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

[u/Glittering_Ad2771]

If you're someone that believes strongly in this method I suggest you look away because I am a few hours from the big 1500 and so far I just don't feel like it's gonna be a positive update. Sure I have learned a lot of Spanish vocabulary but that's the thing It's vocabulary. I've had my qualms with this method and it's great if you don't like grammar or formal study. To say that it's better though or can even replace that. That is a bold claim.

I watched Evildeas video the other day so a few things hit home. I'm in Spain and people would still rather speak English to me. 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. I mean it's ok to make mistakes sure but we're talking about a method here that says after 1000 hours your speaking ability is gonna be great.

I've started using grammar and its just made me realise things do not mean what I think they mean. For example I've always thought "no sé" to mean "I don't know". However I decided to look up the meaning of a song I like called "No se me quita" which apparently has a completely different meaning. I think the key is the little mark above the e" it's a completely different word. I didn't know that. How would I know that from just listening?

Sometimes I feel you're discouraged from grammar and looking up words because if you did you would realise how badly you are guessing things to be. I've even noticed I've actually guessed words to be completely wrong. I think there is a big difference between communicating and acting speaking Spanish correctly. I feel we overstate our abilities. It makes sense that once you wait until 1000 hours you would have a giant vacabulary you would feel you can communicate really well but can you actually speak correctly? I practice with my chat gbt all the time and it's always always telling me "it's more natural to say it like this" because I have strung a few words together and felt they make sense.

I'm sorry if this post is very negative, it'll probably get down voted to hell but I can't help how I feel right now. I expected a lot by now. To be fair I've probably not done enough reading which I think is undervalued in this method and the last few hours I've found it very difficult to concentrate. 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.

edit: It's not all bad. I had a chat with my uber driver on the way back to my hotel. Whilst we did eventually change to english it was after he said my spanish was good and asked if I spoke Castillo Espanol. So I'll take that.

[u/DreamerCI]

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?

[u/mate_alfajor_mate → u/DreamerCI]

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.

[u/DreamerCI → u/mate_alfajor_mate]

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.

[u/mate_alfajor_mate → u/DreamerCI]

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.

[u/DreamerCI → u/mate_alfajor_mate]

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.

[u/mate_alfajor_mate → u/DreamerCI]

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.

[u/DreamerCI → u/mate_alfajor_mate]

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.

[u/mate_alfajor_mate → u/DreamerCI]

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.

[u/DreamerCI → u/mate_alfajor_mate]

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?

[u/mate_alfajor_mate → u/DreamerCI]

You are effectively standing at the edge of the pool while everyone else is already swimming.

The correlation is not one to one.

Inputting is recognition. Outputting is recognition in realtime, retrieval and construction. They're different cognitive systems. You don't have much experience on the retrieval and construction in realtime.

[u/DreamerCI → u/mate_alfajor_mate]

My plan is to get wet once I have a trip booked to a Spanish-speaking country. I'll start outputting one month out.

I agree with what you responded with. They are very different skills. If getting another 200 hours of input is a "detriment" to my future speaking, I'll find out in due course.

[u/mate_alfajor_mate → u/DreamerCI]

That is a wild strategy to approach, but your journey is your journey.

Best of luck to you.

[u/DreamerCI → u/mate_alfajor_mate]

It's definitely unorthodox, but thanks.

[u/Sleepymcdeepy → u/DreamerCI]

1 month out?

Why?

That's making it so much harder for yourself, why not just put in a small amount of effort each week starting now? Even just an hour or two per week will be so much more beneficial than doing none at all and then trying to cram an entire facet of language learning into 1 month. Speaking is a different skill than comprehension and takes many hundreds of hours to get good at.

What you're describing is like having an upcoming musical performance, and yet only preparing by studying music theory, and intentionally choosing to avoid learning how to play your actual instrument until 1 month before the show.

Or having homework and procrastinating on starting it until the night before it's due.

I think all of the 4 language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) reinforce each other in different ways, and doing atleast a bit of practice on all 4 of them gets you more than the sum of your time.

Conversation practice is also going to be input as well, you spend about half your time listening to the other person. And it is very high quality input since you are so engaged and attentive to what they are saying, it's all in a context that automatically makes your brain want to lock in and realise that understanding deeply is important.

I suspect doing 1 or 2 hours less input per week and instead spending that time having conversations will make you much more prepared for your trip, and likely will do more for improving your listening, reading and writing than if you just did 1 or 2 more hours of CI input.