And before anyone says unemployment I work a 2nd shift job and I just do 3 or 4 hours before work or I do 2 or 1 hour after work okay

As noted in a previous post, I can now focus/zoom in on conversations at will in restaurants and such. This initially surprised me and is probably the single biggest change in my listening abilities in the last 6 months. However, it has its limits.

As noted in the linked post, this was in a restaurant. However, the levels of background noise were fairly normal. In other words, not totally quiet, but not crazy loud.

The situation I deliberately tested in Cartagena was in a very busy Crepes & Waffles at what was likely the peak of lunchtime. There were not only far more tables per square metre, but loud background music. Plus the local accent; my comprehension of coastal Colombian accents is about 85%, versus the close to 100% for Medellín, Bogotá and other major cities.

My comprehension jumped while slightly quieter background music was playing and it became a *lot* easier when the music stopped; I was able to focus on and easily follow the conversation of the 6 or 7 tables closest to me at will. It was definitely a noisier environment than the restaurant I mentioned in Medellín. So maybe my listening is even better than I thought. It was the loud music combined with the concentration of so many people talking that made it tough. The music was the real barrier.

In my defence, those at the 3 tables closest to me were either speaking very quietly indeed or not actually having conversations. There's also the autism factor that I'll never let you forget.

I was at 4,978 hours when I ran this particular test. However, I'm sure that my two types of autism and the various associated learning disabilities definitely have had an impact on my listening from day one. I maintain that most people would only need about 50 to 60% of my total hours to have roughly the same level of listening comprehension.

As noted in the title, I was last in the city around 16 months ago and my Spanish was awful by comparison. I was probably at around 3,000 hours at that point, but the difference is substantial.

I hope that people don't genuinely believe that 1,500 hours means that they'll have a level of listening close to that of a native speaker at that point. Even given the aforementioned issues, I don't believe that loud restaurants with tons of background noise, music and people using slang would be understandable before 2,500 hours for most people. There's native content on Netflix and then there's real life in live, messy situations.

I understand the reason and the need for the roadmap. It’s obviously general and not everyone will be where it suggests you should be at X hours. However, the real world might mean unfamiliar slang, slurred, drunken speech, background noise and people talking over one another.

Take a wild guess which day was dedicated to my son's birthday lol.

Podcasts . . . that's what works for me. Podcasts with +95% comprehension to get my time in. My goal is at least an hour a day and I'm usually able to hit that.

Hello Dreamers! Welcome to June's Dreaming Spanish book club, for our adult book in June we'll be reading Como agua para chocolate by Laura Esquivel.

The book blurb: 

Terrenal, mágico y absolutamente encantador, este relato de la vida familiar en el México finisecular se convirtió, con la mezcla acertada de romance doloroso e ingenio agridulce, en un fenómeno de best-seller. La clásica historia de amor se sitúa en el rancho De la Garza, mientras la dueña tiránica Mamá Elena corta cebolla en la mesa de cocina durante sus últimos días de embarazo. Aún dentro del útero de su madre, la futura hija llora tan violentamente que causa un parto prematuro y la pequeña Tita nace entre las especies para preparar sopa de fideos. Este temprano encuentro con la comida pronto se convierte en una forma de vida. Tita se convierte en una chef maestra y, a lo largo de la historia, comparte puntos especiales de sus recetas favoritas con los lectores. La edición en español del best-seller Como agua para chocolate es, con toda razón, un notable éxito. Ahora, en esta edición en pasta blanda, miles de nuevos lectores podrán participar en el suntuoso, romántico y divertido relato de Tita, la extraordinaria cocinera que siempre pone algo extra especial en su salsa.

Ebook length: 188 pages, 12 chapters, 54,000 words

Reading Schedule:

June 1-7 Prologue, Chapters 1-3 (pages -52)

June 8-14 Chapters 4-6 (pages 53-94)

June 15-21 Chapters 7-9 (pages 95-141)

June 22-30 Chapters 10-12 (pages 142-188)

If you can't get a copy of the book in your country, please drop me a DM.

We have a very active chat going on over in Discord, and our discussions are hosted there. Thanks to u/phreddfatt for keeping the Discord going!

Link to Discord

Because Reddit doesn't sort comments by age, it might be best to mention the page we're reading and cover any spoilers in our comments.

To receive updates for new comments in this thread, you can click on the 3 dots in the top right of the post and hit "Follow Post". You'll get notifications for new comments.

Thanks to everyone who joined and voted last month! It was a blast reading along with everyone.

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

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

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

Level 5 Update

Read my level 2 update here. 
Read my level 3 update here
Read my level 4 update here.

I reached 600 hours on April 30th and as of today have 639 hours. My progress is aligning with the roadmap quite well. I’m happy with my progress, but I am ready to take it to the next level and push myself a bit.

I went to Spain in Jan at 415 hours. I was able to rent a camper van and understand how to use all of the features in the van. I could order food and respond to questions about my order. I was able to ask for medication at a pharmacy. I took a cave tour and a self-guided audio tour at the Sagrada Familia and could understand ~85-90%. The nice thing was that even though many people knew English, they continued to speak with me in Spanish so I could practice. 

I recently moved across the country and have been living with my parents while my husband and I wait for closing on our first home. There’s been quite a bit of stress and I don’t get a lot of alone time. My Spanish has suffered a bit since we got here a month ago. I’m not listening as much as I usually do and I’ve not done many italki lessons either. Lately I've mostly been listening to intermediate/advanced podcasts and watching dubbed Friends.

What I can do:

• I feel like I can understand almost everything at this point. I struggle with native shows and movies a bit, but as far as talking to people, they can speak normally to me. I also find myself unintentionally eavesdropping on conversations in public.
• I can understand a lot of lyrics in songs which is cool. 
• I continue to audit medical appointments at work in Spanish and can understand 100% of those. 

What I struggle with:

• Speaking is SO HARD. This is something I want to really dive into in the next few months. I only have around 2 hours of speaking practice so far. I’ve not yet figured out how to incorporate lots of speaking into my routine. 
• Native movies and shows, mostly because of background noise/music or they’re whispering/mumbling. 
• Reading is super slow. I’ve read a few Disney books for kids, and even those are difficult. 

Next steps/Goals:

• Figure out a way to add more speaking to my routine.
• Read 1 kids book per week.
• Goal to reach 1000 hours by Dec 31st.
• Goal to go to a language school in Guatemala at the end of 2027. I would like to get a lot more speaking practice in before I go.

If anyone has any tips on how to get in lots of speaking practice that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, let me know!

Hola a todos.

Ive been doing DS on and off for 1.5 years and was recently invigorated from a trip to El Sal and Guatemala. Ive been cooking since 115 hours and should be at level 4 in 1.5 or two months. I hope to increase my daily listening with podcasts while I work, but it is hard to focus currently and listen at the same time.

Around 200 hours something clicked and I translate in my head way less, although it still happens. The last 30 ish hours have all been on Spanish Boost, Espanol Al Vuelo, and Spanish After Hours. I really don't know where my DS difficulty will be, but I plan on returning to it once I get bored with my current input methods.

Ask away if you have any questions!

Well, it finally happened! I got to 1,000 hours!

I'm mostly a purist, so I haven't started speaking practice or reading up until now. But I'm eager to start.

Reading

I've got some graded readers and some magic treehouse books loaded up on my kindle. I also discovered that my local library has online access to a comics/graphic novels content library (Comics Plus), and a content library for Spanish speaking children and young people - so I'm expecting to take full advantage of both of those resources.

Speaking

I haven't done any speaking yet unfortunately. I did have a short trip to Mexico around 700 hours (cruise vacation), and I was able to handle tourist interactions in restaurants and shops just fine. I made a write-up on that I forgot to post, which I may post soon.

Watching

I've sort of "rediscovered" Dreaming Spanish recently. I spent a lot of time watching a lot of Spanish Boost Gaming, Mila, Andrea, and some other learner YT channels that I sort of neglected DS. There's really a lot of great content on DS and it's nice to come back to it instead of trying to hunt for something comprehensible on YouTube.

I've been watching mostly intermediate videos still - just because there's so many of them. And I don't mind that they're easy. Last week I changed my filter to include advanced videos as well, just to open up some more content - and so far they have also been easy to watch.

I've finally started watching some native content! I've watched some episodes of Coreano Vlogs, Araya Vlogs, and Wild Nature (nature docs). I've found these to be some of the more comprehensible native content. But honestly, I need to go back around and listen to some others as well. I feel I've had a bump in comprehension recently, where the DS podcast now feels very easy when it used to be a challenge. It's probably time to revisit some of those other YouTube channels like Luisito etc.

Listening

I've been staying inside my comfort zone listening to a ton of Español al Vuelo and Dreaming Spanish Podcast. I know I need to move up to something else, but I'm not sure where to go next. I'm thinking I'm going to try How To Spanish as I see that mentioned here a lot.

Shout-out to PolyPod. If you haven't tried the PolyPod podcast app yet, you totally should (not sponsored). It's been invaluable for keeping track of all my podcast listen time, whether I'm listening to partial episodes, skipping ads, or whatever. It's so nice to have a total at the end of the day that I can just quickly add to DS instead of having to count up time manually. If you haven't tried it you should, and it was made by a user of this sub /u/empyrean2k

What’s next

Reading, speaking, and seeing how much native content I can unlock over the next few hundred hours. I'll probably post another update once I've got some reading and speaking under my belt.

PS - I didn’t watch the evildea 1,000 hour video (who has time to watch things in English, I’d rather get input), and at this point I feel like I’m too out of the loop to ask.

Hello Dreamers! Welcome to June's Dreaming Spanish book club, for our YA/easier book in May we'll be reading Manolito Gafotas by Elvira Lindo.

The book blurb: 

Llega Manolito Gafotas, uno de los personajes más famosos del “mundo mundial.” Este chaval de Carabanchel (Alto) nos ofrece, a través de sus gafas, una visión del mundo rebosante de humor. ¡Manolito es único, magnífico, inimitable . . . ! Junto a él, y junto a su hermano el Imbécil, su abuelo Nicolás y por supuesto, toda la pandilla, viviremos divertidas aventuras.

Ebook length: 131 pages, 10 chapters, 31,000 words

Reading Schedule:

June 1-7 Chapters 1-3 (pages 6-34, El último mono-Vaya diagnóstico más idiota)

June 8-14 Chapters 4-6 (pages 35-70, El capitán Merluza-El uno para el otro)

June 15-21 Chapters 7-8 (pages 71-100, Paquito Medina no es de este mundo-No sé por qué lo hice)

June 22-30 Chapters 9-10 (pages 101-131, La Paz Mundial-End)

If you can't get a copy of the book in your country, please drop me a DM.

We have a very active chat going on over in Discord, and our discussions are hosted there. Thanks to u/phreddfatt for keeping the Discord going!

Link to Discord

Because Reddit doesn't sort comments by age, it might be best to mention the page we're reading and cover any spoilers in our comments.

To receive updates for new comments in this thread, you can click on the 3 dots in the top right of the post and hit "Follow Post". You'll get notifications for new comments.

Thanks to everyone who joined and voted last month! It was a blast reading along with everyone.

I'm just starting out watching the super easy videos and I feel like I understand what they are saying and talking about then again it could be the hand gestures and pictures 😂 should I wait to buy premium until I know for certain that I understand.

Currently at 180h total

How the heck do y'all with ADHD get good comprehensive input?

I just can't keep my attention. I am constantly drifting and thinking about other stuff in the middle of a video. The content is like decent but it's not what I would actually choose to watch in my English.

I'm at 155 hours and went to Intermediate videos and it felt way too fast, so I'm worried I've been falling behind. Plus it took me over 2 years to even get to this point and I'm worried I won't ever make it to understanding Spanish more than I do now.

Also, I have a pretty mentally intensive job, so after a hard day at work the last thing I want to do is use my brain more watching a video in another language I'm not super interested in.

I'd love to hear some success stories from people with ADHD. Or just any general advice from anyone. I really want to learn Spanish but it feels as though my brain is fighting me every step of the way.

I mainly listen podcasts while at work, I am not a purist, at the moment I am listening to Learn Spanish and Go podcast and can understand about 95% and I can understand some native YouTubers.I also study grammar and do speaking practice everyday on the Langua app which I don’t count towards my hours, I am quite happy with my speaking and feel that within about 3 months or so it should be quite fluid as long as I keep consistent. Overall very happy with my progress and very glad I started using DS/ CI to learn the language.

61* days

Hi all,

I am back with my second update. Here is a link of my first post:

• Update 1

I would like to start by saying my total input time with DS, podcasts and other YouTube content is now 528 hours and my classroom time is 217 hours. I feel it is important to make a distinction here since an hour of CI and an hour of classroom learning aren't quite the same.

Progress - May

Comprehensible Input:

I managed to stay slightly above my high target for the month. I had some vacation at the end of May so I had to put in some extra work during the rest of the month to be able to achieve this.

In my April update, I was watching DS videos with a difficulty of 57 - 62 and now I am mostly watching around the 62-66 range in which I would say I have a 80-90% comprehension. I definitely have my good and bad days of comprehension as do many on this journey.

For some variety, I have started to watch Destinos, Spanish Boost Gaming (Skyrim series) and I have finished Extr@s (very funny). I highly recommend all 3:

• Extr@s (Finished): Very funny and highly entertaining with an easy to follow story. One of the characters is American and knows little Spanish so it is almost as though you are learning with him. I would say this would have been comprehensible to me much earlier but I still think it is valuable to watch even post 600 hours.
• Spanish Boost Gaming (Skyrim Series): Great for a change of pace if you enjoy gaming content. I am a big fan of the game and I have not played it in years. It is hard to find time to game but it feels like I can learn Spanish and game whilst watching this channel.
• Destinos (In Progress): While it can feel a little boring and dated, it is highly watchable. There are many conversations between characters which I think makes for a good stepping stone for eventually watching dubbed/native tv shows in the future.

Reading:

Reading was more challenging this month. I struggled to find free time, and transitioning to B1 graded readers significantly slowed my pace due to heavy dictionary usage.

Because I overshot my targets in April, I am still right on track overall, even though I only read about half of my monthly word goal. To adapt, I took advantage of a $2 Kindle promotion to stock up on resources.

In June, I plan to step back down to A2 graded readers to focus on reading at a more comfortable, fluent pace.

TL:DR

• The Numbers: Reached 528 hours of Comprehensible Input (DS/podcasts) + 217 hours of classroom time. Finished May slightly ahead of my high-target hourly goal.
• Watching: Pushed video difficulty up to the 62–66 range. Highly recommend Destinos, Spanish Boost Gaming, and Extr@s as excellent stepping stones.
• Reading: Hit a speed bump trying to jump into B1 graded readers (too much dictionary flipping). Still on track due to an April surplus, but dropping back to A2 readers in June for better fluency.
• The Win: Found a $2 Kindle promotion to hoard graded readers for the summer.

I have a cheaper Lenovo tablet i like to use. But the app doesn't work very well with it

I recently moved to the Jackson, Wyoming area. Jackson itself is a small town by the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Park. The population is 10,000 people with 25% being Hispanic. I was playing the public piano outside the art center wearing a Colombia pullover and a young boy (10) and his older sister (mid 20's) saw me and we started talking about Colombia, its culture, different places we like in Colombia, this entire conversation was in Spanish. Then the boy told me that I NEEEEEEED to volunteer at the after school program he goes to because he's the only Colombian (there's lots of kids from Mexico or with Mexican heritage) and the young Colombian wants to be able to talk about and connect more with his culture.

I'm going to call tomorrow and ask if I can come in to volunteer once a week or every other week because the kid and his sister were so kind. We ended the conversation with a fist bump and he said "I hope to see you soon parce." 🥲​

Was gonna try to kill it this month but then life hit me

So, it has been 7 months since my last update at 300 hours. I had a 4 month break because of an illness and then I struggled a bit to continue. But here I am.

The last 100 hours I got the impression that something happened. For example: I can now follow Juans Podcast effortlessly. Before that I had difficulties. Yesterday I heard spanish songs, which were more or less gibberish to me 3 months ago - I could understand a word here and there but that was it. Now, after I haven't heard that song for several months I understood the majority of the lyrics. I can follow news in Spanish more or less (still not getting all the details) . During the election campaign in Andalucía I was watching speeches of Pedro Sánchez (Prime Minister of Spain) and understood about 90%.

I attended a few hours online classes in Spanish, but found out that this still not my style of learning and it didn't really help me, so I cancelled it again. I had 1 hour "Crosstalk reverse" with a guy from Spain, meaning I spoke only in Spanish and he in my maternal language (he insisted in doing so). That was an interesting experience, but I didn' repeated it yet.

Edit: I discovered the channel "Languages Pedro". It's mostly for Spanish speakers who want to learn another language, but his videos are more about language learning in general. He speaks pretty fast Spanish, but his pronounciation is clear, so I can understand him pretty well. https://www.youtube.com/@languagespedro

Next: Maybe I will try iTalki.

First "perfect" month and just hit 150 - so a good week all around ✨

I love seeing other people's updates so I've been really motivated to keep watching so I could also give my update.

Context :

- I have a strong B1 french comprehension. Also did German and Korean in high school (love languages).
- Been learning for ~5 months every day.
- My input hours are all high focus and high comprehension so no passive listening
- I also think realistically my hours are slightly higher as I have a tendency to underlog so I'd assume ~200-220hrs

Now for the fun bit...where I'm at with Spanish.

Resources/ My routine:

- DS: I only occasionally watch it now tbh when I want something a bit easier or less mentally taxing. I watch intermediate & advanced videos - I think (not too sure since I don't really filter by difficult) but most of the stuff I watch is around 60-70.

- Podcasts: not a huge podcasts listener but on the train I may listen to the DS ones and "Becoming Niguiri"

- YouTube: a few native channels I found that are still understandable for my level but also entertaining (I have a post where I list them all)

- Netflix: Have just finished watching "El Niñero" and the first 2 seasons of "La casa de las flores" and I'm also watching "Madre solo hay dos". These I watch with Spanish subs.

- iTalki : In the last month I have started 30 min 'conversation' classes, and I do 2-3 a week. I speak spanish when I can and it flows, and when I can't I speak English simple as - but my tutors speaks only in Spanish.

- Reading: technically my phone, all apps and chatgpt are all in Spanish (this has been the case for the last 2 months or so) so they introduce a lot of reading every day

Milestones:

- My first iTalki lesson was so motivating because it was my first time talking to a native speaker and I couldn't fathom the fact that for 30 mins I could understand everything they were asking me - so that was a huge milestone.
- El Niñero was the first native show I chose to watch because I had watched it last year in English so knew roughly the plot so thought it would be a good place to start. Initially the first 3-4 episodes I was taken aback by how 'fast' they spoke compared to DS and the YouTubers I watched...but after the first half of S1 I felt quite accustomed to it, and this continued with the other shows I'm now watching
- I am obviously still very surprised at how much I'm able to comprehend. At no point did I think I'd be able to watch native shows at this point but it also really does help me rack up time because I don't feel like I'm 'studying'

What is still difficult:

- As expected speaking is still limited to a few short sentences at a time, but I'm not worried about forcing speaking right now
- DS fatigue 😭 I think I've gotten to a point where it's really hard to sit down and watch hours of DS (idk how i did it before) but I still try and mix it in because easier content is still really good for consolidation

TV shows specifically:
- My plan is to rewatch the 3 shows I'm watching currently once I'm done and aim to watch them without subs this time
- With subs I'd place my comprehension at ~70%, I follow storyline well and rarely have to pause/rewind
- Obviously lots of new vocab and slang I come across
- I've realised shows with more episodes are better because of repeated vocab/themes

Huge shout out to this sub because it really helps keep me motivated. Questions are super welcome 🤩

I’m at 250 hours

Al Vuelo is my go to right now and get 80-90%. The guest episodes are harder but doable.

Tried How to Spanish and it felt super fast for me.

Also did Dreaming Spanish podcast episodes and those are hard for me but can hang with episodes in the high 50s with like 70% comp. Especially with Natalia.

Tried ECJ - Felt fast but also not a huge fan of Espana accent. Although I like some of Alma’s content.

Do you guys feel these are equal in difficulty? How would you rate them in terms of difficulty?

I’m tired of the judgmental posts recently, so I wanted to start a post where you can share a story or two about what native content you enjoyed that got you over the bridge from learner to native. I know there is a spreadsheet but I want to read your stories and triumphs.