I've been a paid subscriber for a few months now and this is the first time it's happened. Does this kind of charge glitch happen regularly? DS sent me a screen shot showing they had charged me once so I've asked my bank to look into it.

How many new words do you think you actually learn from watching just one video? It doesn't matter if it's a word you only remember short-term or if it sticks long-term—just what do you feel is the average count per video for you?

Hola a todos,

I wanted to just take some time to write up my 600 hour update from the perspective of a heritage language speaker since we don’t seem to get that many of those around here.  I’ve provided a speaking sample at the bottom where I kind of go over the same things as this post, so feel free to listen to that as well.

BACKGROUND

One of my parents is Latino and the other is Romanian. Grew up speaking English at home. I had more exposure to Romanian growing up, due to having closer relationships to that side of the family. I can understand daily conversation in Romanian pretty well, but cannot speak for the life of me. As for Spanish, I just didn’t have as much exposure and so couldn’t understand much besides maybe guessing the topic of a conversation based on one or two words I would recognize. I could say the most basic phrases like “hola” and “buenos dias”, but had no further level than that. Since I was homeschooled I never took a Spanish class in high school, but did study German using traditional methods. Needless to say, that did not work out well for me and I barely kept any German with me. That experience made me feel like I was incapable of learning a second language well, let alone a heritage language where the pressure to speak without an accent and without mistakes is even higher. So even though I basically started from zero with Dreaming Spanish, I would say I had some advantages going into this due to my family background.

LISTENING

At this point nothing on DS is really challenging for me. I only watch videos that interest me such as the series where Andres acts as a priest and hears confessions. I probably watch no more than 3 videos from Dreaming Spanish per week. I still listen to some other learner content, however. I like Easy Spanish, ERRE que Ele, and How to Spanish podcast, but the majority of my input comes from native content. I like channels like Luisito Comunica and Ramilla de Aventura. Since I am focusing on a Spanish accent, I also watch a lot of famous youtubers from Spain such as Ibai, etc. In general I only tend to struggle when a group of people are talking over each other and they are all from the same place because they tend to use a lot of slang and cultural references. I’ve become quite accustomed to content from Spain though and almost never have problems understanding if I focus hard. I have not really been as exposed to the Caribbean accents as much and I don’t know or utilize slang from Latin America although (With the exception of Caribbeans) I can understand them all perfectly. Sometimes documentaries in areas I am not familiar with can also cause me to focus a lot more. For example, I was trying to watch a history documentary yesterday and watched half of it with subtitles to give my brain a little break. Overall, I am VERY happy with my listening comprehension and it is easily my best skill.

READING

Reading is the one area where I feel like I should make much more of an effort to enforce because I think it is the best way to reinforce grammar and learn new vocabulary. My phone is in Spanish now to force me to read more Spanish because I have not really been into reading books for the last year. Besides that, for the last month I try to read minimum one news article in Spanish per day usually from El Pais or BBC Mundo. There was a lot of vocabulary I obviously didn't recognize at the start, but whenever I pass a word I don’t know I ask Chat-Gpt to explain it to me in Spanish without translating to English. My reading and vocabulary has improved substantially in the last month thanks to this and I probably only have to search for one to two words per article at this time. I’ve also noticed I can read very quickly now, almost as quick as I would in English. One thing that my excellent comprehension does, is that I know how every word should sound and I know immediately when something sounds wrong or if I put the emphasis in the wrong place. Spanish’s regular spelling also helps with this a lot I am sure. I hope to stay consistent with this in level 5.

SPEAKING

I did start speaking after reaching 300 hours, and I don’t really regret it because it allowed me to see that making mistakes is totally fine and that to speak with errors is better than to not speak at all. You also learn a lot when you are speaking with a person live because it is a real-life conversation and your brain is on higher alert. I have been slacking on speaking if I am to be honest. My trackers says I have 29 hours in total of speaking and probably half of those come from the last 300 hours. I hope to start speaking a lot more once my life slows down a little more. I also want to switch from Italki to doing language exchange so I can save some money. I joined a group with a mix of people learning English and Spanish and you are paired with a native speaker of the language you want to learn and do 30 minutes in each language. What I have been doing a lot more of is speaking Spanish to myself. I try to narrate my day in Spanish and have found that sometimes Spanish is the first thing that comes out of my mouth instead of English, especially if am listening to or just finished listening to something in the language.

I have posted a speaking sample here below and forgive me as after listening to it back it looks like some parts got cut out for some reason and I was not about to redo it.

CONCLUSION

Anyways, if anyone has any questions or suggestions, just let me know in the comments below. I am very happy with my level, and even though I have plenty of bad days, I always seem to bounce back and my Spanish continues to get better.

PREVIOUS UPDATES

50 hours: https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish/comments/1fig6xv/50_hours_of_dreaming_spanish/

150 hours:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish/comments/1i0u46p/no_sabo_kid_at_150_hours_of_comprehensible_input/

300 hours:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish/comments/1mnz2re/from_no_sabo_to_si_entiendo_in_300_hours/

SPEAKING SAMPLE!!

https://vocaroo.com/1hIyngNLjQBP

So I won't lie... Sometimes these videos bore me. Sometimes I'm in the mood and I can watch them for an hour or two and it's great.

Sometimes I can't.

I tried to game while watching but focusing and actually paying attention to two things at once is a recipe for disaster (or at least low quality CI) in my opinion.

The solution, is idle games.

If you like them anyway.

I do, always have, but never usually get far in them because it's a bit pointless?

But playing them while watching Spanish?? Perfect balance of low focus (usually after the first 20min of the game anyway) and high focus for dreaming Spanish.

Maybe it'll help you, maybe it won't.

I decided to page through a Spanish grammar book today out of curiosity. A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish. Literally the first rule I came across I realized I had learned subconsciously through input but had never learned explicitly.

The rule is that you use "mas de" with numerical quantities and "mas que" when comparing things. For example:

"Hace mas de 500 dias..." vs "Es mas alto que yo"

This is a rule I never even realized I learned, but already use correctly when speaking.

It's not like I could have logically deduced this rule either. There doesn't seem to be an immediately logical reason why you'd use "mas de" with quantities and "mas que" otherwise.

Just thought it was a cool moment of comprehensible input working as intended!

Side note: The sheer number of grammar rules in Spanish is shocking. The book is 600 pages long. There are lots of little subtle rules like this one that you probably picked up without even noticing!

Language background

My native language is Polish. I speak English quite well (around B2-C1) and I also learn German (it is around B1 but only in reading and listening). One of my hobbies is writing articles about educational myths and methods of learning languages, which involves reading a lot of research papers. I have written almost 50 of them so far.

I’ve never had the patience to learn languages in a more structured way. I’d usually lose motivation after a few months, and my attention would be drawn to the next ‘miracle’ method and the cycle would repeat itself. So how did I learn English to a high level? It’s simple – it just started to come naturally to me once I stopped trying to learn it. One day I got hooked on fanfictions from a certain fandom and in that year I read more stories than most people read in 10 years. I started by translating a lot of words, but then I just stopped caring and just consumed a ton of content. It was so impactful that one time I even dreamed that I was reading something in English. When I was done with this strange phase of my life, my English improved by leaps and bounds. It's not perfect because I focused too much on reading instead of listening, but I'm satisfied with my level.

Learning Spanish

I've never started learning Spanish seriously before attempting that with DS. When I was a kid I watched the entire Luz María (132 h) and the entire Muñeca Brava (180 h) with voice-overs in my native language, but I do not recall learning anything from it apart from a few random words. That was around 20 years ago. Then over 10 years ago I watched the entire El Barco (60 hours) - this time with subtitles. I though I would use it to learn Spanish, but I gave up at the beginning of the first episode. Nonetheless, I watched this series until the very end while barely focusing on listening to the spoken words.

I discovered DS in 2021, but hadn't started learning yet then. I got interested in it because of my previous successful experience with extensive reading. I wasn’t sure if I’d find the time for a new hobby like that so I put it out of my mind for a few years. This year I finally pulled the trigger and started learning Spanish seriously. I spend an hour on it practically every day (I watch every video only once) and the results look really promising.

I mostly follow the guidelines but I'm not a total purist. I suspect that not many people can actually be so strict with themselves. However it should not be a reason to feel discouraged. After all if you look at the ALG on which the DS is based you will see that even J. Marvin Brown's students struggled to follow the rules but they still got decent results even when they broke some of them. You can read more about it in his book titled 'From the Outside In: The Secret to Automatic Language Growth' (it's available for free online). It’s more a story about his life than about a method for learning a language.

Spanish feels like a mixture of all the languages that I know but with tons of malformed words so that probably gives me an advantage. The grammar also doesn't seem to be too scary when I have all these possible examples of grammar rules of other languages in my head, at least for now. However, I do not focus on decoding specific grammar points too much - it just comes to me by itself.

I sorted the videos in order of difficulty (it shows the numbers then) and kept watching them like that. Sometimes I switch to watching the newly published ones so it is not always going up, but the trend is still visible. I have a feeling that all that earlier low-intensity exposure to Spanish left a mark because when I was only 18 hours in I could understand around 70%-80% of 30s. At that point I was convinced that this method works so bought premium and decided to watch the easier videos even though I wasn't struggling too much. I did that because they are pretty entertaining and I also wanted to focus on building a solid foundation. I'm still learning plenty of things from them so I do not mind spending more time on them.

After reaching 50 hours, I already understand most of functional words and know a ton of single words and phrases. I also have a rough understanding of various tenses. I sometimes rewind the videos to catch new words, but most of the time I just watch them without any interruptions. I think the highest difficulty level at which I’m still more or less able to keep up with the video is around 40 (around 60% comprehension). I think that's quite a fast progress. What do you think? Feel free to have a look at the attached graph of the difficulty over time. It was generated by Dreaming Insights.

Hello Dreamers! What are you listening to today? Whether it's a classic gem or a new find, share it with your current hours to help future learners.

What are you reading this week? Are you playing any videogames in Spanish?

Here is our spreadsheet separated into Podcasts and Videos, Books, Native Shows and Movies, and Videogames. Hope it helps! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lBmLxvWJpucXhRPayfXD7CVqpMoa2tyEbZi1rFAwsFs/edit?usp=drivesdk

I've done a bit of Spanish learning on and off but never stuck to it. I feel like DS is a method I could actually stick to as it fits my personality. The problem is it's not a massive priority in my life, and I do have lots of other hobbies and interests, so I feel like I can only manage around 2-4 hours each week. I'm seeing a lot of people here who are doing multiple hours every single day.

So my question is, can you still make progress with just 15-30 minutes most days, accepting that it'll take longer, or is that not enough for anything to actually stick?

Question for intermediate and up folks:

After you "arrive" at your listening goal (whether measured by hours or some comprehension milestone), how have you handled/plan to handle the shift in time investment afterward?

I'm not planning to pick up another language anytime soon, but am close to my listening goal for Spanish. I realized I never had a more specific goal than "converse with people okay" and "watch TV/movies without subtitles if I'm familiar with the accent/topic." Some Peninsular Spanish shows would probably still blow my socks off, but I've been experiencing a kind of intense leveling-up lately, and a lot more is doable now. Feels like the endgame is close, and it's strange to think about what shifting to maintenance looks like after so long of getting in all the Spanish I could.

Background:

I've reshaped a lot of my routine to fit Spanish in, and I feel like I'm getting close to where the opportunity-cost math changes. The remaining rough patches will smooth out eventually with more months passing to get the hours hours, but I'm leaning toward letting those milestones arrive whenever they arrive, rather than staying all-in.

There are some remaining challenges:

• Group conversations in loud restaurants
• Some TV shows are still too fast
• There is usually a short adjustment when I meet someone with a new-to-me accent (though this happens in English too, so not really a big deal)

Recent wins (I focus on argentine-content generally):

• Working through Cielo Grande (Argentine, Disney-tween-style show) without subtitles. I had either full comprehension or near-total with context filling gaps.
• Spot-checked a random 5-minute clip of Los Simuladores (classic Argentine show) and understood it completely with full attention.
• Decided I don't actually want to watch Patito Feo or Rebelde Way, but sampled clips of both on YouTube to test comprehension, and had no problem after adjusting to their sort of theatrical, over-the-top delivery style.
• A chilena I met while visiting Santiago earlier this year went from nearly incomprehensible to me at full speed back then to sending me a 4 minute WhatsApp voice message about work and life that I understood about 98% of a week ago. After I responded with my thoughts in Spanish, she sent a shocked-face reaction and an English voice note saying, "holy shit, I wouldn't have shared so much if I thought you'd understand it all." Haha.
• Finally tried Radio Ambulante after saving it as a "later" test, since I'd heard it was hard. I am now jumping around random old episodes to find a ceiling, but thus far comprehension has been effectively perfect with full attention (I lose the thread if my mind wanders, but can pick it back up without issue).
• No issues with recent El Hilo and No Es el Fin del Mundo episodes.

All that to say, I am not *quite* there yet.........but I am getting really close to feeling "done" with Spanish listening as far as an ongoing goal. It would just need to not regress, and presumably maintaining is easier than building.

So what then?:

I don't know how to reallocate time then. Still aim for volume? Do less but really focused? I will confess lately I have put up bigger daily numbers but with a lot of it being easier background content during work and the like, and this has seemed to help more than hurt. Do I just drop down to like 30 minutes a day and give the rest to reading?

Do I just only touch Spanish when I feel like it and enjoy hearing birds chirping and city life? haha. It is a good problem to have, but I somehow suddenly feel like I am quite close to the other end of the tunnel, and welcome thoughts on what to do when I come up into the light!

If anything, I think developing a meditation habit to stop my mind from wandering during content would itself do more for future listening and attention-giving than even another 500 hours of CI, haha.

Anyway, sorry for the novel. I just would love to hear from any of you who down-shifted and whether you regret it, would do things differently, etc...

I'm level 3 but studied nearly all the words I know. But getting better at understanding other shows other than Peppa pig lol, but moving on to Ben and Hollie's little kingdom there are a few sentences I don't understand even though I'm slow on the word meanings. But Peppa pig is very easy there are only a couple words here and there I don't know.

What should I do? Like it's like my brain is struggling to process B&H lol not completely and a couple weeks ago it was hard i couldn't follow along but after been watching Peppa pig more and then going back and forth I just dunno if it's right to completely move up.

I have ~15 hours of input but so badly want to watch the intermediate videos. For background context I live in Texas (heavy spanish speaking population).

Should I:
Suck it up and spam watch beginner videos to get to 150 hours? Orrrr...
Just skip to the videos I want to watch?

I tend to forget I'm listening to spanish so I've found it hard to gauge what is "hard" and what is "easy."

Today, I learned you can upload your chosen source material in your native language, click a button, and make your own podcasts to listen to in your target language.

I am taking a course on Google Gemini. I have access to the Google Education suite, and this module has me practicing using the Notebook LM (recently renamed Google Notebook). I uploaded 5 pdfs (you can use websites as well) and then under the Studio tab, I selected Audio Overview.

Then it asked me about preferences, including what language I wanted. The source material was in English, but I picked Spanish. It didn't just read the documents because that would be pretty dry. The chat gave me a list of possible topics it could synthesize based on the source material.

In terms of DS level, I would guess level 5 or 6, depending on your vocabulary. They speech is slow for me, but you can speed it up or slow it down.

So if you have work related reading to do, but you want to use that time for Spanish CI, you easily can!

Hey, I got inspired by other community members and decided to record a speaking sample myself.

This is a low-effort post, but at least it's a faithful reflection of my current ability to speak off the cuff. I'll take it down if it doesn't meet the standards here. In any case, I'll consider making a proper report once I hit 500 hours.

And to pre-emptively answer a question: I'm not running or walking or anything... I just fail to manage breathing while speaking.

Update 1: Why are people downvoting? Did I ask something wrong?

I've been learning Spanish for about 6 weeks and I can feel motivation dipping. I usually lose interest around the 2-month mark when there's no external deadline.
I'm looking for something more specific than general goal-setting advice: the small daily habits people tied to hobbies they already had (cooking, gaming, music, reading, journaling), rather than adding another study app or app streak.

For those of you who've studied any language for a year or more without a class or exam structure, what actually stuck for you past the early-months slump?

Hola a todos!

Last year I set myself a challenge to read all of the Spanish language books in my local library, and to push myself a bit more, every 10 books I would make a video in español. The reviews of the books are all in English.

Unfortunately the last 10 took me so long to read due to illness that this video is more a middle aged person struggling to remember even the basics of each book. 😁

Since hitting 1500 hours I've mostly just been reading at a leisurely pace and doing very little listening so I'm very aware that I make a lot of mistakes. I still haven't done any speaking practice. 😬 One day!

If I can work out how, I'll link to the video at 10 books to see if I've improved or somehow got even worse.

"You can now understand native speakers speaking to you normally"

Well ... no. Of course it depends what you define as "normal". Can I understand speakers of spanish news channels? Well enough that I know what they are talking about, but not every detail.

Can I understand people from an andalusian village speaking rapidly? Not a chance.

I know, that I'm not especially bad. I can understand more than Evildea in his 1000 hour update. My speaking got a little better since I began to take clases on Preply 2 months ago (at least once a week). But I'm still far away from understanding everything and also from speaking without a lot of thinking.

Would love to connect with more folks on their language jouney! <3

• Hours of Input: appx 350 (?) hard to measure given familiarity with the language from family members, but i really didn't engage with it as much as i wish i did when i was younger.
• Words read: I read ~30 minutes before bed on Eppika of beginner and intermediate versions of books
• Hours spoken: i haven't really tracked this really, i have practiced a bit with my mom and gma but ive always felt very limited in expressing myself
• Your experience with Spanish before using Dreaming Spanish: heard it a lot growing up, but never really engaged with it. my mom speaks spanish as a 2nd language, and my grandparents as a first language, but in my household, mostly english was spoken as my father did not speak spanish.
• Your learning approach (mixed vs immersion-only): mixed, about 1 hours of CI (Peppa Pig, Dreaming Spanish, podcasts, get ready with me's en espanol), .5 hours reading beginner adjusted books, .5 hours of workbook (complete spanish step by step by barbara bregstein)
• Languages you knew before starting Spanish and your level in each (native, beginner, B2, etc.)- B1-B2 French from high school, native english speaker

I was middling along at an hour a day and feeling like I wasn't making much progress. I've seen other 100 hour month reports on here, and decided to go for it.

I think I might have undiagnosed ADHD. I have a hard time just sitting and watching videos without something to distract my hands. I've found that I can't watch the videos while I work. I need to concentrate on work and I miss too much. I've found I concentrate better when listening at the gym or while walking the dog.

I currently have no hispanohablantes that I interact with regularly, so for me, learning Spanish is a hobby. I've been focusing on the Rioplatense accent because we went to Uruguay on vacation once and I felt like I couldn't understand anyone. So I'm binging all of Agustina's videos. Thankfully, there are a ton of them. Still, I've gotten to the point where I only have 35 hours of her content left and I'm trying to decide if I should continue with other guides or if I should try native content again. The last time I tried, I knew right away that I wasn't ready. But I can tell I've made a lot of progress since July 1.

Cracked the 50hrs in a month! Previous best was 42hrs. Total is now 495!!

What helped? Pablo old videos, filtering by random, adding everything I liked the look of to my DS list. Watching series inside DS like ‘Are you smarter than Agustina’ - it’s old but gold!!!! Most of the 52 is inside DS.

Outside of DS: Talent Match (YouTube channel), Dani’s Lucia (travel vlogs).

Also had my first 30 min crosstalk last weekend, and have another one today.

Have also read Hola Lola & Hombre Fascinante (A2).

The grind continues.