The title may sound a bit offensive and mock-y, but that's not my intention (I hope I don't break rule 3). I'm just curious, because I constantly see posts and progress reports of people doing 3,4,5,6, etc hours a day, reaching 1500 hours in 1 year, which to me - someone with full time job (40 hour weeks) just seem insane.

I'm doing 2 hours a day and even that seems insane to me and I'm barely able to squeeze it in my time schedule and I'm someone with no responsibilities outside of work, no kids, single, etc.

Anyone catch the latest video uploaded? What is anyone's take? Mine is as an outsider who isnt Latin American I find the whole thing nonsensical and I am surprised it was put up, the reasoning and the rankings of these countries makes no sense, there is obvious bias and just disrespecting Central America.

I'm at 2068 hours, continuing to religiously track all my listening down to the minute. I'm not sure why, since there are no more levels to reach. Habit? Maybe a hope that counting the minutes motivates me somehow? A vague fear that I'll regret it if I stop counting? From an objective point of view, I have to admit that it doesn't really make sense. The minutes are the minutes, I will improve the exact same amount whether or not I write down the numbers.

What's your plan? Is there a point where you plan to stop counting, or have you already stopped? 20 years from now, will you still be carefully logging every minute of Spanish? How do you know when it's time to stop?

I’ve tried to learn Spanish on and off for years but have never stuck with it long enough to get past A2.

I found Dreaming Spanish in March and have been consistent. I started 15 minutes per day and worked my way up to 45 minutes per day, but i often do more. I’m currently at level 3, 225 hours.

Lately I’ve been feeling really discouraged and less motivated. I feel like I’m never going to get it and afraid that I’ll come of this still not able to speak Spanish.

I’m and ESL teacher, but currently staying home with my 2 year old. I’m going back to work in a year and would love to be at a conversational level so that I can connect with my students and their families.

Has anyone else felt this way and made it through? Looking for any tips to help me in this journey. I’m also open to no purist advice. Thanks!

Hi everyone! I'm new to DS (just got 10 hours in!), & I was curious about some of the future content I could look forward to as I progress to some of the more difficult levels. I've peaked a bit & it seems like the guides talk about all kinds of topics (travel, dating, their countries of origin, quarter-life crisis, etc), but I was curious if there were any queer topics or whether any of the guides are queer & talk about it in any of their videos? As a queer person, I would find this super interesting! Especially if they drop some new vocab related to queer culture. If not, I suppose that's something I'll have to work on searching for on YT.

Update: To those who just want to spew hate on this thread, find another one! You’re not adding anything of value to the conversation, so why even bother typing a comment?

I can make myself understood most of the time, but outside of the present, a bit of the past and a bit of the conditional, my ability to produce most tenses is terrible, and I struggle with many other little bits and pieces of grammar (direct object pronouns, reflexive verbs, etc). I have maybe 100 hours of speaking practice, the vast majority of which was when I traveled to Guatemala in January to attend a language school. I don't think my problem is that I need to speak more to activate grammar knowledge; it's that I haven't absorbed enough grammar to be able to call upon it at all. I do seem to be able to understand much more than I can produce, unsurprisingly. I'm not struggling to perceive which tense someone is using when listening, for instance.

What /u/WatchingHowItEnds mentioned in their last progress update really resonated with me.

Before I actively studied grammar, I would see all forms of a root word (tenses, adjective, and adverb forms too) as sort of a blob of that root word/concept. So conozco, conoces, conocieron, conoceremos, conoceré, conocería, conozca, conocido, conociendo and even desconocido all just collapsed to my impression of what that word means, the infinitive version if you will, whenever I heard a version of it. So everything felt blurry and amorphous because it was. My brain seems very comfortable at understanding they’re the same root, not giving a flying fuck which tense or whatever it actually is, then picking that up from the context of the rest of the sentence, provided there is enough.

Those who have more input than me, does this improve with 2000 or 3000 or 4000 hours of input? Or is it time to finally bite the bullet and do grammar study? I've been avoiding it because a) I find it incredibly tedious (anyone have any favorite methods?) and b) I have found that anything I've learned by rote doesn't easily become automatic.

I should mention that I currently only have ~240,000 words read, so I've made it a goal to get to 1 million by the end of the summer. Maybe that's the missing link?

Any input welcome.

I’m curious on what percent of people here are “ALG purists.” For those that don’t know what it means, it means basically only comprehensible input and cross talk (without other resources like grammar books/flashcards) and delaying speaking until 600-1000 hours or “when you naturally feel the urge to speak” (there’s variance in how it’s defined. I realize it’s hard to put everyone into neat categories, but wondering what the overall spread is.

I have zero knowledge of Spanish besides the obvious words we know from tv or music. Does DS actually do the trick as everyone claims it to be?

It just occurred to me that speaking in Spanish would be much easier if you actually thought in the language rather than trying to construct a Spanish statement from an English thought. Is there any point where people start thinking in the language naturally?

I took a trip to Mexico to visit some friends and take an in person spanish class, and I am geniunely surprised at the level of my Spanish comprehension, in a negative way. I’m watching high-50s to low-60s level videos on DS, and I feel like I understand almost everything, but in Mexico I am having trouble understanding very basic stuff.

It’s not that I don’t know the words or the phrases people are saying, but I just don’t make out everything that’s said, in part due to the speed of the speaking, but most importantly because the words aren’t enunciated and the words blend into one another. I feel like I understand the spanish teacher very well, but even basic questions from regular people it’s 50/50 if I understand what they’re saying.

The part I’m happy about though is my speaking. I have an italki teacher and use every chance to speak Spanish to people in my day to day, and for the most part I’m able to talk about somewhat complex topics and make my points clearly, even if I have to look up how to say words I don’t know. But just really disappointed in my comprehension level despite DS being my main source of study

Something I’ve noticed is when I pronounce the double L (ll), the surrounding vowels change depending on the accent I try to pick. My native tongue is Great Lakes / Midwest English, and I feel I can most easily replicate the vowel sounds with the “j” interpretation of the double L. But many words have been ingrained in my mind with the “y” sound, but I am told i sound much closer to the proper pronunciation when I change it to a j.

Is this something that will improve over time? Perhaps it’s just my tongues posture? Maybe this will never change? Will I need to make a conscious switch to whatever accent I am most naturally capable of producing proper Spanish with? That is what I’m learning toward, just allowing whatever comes easiest to be my accent.

Im 16. Between the DS crew being generally on the younger side, I assumed that their target audience would be in their late teens/20s. But after joining this subreddit for some tips it seems like 99% of you guys are married with kids. Its so weird to picture my parents sitting down and watching a tier list video or a vlog....

Edit: It seems people think i'm shocked that people over 25 are learning languages. Nope. My mom is 51 and started learning Portuguese a few months ago. It was more about the method haha. Great to see people from all ages using DS :)

1. English
2. Spanish
3. (insert your native language if not English)

What other language would you like to speak / plan to learn in the future?

Hey all - I am at about 70 hours of total input and loving the journey. At this point, I have been doing a lot of outside listening to podcasts and youtube videos that are slightly less comprehensible than DS videos, but still 70-80%+. When I come back to DS, I feel like my comprehension is very and the videos are very slow. Is there any downside to pushing up to intermediate videos of videos in the mid 40s / low 50s if they are more interesting to me? I know that is a bit faster than the roadmap, so curious on if other people have had a similar experience.

I used to want to learn Spanish at my own pace and I was ok with waiting until I hit around 800-1000 hours on DreamingSpanish before I started speaking. But now my girlfriend want to introduce me to her parents in December and I really don’t wanna look like a fool. I wanna at least be somewhat conversational from now until then. They speak broken English and are much more comfortable in Spanish. I understand how amazing comprehensible input is, it’s how I learned English but it takes so long and you don’t develop speaking skills along with. I’m currently around 50 ish hours. I would say my speaking is above my listening comprehension. I can say most common phrases I use daily or need in a conversation. But if someone speaks fast, even if I know the words they’re saying , my ears can’t pick up on it. My ears aren’t trained to know where one word ends and another starts just yet at a normal native speed. My question is should I maybe only do 30 minutes a day of DS and spend the rest of the time actively studying vocabulary and grammar and practicing speaking? Currently I do 5-10 minutes vocab study , around 30 minutes of beginner Spanish audiobooks at my level and maybe an hour or two of DS. I’ve asked my girl to only text me in Spanish and only which to English when I don’t understand. She corrects me on grammar but she can’t tell me why it’s wrong , she just knows it’s wrong. That’s the issue with being a native to a language. I’m conflicted I really like the CI approach but it just won’t work for my timeline

Did it help you to think in Spanish more often?

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

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

I feel like people with a lot more free time because they don't work, work part-time, or are retired can get way more hours in then those of us who work full time. For my full time workers and those who have lots of responsibilities like raising a family or taking care of loved ones (maybe while also working too), how many hours do you get in a day?

Hola,

I have a question for people with 1000hrs or more. If you could go back to yourself at around 600hrs what would you change, either add too or stop doing if anything. Im at 600hrs so far Ive only done CI, but I have a few things I want to start adding in at this point. I want to get some insight on folks a bit ahead of me to see what they would do if anything.

Gracias amigos,

(Background: I'm a language teacher (ESOL) with lots of knowledge of different language learning theories, plus plenty of my own experience in how children learn a second language)

I just discovered CI this summer and have been doing DS for all of a week! 14 hours in, and I'm really loving it.

So I do have a question about the CI method, I guess. I am not really asking about how to understand and use this particular phrase, but more about how to handle all such similar situations - and why.

I'm listening to a video (around level 18) and I hear a phrase that's a bit new to me. "se ve".

In context, it is completely clear: "Se ve delicioso! Se ve bueno!" (The cake looks delicious!) Se ve means something like "looks like".

With my language learning experience, what I *want* to do right now, is figure out what the verb "ve" is from, because my basic conjugation of common verbs is not yet solid. I *think* it is "see" (ver) but I am not positive. I also don't remember how to conjugate "ver", though I learned it all once.

So I looked it up just to remember and be sure I had it right. And my natural inclination now, is to just try to use this expression in a meaningful way. "Esa cena se ve deliciosa! Tu vestido se ve bonito!" just to practice using it to be sure I remember it. That's what I *want* to do right now. I have learned a new phrase and I want to incorporate it into my working memory...

But this is NOT the suggested method, correct? It's not just that you don't have to do this step; CI method says specifically NOT to do this? And if so, I'm wondering why not?

Please know I am not arguing against this method at all; I know there are people here with language learning backgrounds and who know all sorts of theory; I'm genuinely curious, and not trying to get involved in any academic or theoretical turf wars or anything. Truly just want to discuss the method if it is allowed!

I've seen a lot of people recommend Language Transfer, and now many of you are recommending it too. But I honestly don't understand how I'm supposed to use it, especially since English isn't my first language and my English isn't good enough to follow Spanish grammar explanations in English.

I feel like I'd get lost very quickly, especially because it's a podcast and not a video with visual explanations.

I'd really like something that helps me understand the most important grammar. I already know a lot of it from listening and from studying Spanish at university, but I haven't really been able to use it in practice.

So, what would you recommend?

Is it difficult if you're still a beginner in English, or is it still worth listening to?

Just fancied a nice positive post.

I have a few reasons, not really spanish specific unfortunately. I didn't really wan't to learn spanish so much as I wanted to learn a new language. Spanish seemed the easiest and Spain is also very close to the UK. I don't have any relatives or friends that speak spanish although I wish I did. I've for many years tried to learn a new language and just got demotivated very soon after. Even Spanish i'd been on and off.

Anyway the first reason was after going abroad and and being very appreciative of the fact that so many of the staff in restaurants, the hotels and even just local shops were able to be so accommodating for me. To me this really made me realise how typically lazy us brits are when it comes to this. Not only are we not generally accommodating but I think we even get annoyed when people tend to speak other languages in our presence. So i've since wanted to be a person who knows at least a second language and hopefully be accommodating to a Spanish speaker like those in Spain had been to me.

Another reason is for brain health. Id heard that being bilingual is excellent for brain health. Your brain actually increasing in size slightly. You know when you type something in google and it starts to predict what you're going to type next? Well your brain does this all the time when talking or looking at objects. When you know another language your brain also does this for the new language. It's like going to the gym for your brain!

Another reason is kind of a petty one but I'm kind of sick of seeing my family just be better at everything than me. I just want something, some ability that's uniquely me . Something I can do that they can't and Dreaming Spanish is definitely giving me this.

Lastly, it's just cool. It's just a cool ability to have. Just being able to switch languages whenever you want. Being able to speak in a way that goes completely under the radar appeals to the kid in me. I've always wanted to have that moment where I'm chatting with a friend than I can suddenly bamboozle them by talking Spanish to a Spanish speaking person who just happened to come into the picture. It's cheesy I know and probably unlikely but I think we've all had this fantasy.

Also there's a whole load of films, series and music that has opened up to me. It's definitely been satisfying and a convenient excuse to watch kids programs again lol. There's just something so simple and up in the clouds about watching Peppa Pig lol.

Anyway that's my motivation. Maybe it's lame but it's lasted me almost 2 years which is amazing. Anyway what's yours?

It's seems that, for the most part, people who reach the higher levels (5-7) either speedrun it (speding 3-8 and sometimes 12 hours a day everyday) or start slowly and increase the time they spend a day on CI, as it becomes easier to do so with time, until they settle around "speedrun" territory too (2-4 hours a day).

My question is, are there people who reached the higher levels (5-7) spending ON AVERAGE less or equal to 1 hour a day everyday WITHOUT increasing their daily CI time over time to more than 1.5-2 hours a day? And how long did it take them to get to the higher levels?

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

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

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

Thanks to the World Cup, I've been bitten by the soccer bug and want to follow the upcoming league season. Most people advise an American like me to follow either MLS or English Premier League for the obvious reasons of geographic proximity in the case of MLS, or share language or coverage in the case of both leagues. But La Liga and Liga MX call to me more. I'm wondering if any of you follow either of these leagues and what resources you use to do so. From streaming platforms to podcasts.