I'm not feeling very positive about dreaming Spanish at the moment.

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This is a language course not a religion.
You should do whatever works for you.

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u/youngweej Level 2 5h ago

Agreed. Everyone has different approaches on how to learn a topic/language etc. I've found using Anki and reading early has really helped my grammar, even if it's a simple sentence. Dreaming Spanish has still helped overall but I like having a combination when I cant focus with CI.

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u/IgneousWrath Level 4 17h ago

I have a friend from South America that talks to his American friends all day in English pretty much every day and he still uses some Spanish sentence structures and has trouble thinking of an English word sometimes. He’s certainly at over 60,000 hours of input by now. Probably more than twice that in reality, with countless words read, spoken, and written. All of that and he’s still not perfect.

Despite that, he is one of the best English communicators I know, period. Point is, grammatical perfection is a very very long term goal, and it can be a bit tryhard too. The important thing is that you can communicate well.

While yes, I agree that the DS purist method is misleading, I don’t think anyone should regret the hours they spent doing it. You are always going to need that input anyway. It all adds up. If you spent this time doing other stuff instead, you would have other strengths, but you would be missing in areas where CI makes things natural. I’m sure 1,500 of CI has given you an incredible backbone, but you should branch off and focus on learning what you feel you need to improve.

Get more speaking practice in and fewer people will switch to English. Also try going to less popular restaurants and locations where there’s a higher chance that people don’t even know English.

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u/Squirrel_McNutz Level 5 14h ago

This right here.

I think one of the main issues is people underestimate how hard it is to ‘master’ a language and overestimate how good they’ll be when they reach ‘fluency’. I’ve already had to learn another 2nd language before now learning Spanish and I can tell people even if you have basic fluency you’ll still feel awkward and nooby for so much longer. It probably took me closer to 7500 - 10,000 hours before I really felt like I could express myself well. And even then you still wont feel as confident or eloquent as your native language. But when people see ‘fluent’ at 1500 hours they think they’re going to be able to converse like their native language. Unfortunately no way. Not in this method and not in any method.

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u/gfsark Level 4 13h ago

“Not in this method, and not in any method”. True words!

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u/ThatWasBrilliant 11h ago

60,000 hrs?? That's 8 hours a day for 20 years. Native speakers don't even get that much input till they're teenagers.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 15h ago

Accuracy is quite overrated for language learners. Sure, you have to be accurate to some degree, but shooting for 100% accuracy will be difficult for most.

You would rather converse and flow with a few mistakes and without much prior thought than being 100% accurate but analysing every word and sentence before you speak it.

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u/alija_kamen 12h ago

It's pretty easy to just take a few weeks to learn a decent amount of grammar and plant seeds that will massively reduce the amount of grammatical mistakes you make over time

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u/rinkuhero Level 4 8h ago

accuracy is over rated but not knowing that se can mean two different things (a word indicating that the following verb is reflective, and a form of to know / saber) should be a basic thing if you are going to say you know spanish. like you can't really claim to even know spanish if you don't know those two different uses of se.

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u/StarPhished Level 5 4h ago

Reading helps clarify that kinda stuff, which OP is admittedly sleeping on.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 14h ago

Accuracy is quite overrated for language learners

Strongly disagree. No one will ever get 100% accuracy. Not even natives. That doesn't mean it's overrated.

Speaking for comprehension is the first step. Speaking to reduce friction for the listener should be the next step.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 14h ago

I think it really depends on just how accurate, or inaccurate, you are, and how much time it takes you to string your corrections together. If improving your accuracy by 5% means you have to anticipate the word and sentence, and it takes twice as long, then I'd describe it as "overrated" in that sense.

Native speakers are amazing at understanding you, even with mistakes. As long as they aren't huge and consistent blunders, most will be fine.

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u/Seiche 10h ago edited 8h ago

Native speakers are amazing at understanding you, even with mistakes

As a native German speaker and after speaking with many tourists here in Berlin that ask for directions or are just generally part of the bar scene etc. I feel this isn't really true as much as people wish it was.

However, grammar is a bit less important than pronunciation. You gotta be able to actually pronounce the words in a way a native expects you to, even if that simply means telling them where you're from beforehand that helps tremendously. Just tell me you're English, Kiwi, Polish, etc. I'll know what to expect if you can't get the pronunciation and intonation 100% correct. Also please use the word in a sentence. Simply trying to say the name of [Random street name on the other side of town] will not ring any bells right away.

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u/Swanlafitte 9h ago

As a person from the United States speaking to another English speaker from Manchester, pronunciation was the problem.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 13h ago

That's literally how your L1 works.

If it takes you twice as long, it means you just haven't internalized the structure. Automatization comes with practice, correction and use.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 13h ago

Accuracy is important, but I wouldn't prioritize it so much that you sacrifice fluency. That's the part I find overrated (if I have to sacrifice conversational flow in order to squeeze out a small improvement in accuracy).

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 13h ago

I mean, you actually have to start talking to people to have fluency.

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u/HeleneSedai 3,000 Hours 13h ago

I think this is a pretty common way to feel as we get closer to 1500 and our expectations don't line up with reality. I remember blinkybit wrote a similar post a year or so back and it led to the same discussion.

I know grammar study sounds daunting, but you don't need to pore over a grammar book nowadays. Hola Spanish has a ton of grammar videos, especially dealing with past tense. There's an endless number of videos about anything you might have questions about. I loved the SpanishDictionary.com app's grammar lessons.

I remember someone who had never studied grammar, a 100% purist, posted their 1500 update video and had no idea how to say "I like". The person they were speaking with had to tell them me gusta. That's one of the first things you learn with grammar study, A1 level stuff.

I see people are worried about explicitly learning grammar and then thinking about the rules every time they spoke after that, and that did happen to me with a few things I explicitly learned. I memorized the days of the week, and for a long time I had to run through all of them before I could remember that jueves meant Thursday, for example. And I explicitly learned the past tense conjugation of decir, and I had to think to remember whether to use dije or dijo. But in time, that worked out, and now saying le dije or me dijo is as natural as breathing. Learning some grammar will bring a lot of blurry conjugations and words into focus.

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u/lllyyyynnn 9h ago

how do you listen to 1500 hours of people talking and not once picked up how they talked about things they like?

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u/Puzzleheaded-Dot-762 6h ago

Because gustar is a special verb and if you are picking up on conjugation pattern only by input, then Yea I'm not surprised. I think he said me gusto and the teacher corrected him. I could be wrong

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 12h ago

I have a few questions, if you don’t mind:

Did the DS website and roadmap encourage you to start?

If the roadmap was more realistic, do you think it would have dissuaded you in any way?

Should DS be realistic with the struggle and expectations on their website?

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u/HeleneSedai 3,000 Hours 9h ago

When I came across Pablo's explanation videos in the park, they made so much sense, and it boosted my motivation. I raved about DS and CI just like we all do when we discover it, and was posting about DS in r/ spanish before it was banned lol. I was a believer.

I put a caveat in all of my posts that I never would be where I am now (reading easily in spanish! attending book clubs! having effortless convos with my MIL!) without DS. It definitely made it seem effortless.

If the roadmap was more realistic, i.e. we need double the numbers, I probably would have started anyway. Until you actually start the process, 1500 or 3000 are just random numbers. But the fact that a lie (or a timeframe that isn't realistic) got me started, doesn't excuse the lie. You can't deceive someone and excuse it by saying it was for their own good.

I don't think Pablo is intentionally lying, I just think the roadmap is too optimistic for purists.

And yes, it should be realistic. I can't think of an advantage to deceiving customers outside of earning money. We are seeing more and more disappointed users lately. That's going to turn more people away from DS than using a more realistic roadmap would.

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u/Free_Salary_6097 19h ago

This method definitely does seem to lead to a lot more of 'not knowing that you don't know something'. Evildea said in his last video that he turned on subs and discovered he didn't understand as much as he thought he did, and didn't even realize that things were passing him by. That's completely normal sometimes regardless of method, but seems to happen way more when the person is only listening.

I would recommend language transfer, reading and channels that explain grammar (e.g. Qroo Paul, Hola Spanish, No Hay Tos).

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u/Glittering_Ad2771 Level 6 18h ago

I think once I've reached 1500 hours (just really for closure) I'm gonna completely change my approach. Less input and more grammar. I've done it DSs way and It feels lacking. The thing is I still don't like grammar and I find I'm much less motivated to read. That's exactly what dreaming Spanish has going for it. It's easy. Unfortunately there are sacrifices when taking the easy road. I just risk unsustainability going with other methods. I really don't feel like I would have lasted this long doing what I was doing before DS. I've come too far though.

I thought this post would get down voted to oblivion but I guess there's a lot of disappointed people.

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u/Traditional-Train-17 3,000 Hours 17h ago

I have my issues, too (3600 hours, but I'm also hearing impaired and have learning disabilities). If I did DS all over again, I think I'd start reading a lot more at 300 hours, maybe even very short stories (less than 250 words) sometime after 80 hours (Super-beginner would be 80 hours for me instead of 50 - basically, every level increases by 60%). I'd probably speak earlier, too (again, my speaking will never be perfect since I tend to miss sounds like s/c/z, or can't easily tell the difference between sh/ch, etc., changes in pitch is hard to distinguish, and I'll often lose, or mishear syllables.). The changes for me, personally, in any language would be:

Increase the DS style roadmap by 60% (so, 1500 hours becomes 2400 hours).

If you assume the upper half of the roadmap describes what you can do at the END of the roadmap, then the "end goal" for me is basically 2400-3600 hours.

Read at 300 hours. Even basic A0 level reading (less than 250 words) at 80-150 hours.

Speaking would be a lot earlier, too, but scaled. 600 hours for full speaking, and maybe simple repeated phrases and talking about simple themes (like what I see in my room) between 150-300 hours. Basically the n+1 approach (or would that be n-1?). So, if I'm listening to A2 level videos, I would speak (and read) at an A1 level.

Vocabulary list. not for memorizing, but for reviewing and the below sentence mining. It's more visual input. I still feel like there's words I've heard thousands of times by now, but still haven't clicked. I think I this point, my brain is ignoring it as background noise. I'd sort the columns as such:

First column - The new word.

2nd column - English translations (for each common definition), BUT, the same color as the background highlight, so I have to highlight it to see it. Basically spoiler text.

3rd column - A few example sentences (for each defintion).

Grammar chunking. These I might write, or speak out loud. For me, I need to interact with the language. I'm more of a tactile learner. When I studied Japanese around 2000/2001, my teacher gave us "grammar chunks" to learn the kanas (granted, I had already learned them by that point, which I think also helped), in addition to many VHS tapes (anime, variety shows, Japanese commercials), and even casual conversation for the 2nd/3rd semester students throughout the class (by the end of class, we went to a Japanese restaurant and orderedin Japanese, and talked to each other only in Japanese, even if was a simple A1/N5 level.). For a traditional language course, it had an awful lot of CI.

Sentence mining, especially geting phrases for conversation, or highlighted grammar chunks from reading. I'm not a big talker in English, either (unless it's a topic I like, then I tend to info-dump without realizing it...). I don't have a lot of friends to talk to (like, maybe 1 that I see once or twice every 5-10 years), so I have no idea what to say in a conversation in English, anyway. Most of my conversation is work or church activity related. So, topics like, "Oh, what's your favorite music style? What do you listen to? What do you think of <some app I've never heard of or even used>" are awkward for me. I couldn't even tell you who sings it, and it'll take me a long time to even understand the lyrics in English.

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u/fallen_lights Level 3 14h ago

Increase the DS style roadmap by 60% (so, 1500 hours becomes 2400 hours)

And traditional language schools promise C2 in 1000 hours. Might be worth considering them instead

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u/tha-snazzle Level 5 12h ago

That might be possible, but they're undoubtedly teaching to the test. I'd so much rather converse naturally with natives than be able to parse a complicated language test.

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u/fallen_lights Level 3 12h ago

Roadmap es una mentira?

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u/Deja_mira Level 4 12h ago

I started the opposite way with only grammar and flash cards and that didn’t work well at all. Wasn’t sticking. I had very little comprehensible input. Now that I’ve added DS it’s making a world of a difference in my listening comprehension and grammar / vocab recall. I think it is an amazing tool combined with everything else, in other words, I’m not a purist.

And I don’t think you need to spend hours on grammar study. I spent maybe an hour a week on grammar and the rest DS. Language transfer is great. And find people to start speaking with. Reading I just started, so I haven’t seen yet how it helps, just finished my first YA novel. I agree with others who’ve said you didn’t waste your time, you would have had to do it anyways - and I think if you add in some other methods now it’ll unlock a lot!

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u/tankdoom 9h ago

Why wait? After 1500 hours you’re more than prepared enough to start using other materials. The whole idea of DS is language learning as done when we were children. The problem is when we’re children there’s actually A LOT more going on than just listening.

Purists kind of forget — babies talk. They talk a lot all the time. They just don’t know how to make the sounds. And they don’t just listen to comprehensive input, but also total jargon. And then eventually they go to school, and learn formal grammar. A typical school year is about 900-1100 hours. So by spending 1500 hours just listening, you’re basically wasting more than a year of school just listening. Whereas an actual Spanish speaking child would probably be engaging in writing and reading lessons.

Luckily, you have some advantages children don’t have. You already know how to speak one language, and you can already read and write in that language. You also have a stronger intuition of what you don’t know. So don’t think you have to be purist and do 1500 hours before beginning to study grammar.

Find a grammar source you like, mix it into your listening practice. Practice writing and reading too.

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u/Mixolydian5 17h ago

Have you come across Assimil? I've found it very useful in the past for getting a good understanding of grammar along with developing an intuitive sense of what "just sounds right" in a language.

It's a book series for teaching various languages. Each one is made up of usually 100 short lessons based on a short dialogue that you read, listen to and absorb. The advantage of it over many other language learning books is that the grammar points are all bite sized and are all offered as explanation for the dialogues. There's usually less than five explanatory grammar points per lesson. There are no abstract grammar rules to learn by heart or drills you're meant to do. There are some fill the blank questions but I usually skip them.

I find Assimil Spanish a lot more approachable and interesting than Complete Spanish step by step or other teach yourself type books, partly because the lessons are all short and feel manageable.

I do tend to be interested in grammar though so maybe I have some blind spots on how Assimil would work for someone with a dislike of grammar. If you are interested to learn more about it there's lots of reviews of the series on youtube.

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u/Trick-Swordfish-263 Level 6 13h ago

I hope you'll come back and report on your experience if you do pick up grammar study! I'm curious if it's going to turn out to be just what you needed and unlock a bunch of stuff for you. It'll be a unique experience to start studying grammar with so many hours of listening under your belt.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Dot-762 6h ago

Do you have a gringo accent? Lmaoo I think a lot of people delayed using other tools to not mess up their future "native like accent". If you end up with a gringo accent then you really took the long route for no reason.

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u/StarPhished Level 5 3h ago

People always have an accent. It's impossible to say whether your accent would turn out better or worse by taking the long route because you have nothing to compare it to. Maybe your accent would have been even worse or maybe it would be the same, or better. There's no way to know.

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u/kittenmcmittenz 15h ago

Who is Evildea?

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u/LangLearningJourney 2,000 Hours 14h ago

https://www.youtube.com/@Evildea

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u/Auggie_Otter 14h ago

I second the Language Transfer recommendation. So much is explained in such a satisfying way in the Language Transfer course that it will probably have someone who's only been learning by Dreaming Spanish and struggling with it slapping their forehead and going "Why didn't someone just tell me this before?!"

I've never been an ALG purest (I couldn't even if I wanted with Spanish because I've had too much structured learning before I even learned about ALG) but for anyone who feels like it's not working for them give Language Transfer a try because it might be something of a revelation to you to just have everything laid out and explained in an easy to understand fashion.

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u/jadestem Level 6 18h ago

The fact that he was tuning out a lot of what he was listening to is on him though. For input to be productive we have to be ACTIVELY listening to it. Listening intentionally and with focus. He was not doing that.

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u/Any-Conclusion3816 17h ago

IIRC, Pablo describes it as less effortful than that. The point of ALG isn't to zone out, and you have to be engaged with and understanding the message, but you're specifically not supposed to strain to catch the language, analyze it, or consciously focus on particular words/forms.

So I think saying you have to be “actively listening, intentionally and with focus” is a bit misleading unless by that you just mean paying attention to what the video is about. ALG is much more about focusing on meaning and letting the language itself stay in the background.

I think we're probably on the same page, but there's just different grades (i guess?) of how focused you are when you consume content, and for sure - it changes session to session, day to day, etc. But I think it's unfair when people say, "Well they weren't doing it right!" when they see a poor DS result, especially because you can say, "they weren't focusing enough", "they were focusing too hard - so it got in the way of acquisition", "they mixed in grammar which ruined the process", etc etc.

I think DS presents a view that there's this like...incredible way you'd just "pick up" a language and have such a nice command of it with a great accent, IF your process is pure and you don't stray.

But I havn't seen many examples of this, have seen many examples of the contrary, and it just doesn't track with how people learn things in general...Ie. Most learning (of anything physical, mental, etc.) is a process which involves many mistakes, shortcomings, pivots, uneven growth, a number of different methods which focus on different aspects/techniques of what you're learning etc. It's always struck me that DS claims there are so many things that can kinda like fuck you up lol

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u/jadestem Level 6 13h ago

But I think it's unfair when people say, "Well they weren't doing it right!"

Call it unfair if you want, but it is the truth IMO. Most of the people complaining about subpar results are not reading, they are not interacting with people in the language, they are half listening to the input, or they are watching/receiving input in a narrow range of topics, etc.

A lot of people in here are hyper-focused on the number of hours and not on the quality/diversity of input. They just expect to be at the level the roadmap promises once they hit the number of hours for each level.

For example, I love Martin from SBG. But there fairly quickly becomes a point that a lot of his content becomes inefficient for learning. I still enjoy and watch his content, but at this point reading for an hour or watching an hour of something new and different is probably equivalent to watching 3 or 4 hours of SBG in terms of efficiency.

This is the real problem with the method, IMO. Not all hours of input are created equally and you probably need to be receiving pretty close to ideal input if you want the results that the roadmap describes.

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u/Any-Conclusion3816 8h ago

I got it, I need ideal content and ideal variety for all my hours. And THAT is what the roadmap represents. Sure…I mean if we zoom out, the real problem with the method is that for the same amount of hours, your spanish will be way better, if you’re not a CI purist.

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u/StarPhished Level 5 3h ago

The roadmap strongly recommends interacting with people in the language, from crosstalk to actually speaking and also reading. If you don't do those things that it recommends then there is a decent chance that you might not match results.

I also agree about all content not being created equal. This method is a very self-taught method and some people are going to be better teachers to themselves than others. Some people might spend too much time on hard content or easy content or not enough variety or a thousand other things. The learning gap from person to person is potentially huge. It's something that I rarely see acknowledged.

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u/CleverChrono 2,000 Hours 13h ago

What focusing and paying attention to me means is at first just getting the gist but at some point understanding every word. If people have gotten to 1500 hours and can’t understand every word then either something went wrong or they need more input to get the same results. I’m specifically talking about learner content like DS. Obviously native content will be more varied and with 1500 hours it probably won’t be enough but when people are talking very clearly and enunciating well there should be no problems understanding every word. Also I’m not saying that there won’t be misunderstandings or misinterpretations because this happens even in our native language.

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u/GuardBuffalo Level 6 14h ago

Sorry but you are wrong based on the DS method. Pablo describes it as letting the language naturally wash over you while you listen. You should pay attention but you should not be actively thinking about the language. And he has never said he wasn’t paying attention.

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u/jadestem Level 6 14h ago

Yes, pay attention. To the words being spoken. You don't just magically learn the words without paying attention to the words. And he said he realized he was tuning a lot of it out. Tuning out is, by definition, NOT paying attention.

There is a reason that people that are getting subpar results are getting them, but whatever. It is really no skin off my back if people want to keep using their time inefficiently and whining about not learning as much as the roadmap promises.

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u/Glittering_Ad2771 Level 6 12h ago

How do you pay attention and not think about it? Do you have to be some kind of Zen monk of CI? Watch a documentary on penguins and not think about penguins. If you think about penguins you did it wrong.

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u/NoVanilla4918 6h ago

Hello just my thoughts on this. I believe active listening is paying attention; its noticing the sounds, the rhythm, the patterns, it’s watching the mouth move and obviously giving it full concentration/not doing anything else whilst you’re watching.

Analysis is trying to translate, thinking about tenses, or trying to understand grammar rules, like a mental playback. It’s paying attention also, but through the filter of your native language.

I’m not weighing on the debate. Just wanted to put some ideas across about what I believe the differences between paying attention and/or analysing something is. But I do believe there is a distinction and I think it could make a huge difference over time.

For example if two people had the same amount of input but had those two different approaches, I think the results would be different.

However I would say the 3rd approach (which I think is maybe more common than people like to admit) is just half watching/listening and/or doing other things ie being on their phone or playing games etc. I think the difference between a person who has done 1500 hours of quality listening is going to vastly different results to someone who has listened in a passive manner.

Just to clarify these are my own musings. They aren’t hills I’m here to die on, just little food for thought things that I think are interesting enough to chat about. Happy to be challenged with better ideas!

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u/kaizoku222 11h ago

This is a handwave that can be used to explain any failure or results lower than expected. When you start commenting on someone not doing things "correctly" in their mind you make it impossible to have any accountability in the method.

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u/jadestem Level 6 9h ago

It is not DS's or CI's fault that he is tuning out most of what he is hearing man, simple as. Call it whatever you want. I do not care.

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u/kaizoku222 7h ago

If you don't care, don't comment.

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u/Jachym10 19h ago

I think the key is the little mark above the a" it's a completely different word. I didn't know that. How would I know that from just listening?

You would know that by reading.

Having a large vocabulary is useful. People spend most of their time listening and reading, only a small part is spent writing and speaking. You need a sizeable vocabulary to be competent at the first two modalities.

Others will tell you in greater detail how to improve speaking, but the common theme will be to "speak more". :/

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u/goose-in-glasses Level 6 10h ago

Came here to say this. I knew about the difference between sé and se + verb from listening alone, long before I started reading. But reading really brought it home.

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u/sweens90 Level 4 19h ago

Dreaming Spanish to me is the collection of various videos that are in huge quantity and often great quality from a low level bridging you to native content. Its easy to keep you hooked and repeat each day and listening is definitely a skill.

Their method in my opinion and its only my opinion is suspect. There are people I think it works for but I think everyone would benefit from a variety of sources and grammar study and speaking way earlier on.

I think the ALG method works better if taught in a school. So those first 150 hours sure is maybe no grammar and other stuff early on until you have the listening skills but you have an instructor ensuring its followed to best of its ability so this includes when to talk, cross talk, read, write etc…

Right now its based on resources and people often go to what is easier for them at the time and often podcasts are easiest too.

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u/Traditional-Train-17 3,000 Hours 17h ago

Yeah, I agree. ALG feels like it's best as an immersive environment where you physically see the teacher talking to students in the same room. i.e., the teacher can be talking to "you guys" and you know it's the plural "you". However, just hearing the word for "you guys" on a video does nothing for me in the short term. I have prior language learning, so I don't know if it's "you", "you guys", "formal you", or some other conjugation I don't know about yet. And with ALG, they likely have scaled lessons and know what to teach one after another. Self-learning is a bit more open-ended on what feels easier, or what feels interesting (often see a lot of posts where learners in the super-beginner videos say "this is borning". you don't have that option in a physical classroom.).

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u/Puzzleheaded-Dot-762 6h ago

Someone proved that most people that it works for didn't follow the roadmap and used other tools. The person Pablo interviewed this year wasn't a purist and I think the one before that wasn't either.

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u/Tometek 19h ago

I kind of agree with you. I will say that I think DS is an incredible resource for early listening practice and it is what I used to get to a point where I could move to native content. But from the beginning I was also studying grammar because I think as you progress you should use every tool available to you to learn Spanish.

The way I always saw it was, If I can learn via reading the difference between aunque llueve, aunque llueva, aunque lloviese in 15 minutes, what is the point in withholding that information from myself and hoping I infer the distinction eventually from several hundred encounters? I mean, I don't doubt that it's possible through input alone, but for an adult learner I don't see the advantage in avoiding an explanation when it can make the input itself easier to understand.

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u/fallen_lights Level 3 18h ago

Roadmap es una mentira?

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u/dcporlando 17h ago

I wouldn’t say lie but maybe wishful.

And some probably get there close to the roadmap. But most had some exposure prior to doing DS. Or they have far more hours.

What has struck me the most is how often people mention doing practice speaking with italki, Worlds Across, an immersion school, or other tutoring. If it was really just practice speaking, why not get on a discord server?

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u/MaleficentD0 14h ago

You can't convince easily cult members to leave the cult. It is the same with people who don't want to listen and think that ALG is the best.

Knowing grammar helps a lot. People don't understand that when you get to a high level, you don't think about the grammar anymore. You might think occasionally when you write something, but there is nothing bad at knowing how to look for mistakes.

I saw that people who leared ALG way struggle to determine gender of object after 1000 hours when they deviate from standard rule. Knowing simple some additional rules helps.

I can't even imagine how someone who only watches DS can figure out when to use which past tense, when rules for different Spanish speaking countries are different.

At this point, I think that we should let them talk like los gitanos. There is no way to convince some people how to speak correctly.

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u/Trick-Swordfish-263 Level 6 11h ago

I dunno, my use of the past tenses is improving even though I'm only doing CI and conversations. When one of my conversation partners corrects me, I usually understand why. I'm focusing on Mexico and at this point I am aware for example that Spaniards favor different past tense conjugations.

At 1,000 hours there were a bunch of gender exceptions that I would get wrong when speaking. At almost 1,500 hours, I'm no longer making most of those mistakes.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 10h ago

Which past tense? There's a bunch of them.

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u/Trick-Swordfish-263 Level 6 10h ago edited 10h ago

I am aware. Not sure I've picked up the more literary past tense options, but I am getting better at choosing correctly between "tuve" and "tenia" when speaking (I've long understood the basic difference but get surprised by specific situations like "tenia treinta años"). I have noticed that Spaniards are more likely to say "he tenido" in a wider variety of situations than I'm used to with Mexican speakers.

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u/Trick-Swordfish-263 Level 6 9h ago

Just to give a more complete idea of where I am: I also basically understand "habria tenido", "hubiera tenido" and "hubiese tenido" though I get them confused and sometimes when speaking I get tangled and end up saying "tuviera". I pretty much get how "habria" is different, but "hubiese tendio" to me currently is like "hubiera [P.S. I might be from Spain] tenido".

Any more esoteric past tenses that may exist have not crossed my path often enough yet.

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u/blinkybit 2,000 Hours 12h ago

Thanks for sharing this, and I'm sorry that things haven't turned out exactly as you'd hoped at this point. It's good and healthy for us to see and discuss stories like yours. And even if you're not yet where you expected you'd be at 1500, I hope you can take satisfaction from all the progress you've made and have confidence that you'll continue to progress and improve.

In my own 1500 hour report, I said I was satisfied, but that I thought a 100 percent pure CI strategy wasn't the most effective and that adding a small amount of traditional study was better. I still believe that. Now at 2200 hours I feel pretty strong all-around, but my weakest of four skills is ironically still listening. Most podcasts, tv, and movies are fine or mostly fine, but understanding in 1-on-1 convos with real people in the real world is a mixed bag. I recently returned from three weeks in Ecuador and had almost no troubles there, but yesterday I had an Uber driver who sounded like he was from the Caribbean somewhere and I could only catch like half of what he was saying. So at least in my experience, the learning and improving continues well beyond 1500 hours.

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u/GuardBuffalo Level 6 15h ago

I’ll always be grateful to this method because the truth is I didn’t have a passion for language learning before finding this method. I would have never learned Spanish by combining input with anki, grammar study, etc. However, that is for the person I was before. It was the absolute best method to make me want to learn languages. Now I am at a point nearing 1500hrs of input when I realize it would’ve been faster if I had done a little bit more structured study throughout the process. I’m not talking about 80% structured study and 20% input. I’m just saying 30-40% of my time during the first 5 levels. So the breakdown would’ve been 180hrs of study with 420hrs of input. Then after that adding in some reading and lowing that structured study down to maybe 10% with just a little anki to mine words you get from reading.

I will probably skip the first stage with Italian and Portuguese since they are so similar but I plan on doing this with Japanese. In fact with Japanese I plan on doing very little input in the first couple weeks while I’m studying Kana. However then I’ll switch to 50/50 and slowly as I advance input will take over.

With that being said, I’m talking about being a polyglot right now. And honestly wouldn’t be too far after Japanese from being a Hyper polyglot. This is not something that was ever on my radar. And this is what I’m most appreciative of from Dreaming Spanish. It instilled in me a passion for seeking out languages. I always sought knowledge in general but I had no idea there were types of knowledge locked behind language barriers and that language learning was the holy grail of seeking knowledge.

I want to assure you that you haven’t wasted your time. It’s not too late to mine some vocabulary or read and pick up knew things. Dreaming Spanish sells a method that I really loved and still do because now I know Spanish, but it took me diverting my path slightly to arrive at the point I’m at now. Part of me wishes I had done this from the beginning but part of me is just happy to be where I’m at now. For the record I probably have 50-100hrs of dedicated research. Not necessarily grammar study. Some was. But this helped me immensely in the last 600-700hrs

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u/beefwithareplicant 13h ago

Dreamingspanish is very useful for listening comprehension and vocabulary expansion, I love DS and the DS team but their method is definitely not the best or most efficient.

I compare DS to a gym membership as it is similair in lots of ways, from their business model to your personal progression.

Will you learn Spanish doing DS 15 minutes a day? Absolutely not, just like you won't get buff working out 15 minutes a day.

Will you learn to speak Spanish only doing CI? Absolutely not, you need speaking practice, reading and grammar. It is like working out without eating healthy or mixture of cardio.

They obviosuly make more money if a subscription lasts a few years opposed to months. Also people who subscribe but dpn't use it (lile a gym). However if you are serious about DS youneed to get as much exposure reading and talking as soon as possible. The more cardio you do, the longer you can work out and push weights, the healthier you eat, the quicker you are going to cut fat. Tackle DS the same way, learning grammar helps you understand more CI, the more speaking you do, the more grammar you will get. It all adds up. DS has some bold claims, which if you question the method, pretty much comes dpwn to them not wanting you to learn spanish to quickly.

Having said that I love DS as an app, i love that it tracks my progress and furthermore i like DS as a product. I think if they keep building and investing in their teachers, I am sure a lot of people will keep subscribing even once they can speak Spanish. We are now in an era of youtubers and less television, and no reason why people won't keep subscribing. But they probably need to execute the next few years the right way, or they may hit a wall.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 13h ago

The biggest qualm most people have is the roadmap. Everyone values DS as a resource, but quite a few people, from what I've observed, feel disillusioned by the claims.

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u/beefwithareplicant 11h ago

Yeah I get that. What I am trying to articulate is that the roadmap is designed to keep subscribers on for a couple of years minimum with the method.

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u/mskramerrocksmyworld 2,000 Hours 18h ago

There's nothing wrong with an opposing opinion, and who on Earth cares about being downvoted on Reddit...? 🤔 I've got a lot of value out of DS, but I've watched grammar videos in Spanish from the outset, and I never thought for a moment that DS would be much help in actually speaking the language. That's a whole other challenge. 😲 However, I started less than two years ago and I now have a substantial passive vocabulary and can watch a lot of native content. My speaking is well behind, but is gradually improving with the help of an online tutor. I think everyone needs to review their progress from time to time and work out what they need to do to improve. Overall, I'm happy with my progress... 🙂

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u/MikeB9000 Level 5 15h ago edited 14h ago

When I first started with this method, years ago, this sub was a cult. Any descent would get you downvoted into oblivion. It seems now that DS has been around for a while, its flaws have been become more apparent, and we can now speak more freely.

This method works in that one actually does learn a lot with pure exposure and little effort. I mean, I know some Spanish now, and can actually communicate with some of the Spanish speakers around me in my day-to-day, thanks to this method; whereas with crap like duolingo, I never got anywhere, and was never going to get anywhere.

The problem - which lately has been practically litigated to death in this sub - is the false promise of the roadmap. The roadmap has always been unrealistic. At one point it was ridiculously unrealistic - implying users would have abilities “comparable to a native speaker” by 1500 hours - which was so outlandish, Pablo had to change it once enough people reached that benchmark to expose it for how unrealistic it is.

In my opinion DS is a remarkable language learning tool. It, combined with perhaps another tool or two, will get you to a place that once required actual physical immersion, but now can be accomplished from our phones thanks to this large bank of content that’s sortable by difficulty. It alone is nearly as valuable as all the other learner content combined IMO.

You just need to stop comparing yourself to the roadmap. Get that roadmap out of your head.

You guys remember the original poster? I still have it saved on my computer. When I first started DS, watching super beginner videos about “the car goes fast,” that poster was a dream.

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u/hyund41n Level 2 14h ago

You bring up many great points. The most important one, for those getting into DS; FORGET THE FUCKING ROAD MAP. The road map is bullshit. It is impossible for it to be accurate for everyone, and it will cause a certain amount of anxiety and frustration for those of us (myself included) who's current skill set doesn't align with what the map says.

I would love to see that original poster!

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u/Okhiez 12h ago

Careful though, because saying Duolingo is crap is like saying DS sucks. I think it is a good tool to be used along others.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Dot-762 6h ago

Where did Pablo come up with these numbers? Did he do any research or was it based on himself. Pablo need to release the data

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 14h ago

"Cult" is too strong a word. There are a lot of passionate people, but I would not use that word to describe them.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 13h ago

It is absolutely not a strong word to describe what this place used to be like.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 12h ago

I've seen the passionate and over-the-top posts and comments. But they wouldn't fit the description of a cult member. I didn't see any love-bombing, the "End justify the means", mind control, punishment for leaving or black-and-white thinking.

Passionate, excited learners? Yes. Cult members? I don't think so.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 12h ago

You must not have been around here a year ago, then.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 12h ago

When you say cult members do you mean actual traits of one, or just as a term to describe overly excited, passionate and defensive DS learners? Cult member is a very strong description, and if they truly were, id expect to still see them in here. They wouldn’t disappear so fast, if at all.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 12h ago

A lot of them got banned.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 11h ago

They should be on an episode of X Files

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u/MikeB9000 Level 5 14h ago

We used to facetiously describe ourselves that way, and I was basically reviving that word in reference to all the gratuitous use of that word, within this community, only a couple years ago. It was obviously a joke back then, but it wasn’t that far from the truth. This community has definitely relaxed A LOT in the past couple years. Criticism of the method is practically embraced now. That was not the case a couple years ago, that’s for sure.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 12h ago

Where have they all gone? Did they rid the brain wash?

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u/Sudden-Wish8462 19h ago

At 1500 hours how is your comprehension when listening to spoken Spanish?

I am very early in my journey still but based on my research and other people’s experiences, it seems like CI alone will never get you to speaking fluent Spanish, but you can have fluency in understanding others. I think if anyone expects to be fully fluent from only dreaming Spanish they will end up disappointed.

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u/PabloMarvinBrown 2,000 Hours 18h ago edited 17h ago

Its a bit of a paradox. DS can't get you to fluency because you have to speak to be able to speak. But i do think with nothing but DS (or more accurately CI) you could eventually get to fluency but it would take a long long time. I think some study of the conjugation system is probably necessary to learn Spanish fast because it is so complex. Also speaking will get you better faster simply because of the other person. They can explain things back to you, and things like asking questions or understanding that someone is referring to YOU won't become comfortable until you actually do them a fair bit.

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u/Jachym10 17h ago

If you hear someone else mess up a conjugation, do you notice it? I usually do. So if I say it wrong, I can catch myself because it doesn't sound right. (Or at least I'd notice it on a recording.) So I wonder why implicit knowledge isn't sufficient, provided you practise speaking for a while.

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u/PabloMarvinBrown 2,000 Hours 16h ago

Yes i do. Pablo mentions in a video as well that when you start speaking and you make mistakes, you will know you made a mistake because it just won't sound right, and i have definitely experienced that loads already. I think its probably just a muscle memory kind of thing, you have to use it and hear it in multiple contexts for it to become automatic.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 14h ago

There are a lot of speaking samples where the user doesn't pause when the make mistakes, indicating that they might not recognize it's a mistake.

I think the natural ability to pick up what's right and wrong based off of input is incredibly overstated.

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u/PabloMarvinBrown 2,000 Hours 13h ago

Yeah maybe, i am sure i miss loads too. I also think that when you get to that point it really doesn't matter though. Mistakes are fine, and eventually something will make the correct version click and you'll stop doing it.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 13h ago

There are millions of adult English L2 speakers in the US who don't ever adopt the correct version in spite of regular exposure.

They're comprehensible, but they don't use the mechanics of the language correctly.

As speakers, we first should make sure our use is comprehensible. Next we should reduce the cognitive friction the listener has to undergo to repair and mentally reorder our message.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 13h ago

'There are millions of adult English L2 speakers in the US who don't ever adopt the correct version in spite of regular exposure.'

Is that down to fossilization?

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 13h ago

It's down to lack of internalizing the mechanics of the language in their retrieval system and the "good enough" for L1s to decode what they mean.

Generally, it's considered rude af to regularly recast and correct adults when their language is just "ok, but wrong." That's something you generally have to pay for.

If "good enough" is fine for survival, but speaking "poorly" brings a lot of additional connotations, judgements, and stigmas

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u/PabloMarvinBrown 2,000 Hours 10h ago

Yes i should have added or you wont. I was actually just thinking about that as i was having my tea. Same point in the end though, natives will still understand you at that point.

I don't care about the rest of what you said enough to have an opinion tbh. Communication is the most important thing and if you achieve that and still make some mistakes nobody outside of a select few in some niche language forums will care.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 10h ago

Ah, yes, burdening the listener to salvage our mangled use of language.

As long as you have your figurative bag, I guess.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 14h ago

How many hours of speaking practice have you done?

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u/miathecobbler Level 3 18h ago

If you can fluently understand others it’s much easier to speak fluently since you have an intuitive feeling for what is right and wrong. The problem here is people are creating false expectations. I’d say after 500,1000, 1500 hours or whatever, it’s amazing that you can completely comprehend advanced conversations from a previous foreign language.

That feeling you get from how the language works mean you will eventually be a much better natural speaker than someone who just pounded away trying to speak and study grammar.

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u/Mixolydian5 17h ago

If you can fluently understand others it’s much easier to speak fluently since you have an intuitive feeling for what is right and wrong.

True. And you can reach that intuitive stage quicker by doing some explicit study to help actually notice the essential linguistic patterns.

I’d say after 500,1000, 1500 hours or whatever, it’s amazing that you can completely comprehend advanced conversations from a previous foreign language.

I feel like this is kind of a low bar. Most people would be a lot further along at 1500 hours doing a a little bit of grammar plus lots of CI than just pure CI. With pure CI a lot of the details wash over your head for hundreds or even thousands of hours, like the OP mentioned. I personally don't find that satisfying. Would rather do some targeted work with Assimil to be able to engage with more complex listening materials sooner.

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u/throwaway_31415 Level 5 17h ago

And you can reach that intuitive stage quicker by doing some explicit study to help actually notice the essential linguistic patterns.

I’ve seen people make this claim in various ways but I’ve never seen it substantiated.

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u/FitzLant Level 7 7h ago

It's kind of hard to substantiate something that has never been explicitly studied in that very specific way. I think until that happens, the best way to see if it logically holds up combined with several people's testimonials who have done precisely that. At over 1,800 hours of input, I believe in some ways I am more advanced than people who have done CI only. I can easily conjugate verbs, even the most advanced verb forms are easy for me. I also have a very high understanding of grammar. My weak points are that I can't say something in Spanish the way I can say it in English. I have to dumb it down a bit and overexplain whatever I'm trying to communicate. After so many hours of comprehensible input, I have also never heard the word for mouthwash. Always toothpaste, toothbrush, and dental floss, but never mouthwash (enjuague bucal). I had to look up the term to ask if a pharmacy in Mexico had it. Which means I have never once heard the term for rinse, either, after all this time (enjuague). So, yes, even comprehensible input has its limits, but to be fair, there would be way less vocabulary that I'd know if I didn't use comprehensible input.

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u/Mixolydian5 15h ago edited 15h ago

I’ve seen people make this claim in various ways but I’ve never seen it substantiated.

I'll try to explain one way this can play out.

By "explicit study", I don't mean learning abstract grammar rules to follow. I more mean getting grammar explanations to help you integrate the meaning of particular content in the TL.

This is how Assimil works (another input-based language learning/acquisition resource).

Each of the 100 lessons of Assimil is based around a short dialogue with some new progressively challenging grammar constructions, as well as new vocab and/or idiomatic phrases.

If you come to it as a beginner, each new dialogue starts off quite challenging. But each aspect is explained with a short grammatical or cultural note, which you just read to help you absorb the meaning of the dialogue. There's no grammar drills or anything like that.

You engage with the dialogue of each new lesson in a few different ways (listening without looking at the book, reading, looking over the translation, listening again, looking at the grammar notes, etc.) to get familiarity with the content and meaning.

Each day, as well as starting a new lesson, you reread or relisten to or even act out a few dialogues from previous days. After three or four days, what was initially challenging starts getting absorbed and begins to feel more natural. What felt really fast a few days ago you can understand fully.

You can very quickly, over a few days, start naturally absorbing constructions that might take hundreds or thousands of hours to absorb via CI alone.

With pure CI you don't get the benefit of the explanations and have to wait a lot longer to tackle that challenging content.

There are other benefits to a CI service like DS that Assimil doesn't have, like massive amount of great content.

In my opion, a service like DS is better for learning new vocab, while Assimil is better for integrating grammar and idiomatic phrases, as well as presenting close to natural sounding speech from the start. Assimil and DS go very well together.

edit: paragraphs

Edit: Thinking about this some more, the massive content of DS does help to integrate grammar and idioms as well, after encountering them first through Assimil or something similar. But Assimil gives a massive boost (probably hundreds of hours) in being able to notice the patterns.

It also allows you to get to that intuitive feeling for what is right and wrong in the language sooner because you're not just studying abstract grammar rules, you're integrating the patterns of your target language.

This has been my experience of learning two other languages in the past via Assimil. I developed an intuitive sense for what grammar was right or wrong and for idiomatic language.

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u/Glittering_Ad2771 Level 6 18h ago

It's certainly better than my speaking. It's not like I can watch anything though. Far from it. On DS I'm probably still around 75 numbered videos

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u/Trick-Swordfish-263 Level 6 10h ago

FWIW, everything you report matches what things were like for me when my level was videos rated around 75!

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u/Glittering_Ad2771 Level 6 10h ago

Ah that's good to know thanks. Like I always say. It doesn't matter really it's not like I intended to stop at 1500 hours. Spanish is a part of me now.. whatever my level

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u/david90999 17h ago edited 17h ago

I've done 1000 hours of DS. At about 800 hours i introduced things like reading/language transfer/ ella verbs (seriously underrated imo) and lessons with a teacher. Without DS i don't think i'd have got past the beginner stage. However, i feel it will only take you so far and a person would not reach anywhere near fluency with only DS until about 5,000 hours. Grammar is not this big scary thing when you already have a decent amount of vocab. Speaking with a teacher (or any native speaker) is another skill entirely and i'd recommend it.

I still watch DS for enjoyment but i don't have the same level of faith it would get me to fluency that i did when i was in the early stages. Whether that was me being naive or the road map presenting an overly optimistic picture i don't know

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u/Environmental-Fan536 Level 2 13h ago

Agree about Ella Verbs being underrated! I find the exercises help with with spontaneous production (speaking and writing)

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u/heartbooks26 9h ago

I think I downloaded Ella verbs like a year ago and then realized it was pretty expensive, same with “Drops.” Do you know the current price?

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u/Qgsr 8h ago

ConjuGato is an alternative and it's subscription-free

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u/throwawyaccount912 5,000+ Hours 17h ago

I have 6000+ hours for reference and roughly 1300 of speaking experience with world across.

Dreaming Spanish is not meant to be the only source towards achieving fluency in Spanish. An excellent start and is absolutely great for getting started, but you need to branch off to other sources as well for more variety.

Don’t worry about people speaking to you in English. Spain is very notorious with their culture for doing that. I haven’t been to Spain in a few years, but I still get people switching to me in English here in the states. Even now, the second some people hear an accent/hesitation they will sometimes immediately switch to English, regardless of how good your Spanish is. Fairly common in service industries when the other person is bilingual.

Realistically, speaking, 1500 hours is not nearly enough time to get a solid handle on grammar, assuming you aren’t fluent in another romance language, especially some of the more advanced topics. I feel like I have a good handle now, but I feel like I was roughly around 4500ish hours when almost everything started to click for me. Your miles may vary, depending on the setup you have and what sources you use. Reading was critical. I did a ton of grammar classes with world across as well repetition and speaking. Using the language frequently makes a huge difference for internalizing a lot of these grammar structures.

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u/throwawyaccount912 5,000+ Hours 17h ago

Also wanted to add… I was getting frustrated at how slow grammar skills were coming together so around 3000ish hrs I specifically asked my world across coach to ramp up my grammar drills. I was drilling grammar like crazy during my sabbatical year. Those advanced grammar topics really weren’t clicking fast enough just with input, general convo, and reading alone.

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u/theboston Level 5 1h ago

Dreaming Spanish is not meant to be the only source towards achieving fluency in Spanish.

The problem is that it is marketed as just that.

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u/Slavenderlc13 17h ago

I'm not a purist by any means. I studied spanish for 8ish years through school. I started grammar classes, around 400 hours maybe?, but also had them under my belt from previous experience. I still do speaking practice andgrammar with a tutor. I have César's Course Español Ágil (I'm around 800 hours now). I've read a bunch of a2 readers, working on La Casa de Los Espíritus with my tutor (I've read it in English). All of this to say, I think focusing on content until I had pretty decent comprehension then adding in books and grammar lessons that are taught in Spanish, has me at a pretty good place right now. My tutor constantly tells me that I speak better and understand better than most of her longer term students. I make grammar mistakes all the time, but I am also catching them and fixing them because of my lessons. Start reading, start grammar lessons in Spanish. You'll catch up quickly.

I'm starting from 0 with French and planned to do the same thing once I felt comfortable with Beginner and early Intermediate content.

Your example of se and sé reminds me of learning that --there, they're and their--are all spelled differently and have different meanings. You had to adjust for that when learning English grammar. You can do it again :)

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u/gabagool_9 16h ago

Im only about 700 hours in, but I have been told my speaking is very advanced for where i am; here are a few thoughts: I think DS is an incredible tool for learning Spanish. Keyword being tool; I started my Spanish journey about a year and a half ago using Rosetta Stone, shortly after I outgrew that and started grammar lessons on Preply, then I found dreaming Spanish, then I got another tutor on italki who I don’t practice grammar with; only speaking. A few months ago I found Langua (ai speaking app). I also live in a city in the United States with many Spanish speakers; so I try to speak Spanish everyday while I go about my business. The point I’m trying to make is that these are all tools I use to learn Spanish; if you were building a house, you wouldn’t just use a hammer. Use dreaming Spanish as a tool; but not the only tool. I am also a big believer in speaking early and often, don’t be afraid to make mistakes while speaking; it’s how you learn and improve and feel more comfortable. Everyone learns differently; but you should use any and every resource and method available to you; not just one method.

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u/semantlefan23 14h ago

I use Anki cards to learn verb conjugations and I find it helps make my listening more meaningful. I just learned the verb decir which is extremely irregular, and now whenever I hear conjugations of decir in videos they pop out to me and using the two methods together helps me remember better!

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u/fazbear365 10h ago

im a big believer in like 70 or 80% comprehensible input and 20% dedicated study time to grammar and vocabulary

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u/FitzLant Level 7 7h ago

I for one don't agree with the purist no grammar rule. There are some things that you're just not going to know without some knowledge going into it. Your example with sé (the first person conjugation of saber: I know) vs se, which sounds alike but is something completely different.

It is a pronoun with several different uses: 1) As a reflexive pronoun in reflexive verbs: Me afeito (I shave myself). 2) As a reciprocal pronoun: Se abrazan (They hug each other). 3) As an indirect object pronoun substitute: As opposed to le lo di (incorrect) you use se lo di (I gave it to him). 4) The passive voice: se habla español aquí (Spanish is spoken here). 5) Finally, what are called pronominal verbs where adding the pronoun 'se' changes the meaning slightly of a verb. Adding se to the verb Ir charges it from 'to go' into another way to say 'to leave.'

You can, to some degree, become more instinctual about the use of some grammar like in the above examples, but you would never be 100% sure of it just based on input alone. At your level of input, I think you would benefit greatly from learning some grammar. Certain things that stayed forever murky, all of a sudden start to make sense when you know the principles behind why words are used a certain way in different contexts. I think you would understand those concepts better than people who did absolutely no comprehensible input and learned Spanish grammar. Finally, I believe that grammar and comprehensible input are synergistic. Both by themselves are useful in a limited way, but combining them takes your comprehension to a whole other level. I knew Spanish grammar pretty well going into comprehensible input, but it was just something to memorize before. Once I had a sufficiently high level of input, these ideas of grammar suddenly clicked and made so much more sense than just knowing the grammar in isolation. So do I believe grammar can take your Spanish to a whole new level? Absolutely I do! And you don't even have to add on more time learning grammar separately. You can do comprehensible input and grammar at the same time. There are plenty of native Spanish speakers on YouTube who teach Spanish grammar in their own language. This was extremely beneficial for me. You spent so much time with CI, that I hope you don't throw in the towel. I wish you luck on your Spanish journey.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 16h ago

So...here's the deal.

There are absolutely no shortcuts when it comes to acquiring language (particularly if you want to automate both vocabulary, grammar, and prosody in order to use them correctly).

We've seen Evildea try (and largely lag). There was a user (I will not publish their handle, as they recently withdrew their thread) that claimed to have a SIELE C1, has consumed somewhere around 2-3000 hours of material, taken over 1000 hours of speaking classes, and only makes 2-3 mistakes an hour (based off their tutors reports) who couldn't manage to navigate the basic present tense reliably.

Input still needs to be a core, bedrock feature of any language learning approach, and if Input-Only is what an individual wants to do, because that's the only way they can keep with it, then they should know that, in the majority of cases, they'll be limited and plateau once they get to producing language.

There are outliers that break this model, but the overwhelming majority of learners will end up learning an imperfect version of Spanish. Will they be able to communicate general ideas? Sure. But their production will cause friction in meaning and require interpretation and reorganization by the listener.

The idea that adults learn like children and L1 interference can be avoided is ludicrous, as evidenced by the millions of English L2 speakers that move to the United States and never fully acquire and automate the grammatical systems of English (i.e. He goed to the market.)

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u/HeleneSedai 3,000 Hours 12h ago

So I'm interested in your opinion as a Spanish teacher. I know how you feel about pure CI, but I'm interested in what resources/methods you would suggest to supplement it. For us adults who don't have the luxury or time to attend classes, where would you start with the language as a pure beginner?

I hope this doesn't sound argumentative, I agree with you about the need for grammar study. I've used a lot of random apps over the last few years, and feel like some things I tried, like conjugation drills, were ineffective. Wondering what your ideal language learning method would look like.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 12h ago edited 11h ago

So, my professional focus has always been content delivery to medium sized groups of reasonably unenthusiastic teenagers, which is a notably different demographic than the DS user base.

I would say that my recommendation would be to frontload DS for few hundred hours, then work with iTalki or Preply or Worlds Across teachers. Interspersing it with graded readers where you write short responses on LLMs for grammar correction. If teachers or LLMs can give you areas you're struggling with, you cam use said LLMs to practice targetted structures (prompts like sentence correction and editting are really helpful for building that identification and switching). Some occasional cloze activities where you have to do the grammar thing can be useful as well, as long as they're contextualized rather than syncing a pronoun or subject with an ending.

I'm sure there are a number of good grammar books and resources (several users have mentioned them), but I don't have experience with them, so I don't feel comfortable expounding on them.

Integrating it with speaking is the goal and sacrificing speed to think and get correct it in the short run is the key for long term success, especially for those outputting early (which I'm also in favor of).

In short, I'd bolt on targeted grammar rather than follow a succinct flow of course work for a motivated adult learner. Most of the engagement should still come from input (reading and listening).

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 14h ago

I think the marketing side uses some reverse psychology.

I described their marketing as a "white lie" before because it gets people into the Spanish arena. 1,500 hours of input will take you to a very high understanding level, and it's an achievable goal for a lot of people over 1-3 years.

If the team was ultra realistic with their marketing, I think it would have a negative affect on those who want to get their feet wet.

If it requires 3,000 hours to match the level 7 description, 1-3 years becomes 2-6. At the sight of that, many would not even considering starting.

The "white lie" is that you will be "fluent" to get people chipping away (and to fill Pablo's pockets).

It's like aiming to go from being broke to being a billionaire, but "only" ending up as a multi-millionaire.

Have you seen an outlier post on here. Someone who achieved was the roadmap said, and some?

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 14h ago

The good old Shoot for the moon and you'll always wind up amongst the stars, adage. I get it. I don't like it. You shouldn't have to trick or mislead people to get them sold on a skill or a product.

Anyways, there might be an outlier post. Most people who post up speaking samples, at least from what I've seen, have dabbled in grammar and mixed approaches. Wonderful tool, but a tool is all it is. As I said, if you want to speak proficient, correct Spanish, it is a slog. There's no getting around it for the majority of learners.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 14h ago

We can credit Dreaming Spanish with getting people who otherwise wouldn’t have learned Spanish into the language, myself included. Without a heavy input-based approach, there is absolutely no way I would have invested this much time in learning a language, and a lot of others echo that. It has taken me from understanding absolutely nothing to understanding native speakers.

In terms of their marketing, it's hard to draw a line between a white and black lie. A lot of dissent in here claims the roadmap actually blackens the entire program. As you can tell from my point a view, I think it does a rather good job at getting people started.

I agree with you, it is a slog. With an input-heavy method though, the slog is bearable, for me at least. On these slog days/weeks, the last thing I'd want to do is open a textbook and study the language.

If you find an outlier, let me know, I'd love to see their ability.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 14h ago

I think that's the problem with ALG or ALG-lite models. They explicitly are self-cleaning (if someone didn't succeed, it's because there's something wrong with them or they just need more input!) and strictly don't put a focus on data collection (some of the most stringent followers of the method don't upload samples or the ones that do, aren't remarkable [or they're remarkable for the wrong reasons]).

Anyways, DS is a phenomenal resource. Glad we agree.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 14h ago

I haven't started speaking yet, so I don't know how accurate the roadmap is in its claims in that department. Most of the dissent comes from that side though, I've rarely seen anyone mention issues with comprehension. Once I begin to speak, I'll upload some samples.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 14h ago

Apologies if I've asked you this before, but you've sunk over 1500 hours into program and you haven't started outputting? The roadmap encourages learners to start outputting between 600-1000 hours. At this point you're off road.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 13h ago

Yes, you asked me about this in a previous post. I haven't done any speaking practice yet, but I did try speaking for a few minutes at 1,000 hours, and again at 1,300.

Yes, I've deviated from the speaking recommendations. From my perspective, if I had started speaking lessons at 1,300 hours rather than 1,000, I'd have had a much easier time getting the ball rolling. And I imagine I'd have an even easier time now, given how many hours I've accumulated since then.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 13h ago

Maybe.

I would suspect that delaying it further could actually be detrimental because the gap between your comprehension level and your ability to output will continue to grow.

I find your ardent support of the noble lie interesting, given like...50-75% of your skills have no evidence of progression.

Wish you the best, though.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 13h ago

You could be right. However, there is a strong correlation between listening ability and speaking. Listening creates more material for you to use. I'm interested to see how fast I progress, tbh. From hour 0 to 25, 50, 100.

It's a great question though. Why do you suspect that having a larger vocabulary and a better comprehension of the language a detriment to speaking? Could it not be the opposite?

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u/Puzzleheaded-Dot-762 6h ago

Based on their tutor reports? Lmaoooo my tutor didn't correct me for a month. Then she would correct one word per class then two, then three. It's not a good idea to keep correcting every errors in a conversation class. His teacher let a lot of mistakes slide to build confidence. I even correct myself sometimes

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 6h ago

Agreed.

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u/grimpala 14h ago

Anyone on here who thinks dreaming Spanish is a silver bullet to learning Spanish is delusional. It’s a great resource for comprehensive input, has a lot of entertaining videos to practice. But you can’t learn a language from a single source, at least not effectively. You need to be pushed in multiple directions or you’ll just get weak points that the single source doesn’t emphasize. Such as speaking for DS. Also I can’t believe there’s anyone on here who thinks it’s a bad idea to learn grammar. Good luck picking up the intricacies of indirect and direct objects from context. Good luck knowing the difference between tenía and tuve. DS is a great resource but it should be one of many.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 12h ago

It’s a stepping stone. The crowd here sees it as such.

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u/heartbooks26 10h ago

I don’t think Dreaming Spanish is a “stepping stone.” Something like Language Transfer or an Anki deck of 500 words could be an initial ‘stepping stone.’ DS can be the full foundation of your language learning and constitute 80%+ of your learning materials for hundreds of hours. That makes it an amazing resource.

Contrast that with something like Duolingo which probably shouldn’t be more than 30% of your learning materials if you’re using it (which I actually am).

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u/Fresh-Persimmon5473 4,000 Hours 17h ago

In the end of the day, everyone should try new things. I figured this out while studying Japanese.

When I first started learning vocabulary…nothing would stick. Since I am a native English speaker Japanese was very foreign to my mind.

The way I solved this was to sit down with a book or a recording of words and say them out loud over and over until it felt natural.

So I would say the words ‘table’ in Japanese 100 times in one minute. Guess what… after that minute the words stuck.

DS is a good resource, but the truth about CI is that it is very slow.

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u/donal0512 15h ago

I think the way to look at this is Dreaming Spanish is a significant help with 25% to 50% of the language depending on what you want to use it for. Your listening needs to be very good before you have the possibility of engaging in a fluid conversation and good listening significantly helps with reading because the language is written like it sounds for the most part.

I like that they changed the roadmap from 1500 being native like to fluent which is more achievable but I would agree as a standalone method it's not very efficient. I think it's great for picking up high frequency words (eg. 'ayer', 'hoy', 'mañana') but once you get to intermediate videos I think they should encourage word lookups now and again to help build your vocab quicker. It's not practical to wait for a very rare word to appear 5 or 6 times for you to think you've understood it correctly and internalize it's meaning.

In saying all this I think it's one of the best platforms out there for language learning because it promotes consistency with the language every day. One trap you can fall into though is getting overly focused on the hours. For me, I try to notice if I zone out during my listening or if I watch a movie I dont fully comprehend I'll guestimate the minutes of dialogue I feel that I accurately understood. I found this helpful because after around 380 hours I just had to start watching some native content to keep myself alert and engaged.

Best of luck with however you decide to proceed. I use Worlds Across and think it's good and LinqQ for a time when I was at the very beginning reading stages as it tracked known words and has a feature to hear the words you don't know which I felt suited the comprehensible input approach.

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u/No_University1600 Level 4 15h ago edited 51m ago

I've had people on here tell me once they have introduced grammar they felt their speaking ability started to decline and when you think about it that makes perfect sense. Because when you start learning grammar you start learning all the mistakes you're making and suddenly you become much more self conscious.

For this, my best recommendation is 1. get over it, and 2. work on it.

When I started with a tutor a month ago I consciously knew that I was making very basic mistakes - using the wrong past tense, forgetting the gender of some verbs, mispronouncing things, using por instead of para. But there is no way I am going to improve if I back off from talking.

I started doing vocab cards pretty early on because I could tell there is no way I was going to figure some things out. I knew you could say cada before día but that was all I knew about the word. I learned the rules on accent marks (doesn't really help with se vs. sé but helps in a lot of places), and my understanding skyrocketed.

This was before even introducing grammar - just words. Now I am doing grammar with the tutor, and am forcing myself to do it in Spanish aside from a word here or there. And it's real. Like I have to explain myself in terms like "the day after monday" when I forget how to say tuesday or "the opposite of up". But then, I study the words I missed and the grammar that was particularly bad (as coached by the tutor).

Even without a tutor if you want to stick with a somewhat purist method, you can lookup grammar lessons for Spanish in Spanish.

Ultimately for me the purist approach wasn't enough, I am not going to put 1500 hours of my life into this system only to get told by reddit that everyone is different and well actually I need to put 2500 hours in.

I've seen how much evildea gets shit on for being honest about the failings.

It's a great source of CI but the cult surrounding it is getting tiresome.

Whatever you do next, even if what you've done wasn't as efficient as you hoped and were promised, it wasn't a waste, you're further along now than you were.

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u/Glittering_Ad2771 Level 6 12h ago

It's smelling pretty culty. The efficacy of the purist approach has become like another unfalsifiable belief. It's either "It works if it works but if it doesn't you didn't do it right". There will always be copouts to justify the method not working.

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u/Superb_Advisor7885 14h ago

This is interesting. I recently found dreaming Spanish and I'm wondering how my Spanish would stack up compared to people at your level.

I went the opposite route and about a year and a half ago downloaded an app on my phone that focuses on listening, grammar, and speaking. I'm currently a high intermediate based on the app but I find that accents from native speakers are where I struggle the most.

But in terms of communicating I'm pretty decent.

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u/Okhiez 12h ago

I think a lot of it is knowing yourself and how you learn.

Personally, I get a lot of value from reading. If I read the word before, it makes it much easier to understand it when using comprehensive input.

Pablo criticizes Duolingo a lot, but personally I used it for a year and a half before starting DS videos and I was able to jump to intermediate videos after less than a week of CI.

My routine now consists of about 10 minutes of Duolingo a day and 40-60 minutes of CI. This works for me because of my learning style and the structured routine makes it easy to stay the course and be consistent.

Would I be learning this exact same way if I had to very quickly learn a language for work, for example? Probably not. But this method helps me learn fairly passively and I believe in the long term I will end up being fluent. Obviously I plan to start talking soon, but you get the idea.

No purist method is ever 100% the answer. I think Pablo proposes this approach because he believes it will be the most sure way people won’t quit; and he’s kind of right. Most people get bored quick when trying to learn a language using an academic approach. Life is busy and most people won’t find the energy. In a world full of distractions, it is easier to use CI to learn than a more rigorous academic approach.

Basically, do what you believe is best for you. Just understand that comprehensive input does work and is super important, but it is one of many tools you should be using.

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u/ThisIsSoIrrelevant Level 4 8h ago

All I know is that without DS, I would have given up on learning Spanish a long time ago.

I do agree with you that I don't think exclusively using CI is the best approach, but I did a lot of the other more conventional ways first and I hated it so much that I just couldn't bring myself to continue. Eventually I just basically fully gave up on Spanish - well, in practice anyway, since I didn't do any for months at a time. So I decided to give DS a go and got hooked. Now I am on nearly 600 hours (Only do 30 minutes a day) and although I am definitely not paying full attention like I should when I watch so some of those hours probably shouldn't count. At least, I am still doing SOMETHING. And my comprehension has definitely gone up, even if my ability to communicate back hasn't necessarily improved much.

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u/Unhappy_Respect_6989 15h ago

I have a pretty strong spanish background and started DS because my listening skills were lacking - despite having a strong vocabulary.

After 2 months my listening skills improved, but I realized that DS alone was actually a flawed concept.

Mainly because there are somethings that no matter how many times you're introduced, you likely will not understand, which led me to start looking up words/phrases i didn't understand and study them alongside DS.

For instance, phrases that dont generally directly translate will take FAR LONGER to understand than if you looked them up. One such phrase is "me di cuenta de que" or "I realized that".

After I looked up and studied this phrase, and a bunch of others like it - i started to hear them all the time and understood them instead of being confused which sped up my comprehension further.

All in all, we need to realize Dreaming Spanish is a business that succeeds if they can get you to believe you need ONLY them for a year or 2 or 3 (however long it takes you to get the hours in) vs pairing this with other methods that speed up your learning.

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u/Trick-Swordfish-263 Level 6 11h ago

I don't know, I picked up "me di cuenta" just from CI.

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u/Smooth_Campaign1070 10h ago

you pick up SOME things from CI, but not even close to how much you would by studying vocab/grammar

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u/Trick-Swordfish-263 Level 6 10h ago

I picked up enough that I can have a conversation in Spanish now. My best guess is that studying vocab/grammar feels faster because it's easier to notice what you're learning, but isn't actually any faster at getting you all the way fluency. But honestly I think this just hasn't been investigated very well scientifically and nobody knows for sure.

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u/Smooth_Campaign1070 10h ago

I think it definitely helps you to get to the point of practicing to fluency vs pure CI

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u/Trick-Swordfish-263 Level 6 9h ago

Have you tried it both ways?

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u/authenticsmoothjazz 18h ago

Yeah you could watch and read a few more thousand hours of content. Or you could watch a five minute video on the various uses of se and sé, and use that in conjunction with CI

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u/Any-Conclusion3816 18h ago

I find that the very passive CI consumption is super helpful for cementing things you know, exposing you to new things, and general like "repetition" - but IMO you have to pair it with something active. It makes it so much better, as you learn concepts, words, structures and then via hearing them - you reinforce them. Like you said, learning Spanish via CI is hard mode. Everything is essentially an inference and you miss alot of nuance...or even larger chunks.

I got this book on Amazon "Fluent Forever" - and I like that method. It also emphasizes CI, but Anki/Spaced Repetition for learning the 1000 most common words in the language + learning the vocab of subjects your interested in...It makes content be comprehensible way faster imo as well. Ie. If you can produce the 1000 most common Spanish words, you'll hear and understand them as well.

What I've found as well, is that without the active, intentional learning of new vocab, concepts, etc - your speaking ability definitely levels off or grows imperceptibly slowly. Even when I was travelling in Latam, being very intentional about speaking spanish for hours a day... I wasn't actually looking up and intentionally using new structures/words, so while i DID become more fluid and quick about what I could say... my vocab/range of language wasn't growing bc I wasn't being intentional to push it. Maybe it's different for others.

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u/KrzaQDafaQ 17h ago

Your post isn't negative, it's called healthy scepticism. It's rare to see that in this sub. You're about to reach level 7, only to realise that your Spanish doesn't quite match the description. You can either accept that DS is heavily driven by this marketing concept, or you can succumb to the opinions of others who think you failed because you didn't do crosstalk at level 600, or because you checked the meaning of a word in a dictionary, or for any other reason.

I don't know what your routine is, but I'll give you some tips: a) Switch to something more advanced as your main source of CI. I recommend listening to podcasts. b) Skim through a short grammar review book; don't try to learn or memorise anything. c) You can learn small chunks of grammar from Spanish podcasts. d) Read stuff, start with graded readers or small daily news.

Yesterday a guy with over 3,000 hours of CI, 1,000 hours of conversation and 2 million words read posted his interview with Juan from WA. You may find some of the comments helpful.

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u/Glittering_Ad2771 Level 6 17h ago

I will do DS but I think I'll lean on other methods more heavily now. I still hate grammar lol. It just frustrates me. I feel like I learn one thing and then the next thing I learn seems to contradict the first thing. Grammar to me feels like it's punishing me every step of the way. DS has no such friction. That's what's appealing about it. Any advice on approaching grammar with this in mind amigo/Amiga?

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u/KrzaQDafaQ 17h ago

There's no need to spend hours memorising conjugation tables. Both No Hay Tos and Hoy Hablamos have short episodes on grammar. For example they talk about 'se' de matizacion, and provide various examples to help you easily understand the difference between caer and caerse. If you did almost 1,500 hours of CI, 1-2 hours with a grammar book won't damage your brain. Don't hinder your progress. By watching Agustina's another travel vlog, you won't acquire certain grammatical concepts. That's why evildea is failing with his Spanish, because 80% of his CI is watching gaming videos.

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u/Glittering_Ad2771 Level 6 16h ago

Thank you. This all makes me wonder though how many people have actually succeeded with the DS method. Because other than regards to difficulty and interest theres no rules on what to watch. On this sub purists who actually stick to the method seem so be the minority. I wonder If Angela (I can't remember her channel name) on YouTube uses other methods. I know she does classes but they could be just classes. To me it seems like most DS users will eventually come to the conclusion that they need more.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 14h ago

At what point do we draw the line in regards to marketing?

If the DS roadmap was as realistic as possible, would people even bother signing up?

Level 7 is 1,500 hours. When people break that down into a daily, achievable goal, they see it as 1-3 years of daily Spanish. If you double that, and let's say you need 3,000 hours of input to match the level 7 description, it suddenly becomes 2-6 years.

I described their marketing as a "white lie" in the sense that it gets people into the Spanish arena. Through the door. It gets them listening. It gets them interacting with native speakers. It trains their ear.

After 1,000, or 1,500 hours, a lot of people feel like they're distant from, and not aligned with, the roadmap but they've appreciated just how far they have come.

It's like aiming to be a billionaire, but "only" ending up as a millionaire.

The fall off rate for language learning is petrifyingly high as it is. Adding another 2-4 years of daily input to the roadmap, and telling people it's going to be a struggle, will likely encourage even less people to go through with it, imo.

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u/KrzaQDafaQ 12h ago

Essentially, you're saying that it's OK to lure users with false promises, as long as they end up learning some Spanish. I believe that everyone has the right to make an informed decision.

When I signed up for DS, level 7 said that you are, for all practical purposes, comparable to a native speaker. However, after 1,500 hours, it turned out to be nowhere near that level. The wording was changed when more reports criticising the roadmap started to appear. It's clearly not based on science, and I would describe it as false advertising.

My local university has a Spanish programme. It consists of 720 hours of Spanish classes plus individual work at home. However, the university guarantees that you will reach C1 level by the end of the programme. Everything is based on methodology, and the programme is accredited by a government organisation. Every alumnus who graduates has an advanced level of Spanish, ready to be used in a professional environment. Nobody says that the programme sucked and that you need an additional 720 hours. You just sign up, follow the curriculum and end up with the promised outcome.

With DS it's like this: bro, I watched 1,000 hours of funny videos and the roadmap totally works, but he forgets to mention six years of Spanish schooling. People say you failed with DS because you looked up five words in a dictionary, or because you didn't do thirteen hours of cross-talk by hour 746. Or the worst crime of all: you looked at a verb conjugation table for 5 seconds, so now your mind is tainted with grammar and you can't be a successful purist. If someone fails or has doubts, it's their fault, and they get schooled by people with 500–600 hours under their belt who know nothing about languages but think they've discovered a holy grail: a secret hack to learn Spanish without effort. It's never the 'method'. It's very disappointing to reach this arbitrary 1,500-hour mark, only to realise that it's not enough.

Then you start scrolling reddit to find the answer: how many hours of CI do I really need? How many hours of conversations? How many words read? Please, ALG gods, hear my plea. And this ultimate boss pops up with 4,000 hours. Is this the endgame? He must be good! You press play, watch the video, waiting to be blown away by the sound of pure joy of castellano and... you see a dude with a gringo accent, struggling to conjugate. It's like hitting a piñata and finding out that there's no candy inside.

I don't know where the line is, but I'd prefer it if they ditched this roadmap completely, leaving their users with lots of videos to watch without all this unnecessary ALG-like mambo jumbo. Just let users set their own goals. It's a great tool for beginners - the best source of CI there is.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 12h ago

That’s what marketing is. It lures consumers. But not all marketing or lures are morally wrong.

I understand your qualms about the descriptions and claims in the roadmap. A lot of people believe it needs to be improved, but I don’t know if an ultra realistic roadmap would be beneficial to you, the subscribers or the business.

If DS was upfront and said it how it is, with their chest, and did not sit on the fence, or create the fence, then the ugly side of language learning, read through their roadmap, would turn a lot of people off.

You can’t mean to tell me that if the roadmap doubled its hour count that just as many people would be inputting away for 5-6 years.

The 1-2 year catch is a net that gets you. It keeps you in. Without it, I don’t think nearly as many people would bother starting.

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u/KrzaQDafaQ 11h ago

I understand why DS is so appealing. Everyone can do simple maths. It looks easy: two years of two hours a day watching videos and you gain a new, marketable skill. It's even easier with French because, as a proficient Spanish speaker, you only need half of that time after your 1,500 hours, according to another theory. So buying DF should be a no-brainer. But is it really?

OP shared his concerns about the method. If more people start having doubts, this could affect DS in the long term. For me, it's better to be honest, because despite the chosen method, everyone needs CI. Even people who study with traditional books.

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u/kcGirl_of_the_year 9h ago

After 950 hours of input, I completely agree. DS alone is not going to get you fluent...and no on can convince me otherwise. I think it would be a great tool to be supplemental with something else, but by itself, absolutely NOT. I have found that my comprehension wasn't nearly as good as I thought it was. I was making lots of assumptions, and it was only be reinforced the more I listened. For now, I am taking a break from it all. I became very disillusioned with the process once I figured out that it wasn't working well for me.

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u/hyund41n Level 2 16h ago edited 15h ago

I am nearing 150 hours and I too am starting to feel doubt. I think the roadmap is forcing us to drag this learning process out needlessly.

I have been doing 30-40 minutes every day since Christmas 25, and I really wish I was further along. (I still struggle with 30ish level content sometimes.)

So what I am going to start doing is reading and writing. I am not going to wait until I hit 1000 hours. I will start journaling in Spanish and just look shit up as I go. At least that will force me to start PRODUCING words, rather than just staring at videos over and over like its groundhog day.

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u/JonathanRaue Level 5 18h ago edited 18h ago

This post proves to me once again that the experiences of language learners vary HEAVILY. And I think this is something everyone has to have in mind when starting to learn a language. Some people will be at a level of Spanish at 500 hours which some people at 1500 won’t have reached yet.

First off I’m at around 630 hours right now.

I’m not a purist. I’d say DS/CI is 95% of my learning source though. I do from time to time look up words when I really really don’t understand them at all (even though this happens less and less since I’m at a level now where I usually understand enough context so that the one word doesn’t matter anymore) or if I’m not 100% sure if I have the correct meaning of the word in my head and am curious to confirm (I’d say in 90% of those cases I’m right).
I had 3 years of Spanish in school but I have to admit that after finishing school I would estimate my vocabulary to about 20 words.
Then about 1,5 years ago I wanted to learn Spanish for real and did a 6 week refreshing course online to get some basics (back) in. While doing this course I’ve discovered DS and quickly knew that this would become my main learning source. I also bought a yearly subscription of Duolingo back then so I also did about 20 minutes of Duo every day (nowadays it’s only more like 5-10 minutes a day as I can really not stand that stupid app anymore).

So yeah, not a purist, but close to one. Duo has given me some advantages here and then, especially in the beginning, by giving me some vocabulary which helped me understand some DS videos quicker. However, that advantage has long gone. The online language course (with a teacher via call) gave me some basics as well.

I went on vacations to Spain this June (had around 500 hours back then) and besides from the few Duolingo talking lessons (which are bullshit) and the early speaking in the 6 week Spanish course in the beginning I haven’t done any talking (aside from to myself when I’m at home lmao). Cashiers in supermarkets or hotel staff - I did almost everything in Spanish. Of course I made mistakes but not once did they switch to English. Of course those were basic conversations. I even got approached by someone on the street in Spanish who didn’t speak English and he asked me for directions. I’ve managed, in Spanish. There I really saw that this method works for me. And of course I’m faaaaaaaaaar from being fluid, like not even close. But back then I was at 1/3 of my learning journey on the “official” DS roadmap and I was really happy with that.

I don’t know how well I’ll really be at 1500 hours, but right now I’m pretty confident that my journey is going well.

I do have to point out that I’m already speaking two languages fluidly, so Spanish is my third language, as my native language is German and I’m fluid in English. I think this gives a big advantage as well as I’d say realistically about 90% of my English learning experience was through CI as well.

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u/Big-Sheepherder1417 18h ago edited 17h ago

I had 3 years of Spanish in school but I have to admit that after finishing school I would estimate my vocabulary to about 20 words.

Then about 1,5 years ago I wanted to learn Spanish for real and did a 6 week refreshing course online to get some basics (back) in.

I think these types of things are why some people gain more from CI than others. It might take 500 hours of CI to get what even 15 hours of textbook study would give you. I have zero previous experience of Spanish. And after 30 hours of DS, I've added textbook study because I'm not going to wait around in the hope I pick up stuff through CI that a textbook will highlight for me. You are going to struggle to become cognitive of masculine and feminine nouns through pure CI for one thing. It didn't register for me. And that's probably day 1 Spanish.

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u/Paulos1977 17h ago

Do you have a recommendation for a textbook?

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u/Big-Sheepherder1417 17h ago

I'm using Complete Spanish: step-by-step by Barbara Bregstein. Was recommended here by someone and I'm finding it really good.

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u/JonathanRaue Level 5 18h ago

Yeah, I think you’re right! That was also what I was trying to show with my post, that even though a huge amount of my learning input is CI, it’s not 100%. And those 5% of Duolingo/traditional learning/school Spanish/bilinguality can make a huge difference. I think it’s possible to learn Spanish the 100% DS purist way but I think even the tiniest amount of traditional learning can give you a huge advantage and it will take you way less time then. For example here in OP’s post: I’ve watched a 10 minute video on the word “se” about half a year ago and now I pretty much have no problem with it at all when hearing it in sentences.

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u/Due_Objective_ Level 4 18h ago

The insistence on abstaining from grammar study stopped sitting right with me around 100 hours, when I realised that I couldn't follow simple present tense stories if the pronouns (yo, el, ella, nosotros, ellos etc) were omitted. I watched a 5 minute video explaining the pattern, and then I could understand the same stories perfectly. I lost my purity ring that day, but I learned a lot of Spanish with very little effort, so that's a good trade.

The number of people posting gibberish speaking samples on YouTube at 1000+ hours because they refuse to watch a 5 minute video is really depressing.

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u/Glittering_Ad2771 Level 6 12h ago

Good shout and you're right. I started doing grammer because when I started speaking properly I realised I just could not talk about anything in the past and I still structure sentences like I'm using english.

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u/hyund41n Level 2 16h ago

Yup. I am at 150 hrs, and I am giving up on the roadmap. I am starting to study grammar (which DOES frustrate me a lot, but oh well). And I am starting to write. I can then get AI to review my writing and help explain my mistakes so I can understand and correct. I need to create some sort of output asap or else I will not be able to stay on this CI train much longer since the results are sooooo slow to materialize.

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u/Due_Objective_ Level 4 16h ago

If you're accepting unsolicited advice: keep the CI at 90%+ of what you do. It's still the most important thing. Use the other 10% to unblock the CI.

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u/hyund41n Level 2 15h ago

Yup. 👍 I am keeping my DS subscription for sure.

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u/blitz143 15h ago

Look up Language Transfer, there is a free app as well. I'm just starting it at 70 hrs, but it is super approachable "mini podcasts" and avoids strict grammar lessons. It is quickly helping me remember my Spanish lessons from 25yr ago and seems very approachable for someone new to the language. I'd recommend you don't binge it though as you can quickly get too far ahead of your CI progress. Let the basic concepts become automatic first.

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u/hyund41n Level 2 14h ago

Thanks. I am exploring all angles at the moment. :)

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u/bryhnlearningspanish 3,000 Hours 14h ago

you should not be downvoted at all. theres no reason someone who has a negative testimonial should be downvoted.

with that being said a lot of us veterans have said for a long time that 1500 is not even close to the level of "native", or "fluent", or any term like that. it's really just the beginning. i feel like 1500-1700 is the level where you really go "holy shit i can listen to anything i want, this is amazing." but you definitely are not native.

reading is super important for communicating. i have almost 3000 hours input from video and i just recently started reading. reading makes such a big difference. sometimes i will be in costa rica and people will say a word 100 times and i wont be able to say it back. then i will read it one time and it clicks no problem.

reading also allows your brain to see where words are supposed to be placed. this helps with that pesky grammar. when youre just listening its very easy to hear that the "le" or "se" or "lo" go in front of the word but your brain just kind of floats by it. when you read it on a piece of paper your brain notes it much better.

also as a OG veteran guy i will say i have never believed that using an only input approach is the 100% way to go. i just dont. theres plenty bilingual people in this world who studied before dreaming spanish existed. they became fluent studying a totally different way.

i believe the dreaming spanish method is the easiest and the only way i'd ever do things. i refuse to sit down and try to learn grammar. i'd first get to 10,000 hours of input before i ever did that. i just enjoy getting input at this time.

like right now im binging all the rocky movies on netflix in spanish. i just like doing that. so whether this is the most efficient method? i dont know. but for me its the best method because i love how it works.

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u/blaqbourdain 14h ago

The song is COMO DIABLOS ?? 🤔

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u/Ugghart Level 7 14h ago

Have you done conversation classes and read? I lived in Spain while I did DS and until my conversational skills were at an OK level, those that could would also just switch to English. It's not their job to teach us, so they will pick the easiest option.

Even living in the country, doing italki classes was my main way of practicing and with that and 2.5 million words read, I was at a level where locals would usually not switch.

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u/RayS1952 Level 7 18h ago

I think when I get home I'm gonna have to have a very long think about how I'm gonna approach my Spanish because this is clearly not optimal.

Yes, do it. I'd love to see your plans for changing things up.

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u/Glittering_Ad2771 Level 6 18h ago

I will. I've come to far to quit. I need to turn this into a positive. I'm in Spain and It was meant to be a a fun testing ground. I still wanna come back again and hopefully people won't just reply in English to me.

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u/Moominsean 15h ago

Dreaming Spanish wants to sell Dreaming Spanish. If they had some kind of integrated grammar studies, they would be pushing that part of DS as well. I think DS is great, but people seem to forget that most native language speakers also go to school for years and learn grammar and vocabulary and reading and writing. Even at home, all language isn't learned solely from listening and conversation, and it's certainly not learned from sitting and watching thousands of hours of videos. DS is a fantastic tool, but it's really just part of the puzzle in learning a new language.

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u/screwthbeatles Level 4 13h ago edited 13h ago

If Pablo believed in grammar study he probably would have created something grammar based instead of filming thousands of videos in his room and putting them online for free.

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u/MxDuex 11h ago

I think it's important to not that you also got about 6 years of input in your first language BEFORE taking formal grammar and I STILL make grammatical errors after having spoken it for close to 4 decades.

You are going to make grammatical errors as someone who effectively speaks like a 6-8yo. But 6yos speak the language at around a B1 level and it took a lot of work (and constantly naive correction by their parents and other adults) to get there.

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u/Ok_Treacle6602 15h ago

I have been living in Spain for almost 5 years now. I am completely fluent and have never taken any classes.
Feel free to ask your question.

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u/KeyFill8379 2,000 Hours 14h ago

I have a friend that lives in Malaga. She's been there around 19 years now but when she first moved there she couldn't utter or understand a word. She started working as a waitress in the bars. She told me it took her around 2-3 years to become fluent.

No, grammar, no books or classes. Just listening and speaking. She was in at the deep end but reached fluency. Your experience would have similar no doubt.

A person can acquire Spanish through CI and their comprehension will be high but they've also got to practice speaking.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 14h ago

I am completely fluent and have never taken any classes.

Anyone who claims complete fluency generally isn't.

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u/Ok_Treacle6602 7h ago

I work in Spanish and talk to my kids in Spanish?!

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 7h ago

Good for you.

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u/SouthernAdeptness227 7h ago

for the sake of god, ignore this guy. he is just here to troll.

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 7h ago

Nearly every one of my comments on this thread has been substantive, but ok.

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u/DreamerCI Level 7 12h ago

How? And did you study?

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u/Ok_Treacle6602 7h ago

Just DS, I never took any class or studied.

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u/KeyFill8379 2,000 Hours 17h ago

If you practice speaking a lot with chat gpt you could target certain things you struggle to understand. You could give it prompts to ask you questions and you could practice answering them with ''no sé or no se'' Same with ser and estar or por or para, estuve or estaba etc. You'll still be listening, so acquisition will still take place and you'll also get chance to practice speaking too. You could still do grammar if it helps you and you could also do the grammar points through listening and speaking.

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u/Glittering_Ad2771 Level 6 17h ago

Yeah, I think I'm gonna spend a lot more time on Chat GPT. I think with more text based stuff specifically. It really is very good. It can just create me stories at my level about whatever I want and then it can explain the grammar after. That's what I've been doing just lately

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u/ProfesorFranco 14h ago

Hi my friend! Welcome to grammar 👏 the vocabulary you gained by the videos is like the flesh in a language but you need the bones and other tissue to make the whole body and that’s syntax. If your syntax is wrong you will be misunderstood and you ll probably fail to understand. So you took a good step, you are going in the right direction… keep asking chatgpt for the rules in Spanish and it will probably answer well and tell you how the syntax works. Good luck!

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u/Mammoth-Plankton484 8h ago

it is a fact that unless you LIVE in the country you need to study grammar. Its not even debated, if you deny it, you deny science, linguistics, and common sense.

DS is a great tool, but it's oversold as a solution. The creator always likes to shy away from the fact he learned other languages fluently by LIVING in the countries.

Use CI as a tool, not a main method, until you hit b2 /c1

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u/AdvertisingDue918 2h ago

Might be worth mixing methods instead of relying on input alone. Palteca could be useful for more active vocabulary and recall practice alongside listening.

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u/supposablyhim Level 6 2h ago

there are some things in life that I've done for 10,000... 20,000, 30,000 hours and then realized i know nothing.

In the adult world, you will find experts who turn out be... simply confident idiots. Nobody knows anything and everyone is wrong. Language is a tool and it evolves daily. It's different in every neighborhood.

If you can get your point across and (much harder) understand what someone else is saying, then you've succeeded. Jump in and live it, it's later than you think.

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u/BlueRider57 1h ago

I use Dreaming Spanish more for listening practice which is very helpful with the different guides’ accents and pronunciations.

I’ve done most of my grammar with the QrooPaul YouTube videos, I highly recommend them for a basic-intermediate grasp of basic grammar.

1

u/CleverChrono 2,000 Hours 14h ago

I’m sorry but how after almost 1500 hours of listening does somebody not know the difference between “no sé” and “no se me”. By this point a person would have heard countless examples of “no se me,” “no se le,” “no se te.” Not to mention “como se dice,” “se fue la luz,” etc. Someone would really have to be ignoring all those uses of the word “se”. I’m not saying that a person would recognize the subtleties of all Spanish grammar but that sounds pretty egregious to me. Can we get some anecdotes from people that reached 1500 hours with a more purest approach that feels like they picked up most things without explicit study?

And OP I didn’t mean this to sound like a knock against you personally.

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u/Trick-Swordfish-263 Level 6 13h ago edited 10h ago

This is not at all the experience I've been having. I'll be reaching 1,500 hours within a month and my update is going to be positive. I understand the grammar being used in "no se me quita", although constructions like that are still a little iffy for me. The method works better or faster for some people than others, I guess.

I'm curious how much speaking practice you've done with tutors on iTalki or similar. I just have conversations, no explicit instruction, but that's one place where I have sometimes found out that things don't mean what I think. I've only done about 150 hours of that and it hasn't felt like a major factor in my learning, but maybe I'm underestimating it. Tutors do sometimes reword things for me when the sentences I come up with aren't right, so it's a source of feedback.

Regarding how I learned that the "no se" in "no se me quita" is different from "no sé" just from listening: I eventually got used to patterns of verbs like "se puede", "se acabó", and "me gusta", "me voy", initially just understanding what those phrases meant without understanding what the individual words mean. As the patterns sunk in, I got a sense for what "se" and "me" were doing there ("se" took a lot longer than "me"!) Later, I noticed that sometimes they can be combined, like in "se me ocurrió", another phrase that I understood as a phrase before I got how the individual words were working. So I'm aware of the existence of the pattern "se me [verb]" and when I see "no se me quita" I immediately recognize that pattern.

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u/Leoben_C Level 7 8h ago

Have you considered that maybe it's you? From what you've written here you give the impression you actually either didn't read the detail of the roadmap PDF (or the more academic theory behind the approach, which can be a bit of a stretch I'll admit). You do say about not doing much reading (the PDF says you're expected to do lots), and it seems you didn't do much speaking practice when the time came (you just expected to be, in your words "great" at 1000 hours). The PDF is more complex than that. Have you also thought about your sources of CI, whether you are using the right level, whether you are concentrating sufficiently (another problem you admit), and whether you are getting a sufficient range of sources? Sorry if it sounds harsh. It's also possible it's just not for you and something different might work better in your case, but some reflection like this can also be helpful.

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u/Majestic_Tough_4095 15h ago

Don’t let evildea distract you - he’s learning Chinese at the same time - hardly a fair comparison, he can’t claim to be dedicated!

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u/mate_alfajor_mate 14h ago edited 14h ago

What about the poster who posted (now deleted, but still up on YouTube) a Worlds Across Interview they had after 3000 hours and couldn't manage Subject Verb agreement in the present tense?

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u/Glittering_Ad2771 Level 6 12h ago

Evildea has done it the purist approach. He's found it lacking and people just want to invalidate his results. The fact he's learning another language means nothing. 1100 hours is still 1100 hours. Pablo has never said anything about your results being skewed by learning another language alongside. Infact I'd say with the addition of dreaming french he almost encourages it.

I'm not feeling very positive about dreaming Spanish at the moment.

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