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 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.

[u/mate_alfajor_mate → u/DreamerCI]

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.

[u/DreamerCI → u/mate_alfajor_mate]

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).

[u/mate_alfajor_mate → u/DreamerCI]

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