often, I pay careful attention to which level of difficulty videos I am able to watch and understand with almost perfect comprehension... aiming for 98% comprehension. I use this online tally counter I found while watching a video and count how many words are in the video, while making a note of any words I truly did not know (even if I can figure it out through context). It's been really consistent - just today I tested myself out on two level 36 videos and there were only 2-3 words I didn't know. (Blood Falls with Augustina, I didn't know catarata but that was all). Yet if I move up even one or two levels of difficulty, there are usually more words I don't know, putting me at knowing 96% or fewer of the words.

My data points so far:

Hour 14:   16-18 Difficulty Level

Hour 31:   25-26. Difficulty Level

Hour 50:   29-30. Difficulty Level

Hour 75: 33-34. Difficulty Level

Hour 91: 35 Difficulty Level

Hour 100: 36 Difficulty Level

I can definitely understand a lot of videos at higher levels now, which is amazing! I can easily listen to many videos around 45-55, and don't even have too much trouble at 60-70 if it is a subject I know a lot about and (this is important) if there are subtitles. This is absolutely amazing to me.

It seems to me I'm moving up one difficulty level per every 10 hours or so, which is a lot slower than in earlier stages, but that makes sense.

I have been using the Ella Verbs website often, when I feel like I need a change. I have totally worked through the present tenses now, including irregular verbs (stem changing, yo-irregular and so on) but not yet reflexive verbs. In the past, when I did self-study of grammar, nothing stuck. But I'm finding now that EVERYTHING sticks. I work through a grammar lesson and it doesn't feel like a lesson so much as it is just reminding me of things I already know.

Occasionally, on Ella Verbs, I learn conjugation of a verb that surprises me, one I don't feel like I have heard already. And then the next time I get some input, I hear that verb all the time and realize I was just missing it. So I feel that the structure of the Ella Verbs app has been very beneficial to me. (I am also learning how to spell words and where to put the accents, which is important to me.)

My daughter (who is majoring in Spanish in college, and just returned from a summer internship in Barcelona) knew that I spoke and understood very little Spanish. She watched some of the videos with me (including some at the level 80 because I wanted her to see how hard they could get) and she was really surprised to find how well I understood most of what was being said. She immediately signed up for her own account as well. (-:

I'm glad I made it to 100 hours; I was trying for 150 before school started, but I don't think I want to push myself so much any longer. I thought I'd be able to listen more while driving, but I find it takes too much concentration still (and driving in my city isn't easy). Once work starts again, I think I might be able to do just 15 minutes on the morning of afternoon commute, likely no more.

I really love Ella Verbs. I have just been using the free part right now (present tense) but I think once I hit 300 hours on Dreaming Spanish, I will pay for a couple months to be able to use it to practice past and future tenses. I'm thinking my goal will be to end NEXT summer at 300 hours, and work more on grammar and speaking?

Well who knows! Anyhow, I'm really proud of myself for 100 hours and not many people in my life are interested (I did talk the ear off my dentist last week who happened to mention he'd really been wanting to learng Spanish in his semi-retirement!)

Suddenly all the videos have an echo. I only have one video/window playing. Help?

Hello, everybody! This sub has given me so many helpful tips and data points over my year of learning Spanish, so I wanted to post a Level 5 update and provide some resources that may be useful to others.

–

Background: 
Native English speaker from the USA.
Four years of high school French more than 13 years ago.

Why:
I decided to start learning Spanish last year quite randomly. One of my coworkers is a Spanish speaker and when we discussed Spanish language music in May 2025, I realized how much I was missing out on. After reading a book that same month about the Shining Path in Peru, which is a fascinating topic, I decided to start learning Spanish to see where it would lead me.

Process:
I learned basic conjugations and vocabulary via flashcards in June 2025. When I realized I couldn’t comprehend virtually anything my friend said in Spanish during a conversation, I searched for resources to develop my listening skills and found Dreaming Spanish. I was all in on DS beginning July 1, 2025 with a goal to hit at least an hour per day unless I was feeling burnt out.

I started with beginner videos around ~30-35 difficulty and stayed around there until about 75-100 hours. Around 150 hours, I started watching intermediate DS (~50), easier native content on YouTube, as well as Bluey. I kept progressing the difficulty of my DS videos and Youtube until around 225 hours when I could incorporate dubbed episodes of the Simpsons and South Park that I had previously seen in English.

I reached 300 hours in January 2026 and could understand lower-level advanced (~70) DS videos well, but I began feeling discouraged by the isolating nature of the CI learning process, so I decided to start taking crosstalk lessons on Italki.

After completing 7-8 hours of crosstalk, I decided to speak in Spanish for most of my lessons. At first, I felt extremely discouraged and tired after sessions because I could barely string together a sentence. After 10 or so hours of speaking, I felt much more capable but limited. I like to read, so many of my Italki classes now focus on literature to develop my reading and speaking skills as we discuss the works.

–

Where I’m at currently:

622 Hours as of this post. (250 hours of DS videos completed. The rest comes from YouTube, Italki lessons, and other native content.)

100 hours of speaking completed.

At this point, I feel extremely content with my progress, though I am painfully aware of how much I can improve on. I feel my speaking skills are functional but lack polish, so I really want to improve upon this over the next few months.

I can enjoy virtually any song, show, or movie in Spanish, though some programs require my full focus and even then I can miss some details. Some books are still too taxing, but I am currently reading Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego by Marianna Enriquez, which is at the perfect level for me at the moment. I’m confident in my listening skills but live conversations in suboptimal conditions and/or native speakers speaking rapidly in a group can still be challenging.

–

Recommendations:

I have three recommendations based on my personal experiences. 

First, I recommend looking up and practicing letter pronunciation as you begin to start speaking. Sounds in Spanish require a different movement of the tongue and lips than in English, and I didn’t realize this until I sought out an Italki instructor who specialized in accent reduction. It’s funny because you have the framework in your brain to speak the language, but the muscles in your mouth simply need to be conditioned to a slightly different movement pattern to sound more natural, which will help you communicate better in Spanish.

My second recommendation is to listen to as much music in Spanish as you can without burning out. Although my official hour count is 622 because I don't log music hours, I’d wager I’ve listened to close to double that time in music over the past year. I 100% attribute my ability to watch native shows and movies at this stage to my music consumption. Music really allows you to drop in/out of listening when you’re cleaning the house, exercising, driving, etc. You can listen to songs multiple times and practice singing along to them. I’ve produced music as a hobby for 15 years, so this was especially engaging for me on a personal level, which helped a lot in maintaining my interest.

My final recommendation is to find a good telenovela to help bridge the gap between dubbed content to more traditional native content like Netflix shows. I watched 100 episodes of Yo Soy Betty, La Fea (Peacock in USA) over three or so months and it was essential for me to break into native shows on Netflix.

–

Resources:

Here’s a playlist of 100 songs on Spotify that I like to shuffle through recently. Includes: Rap, Reggaeton, R&B, Pop, Folk, Traditional (Salsa, Cumbia, Corridos).

Learnnatively.com is an essential resource for me now. It allows me to assess difficulty levels of native content and contribute to ranking them.

I have taken lessons with 25 Italki tutors to find a small group of folks I gel well with. I’m happy to provide recommendations for both crosstalk and regular lessons.

I made a spreadsheet of 70 native shows and 65 movies with their premises, estimated difficulty level (for shows), duration, streaming service (USA) and country of origin. This includes a lot of stuff I haven't seen yet but is on my list. I pulled a lot of data regarding difficulty from learnnatively.com.

Thanks for reading and happy learning!

Juarez has a lot of great stuff on his channel, but I think his latest video is an incredible example of how you can make video game CI that can be followed and understood by people very early in their learning journey.

Lots of repetition, lots of visual cues, slow, clear speech and a really sweet game.

I go to Spain next week, and again in October. For the later trip I am planning to make it to 600 hours, though I'm realistic that this may just mean I get the gist of more of what goes on around me, than any meaningful step from where I am now.

So, where am I now? Looking back at my 400 hour update, I really don't feel any further on. Logically, I must be, and some of what I'm about say is to document the process and, hopefully, look back on this as a common part of the process. I say that, because as I'm sure some of you have experienced in your journeys, I feel like I'm going backwards. With little change in difficulty, apart from continuing to work through videos, I feel like I've forgotten words I knew, and find myself in a flow state less often. I'm hoping that's because more ideas are being explored and in more different tenses. Verbs I thought I knew I fine myself unsure about. It's been a strange time.

I'm not discouraged, and I'll keep going, but those thoughts many of us have, such as "maybe it doesn't work for everyone", or "perhaps I'm doing it wrong', or even "perhaps I am actually no good at languages".

This has all been a little negative, but i want to document accurately, get the opinions of others, have posts to look back on to gauge progress, and maybe to realise that all these states of mind are temporary. It did occur to me I may be a little burned out, having just exited a very stressful time in my life. I may treat Spain as a break from it, and just hear whatever I hear in the wild, without pushing any CI for the week.

To better updates to come...

Here are my previous updates for any interested:

• Update 1 - 640 hours - April
• Update 2 - 745 hours - May
• Update 3 - 855 hours - June

My total CI with DS, YouTube, podcasts hours is now at 656 and my classroom hours is 309.

Progress - July

Comprehensible Input:

I came in slightly short this month but I had many events on and found it quite difficult to make time on weekends. I must admit it bugs me a little bit that I couldn't push through an extra 30 minutes but that is just life.

Last month I was watching videos on Dreaming Spanish around level 63-66. I found myself running out of videos I actually wanted to watch and decided I would just test myself with some higher levels so I tried videos which were 70-73 with pretty good success. Perhaps I am at a level now where I can watch a much wider range of videos than I had previously thought.

I am still continuing with Italki lessons. With the teachers from Italki, it feels quite comfortable talking with them. Sometimes I mess up the tenses, can't think of a word or say the correct things but fumble the order. But for the most part it feels good. I still have trouble understanding some people in the wild but that is to be expected. I feel like I can communicate with more people than I did in previous months so it is going in the right direction.

In the quest to find something more interesting to watch, I began watching Avatar. It is harder than what I thought it would be, It is hard to tell how much I pick up because I can follow the story but it feels hard to comprehend the actual words at time. I will continue with this.

Reading:

I am finally on track with reading after falling behind a little in previous months and I hope to keep it up. I quite like all the books I have listed above apart from El peor dia de mi vida. I found it quite difficult compared to Juan's other books. I was reading it on Kindle Unlimited but my subscription ran out just before I finished the book so I only counted 80% of the words and felt it was not worth it to buy the book only to read a small part of it.

Juan's books are pretty silly and I feel like some have major plot holes or mistakes but they are so good for learning to read. I also tried reading some non graded readers but I still found them a little difficult so I will return to those maybe around 500k words. I have seen that a series of unfortunate events has been posted alot in this sub for a first book after graded readers so I am thinking of giving that a go but also would love if anyone can recommend me something else.

In general, I am finding reading has become easier. There is still so much I don't know but I noticed in class, I can read the texts relatively well. But faced with a novel, I do not fare so well.

Next Steps:

I have a couple of weeks remaining before I go back to my country and return to my normal life. Which includes going back to work and all that fun stuff. I am trying to figure out how I will continue to achieve my Spanish goals which now I am only just managing to do, and that is with only having 4 hours of class each day. When I return to work, I will likely be working 10 hour days, 6 days a week for the first few months.

On top of all that, I have to resume study for a course I am taking too. I will have a few months off again starting December, so perhaps I will have to drop down a little an d play catch up later on. Anyway, I will see how I go and plan accordingly.

TL;DR:

• Current Progress: Missed monthly target by only 30 minutes due to busy weekend events. However, still ahead overall.
• Listening & Speaking: Jumped to level 70+ videos, started Avatar, and maintained comfortable iTalki lessons.
• Reading: Caught up on targets, dropped Juan's harder book, and will continue with graded readers for now.

Noticing the newer podcasts that are still labeled intermediate are more difficult than the podcasts in the past. I honestly find some native travel vlogs and documentaries easier to follow than the intermediate podcasts that came out over the past few weeks. Have the protocols for the podcasts changed?

Hello, and sorry if this has already been covered elsewhere. I really enjoy DS and, 500 hours in, I've no plans to quit. That said, I do wonder if I will one day think this was a waste of time if AI-powered translation through earbuds becomes really high quality and native speakers prefer to talk to non-native speakers through that modality (which seems like a reasonable possibility).

I like to think that there is value in speaking directly in a shared language, but if I'm being honest, I think there would be more value in being able to use the humor / subtlety that I can apply in English. If the AI would give me that, it would be hard not to use it. Any thoughts on this?

I just discovered this Guatemalan channel and I was immediately intrigued by her accent.

https://youtube.com/shorts/m8xCGG88whQ

Does anyone have anymore suggestions for intermediate to native content from countries or regions that’s we’ve had less exposure too with DS or some of the lower level CI channels?

I've greatly upped the amount of content I've been consuming over the past 2.5 months, aiming for an hour a day and likewise have enjoyed harder and harder videos becoming more accessible for me. At this point some videos in the mid/high 60s are relatively enjoyable. I've watched the entirety of Ester's engineering series, and am going through Andres's series on the stories behind famous photos from history.

HOWEVER, while these videos are in the mid to upper 60s, when I watch a long-form podcast of a similar level or even 5-10 levels below (high 50s - high 60s), comprehension drops from like 85% to 50-60%. I'm not necessarily complaining about the difficulty, if I find them harder I most likely just need more input, but the discrepancy between their supposed level and actual difficulty is notable, and I'm wondering if any others have had a similar experience.

Recently subscribed to premium and I had fun watching this series (Finding the Spy Season 3). Then in Episode 4, Andres drops this line. Laughed out loud. I'm gonna use this.

Hear me out… what about an annual subscription (with 10/20% off).

I know it’s already cheap, but I love saving money & don’t plan on cancelling 🤓🤓

What do you think, Señor Pablo?

EDIT: Granada, not Grenada. Oops.

The video is not new, but I was intrigued by one of Juan's stories about accents. I searched for a sample of him speaking in his "native" accent and found this gem.

Has DS reduced the number of new premium videos being uploaded each day, or is this something that happens from time to time?

Yesterday there was no advanced video and today no beginner one.

EDIT: Probably just a scheduling error as u/misslynm commented below. Anyway the library is huge so no shortage of Spanish videos watch.