The words popping into your head thing is exactly how it happens, and it's a sign that you're learning "right." I find they just come to me as I'm talking; when I need the word it just appears (for the most part), like magic. I was talking the other day and I wanted to say 'celery', and it suddenly just came to me out of nowhere. I don't ever recall seeing that word, much less learning it, but I guess I read or heard it somewhere and it got into my subconscious; I'd certainly never used it before. This happens quite often but that one really took me aback because usually, I have a feeling of having encountered the word before. Good work on your consistency. 👍
Kudos to you! Keep it up! It's great how you are sticking to your method. I like the idea of comprehensible input but for me it's just one method of many that I am applying for my own language journey. But as you say in your video you have other methods as well that you are applying at the same time. Many greetings from Switzerland, Daniel.
Congratulations. It also took me 3 years to get to 1500 hours. You should go to Mexico for a week or two. I recommend Oaxaca. it's a charming little town where you will have to use your spanish. Take the tours in spanish and stay at the small charming hotel camba where Arturo and the crew will speak to you in spanish and take care of you.
Hello. Well done. I learned (acquired) French using CI. Later, as I was trying to acquire Spanish, I found Dreaming Spanish on TH-cam and I have used their videos as part of my Spanish journey. I think the roadmap's 1500 hours is an underestimate (at least, for first time adult acquirers, see below*). I also think speaking is, or should be, above and beyond this i.e. additional time, either in parallel as you progress, and / or after you have made some significant CI progress. For my part, I found that I needed around 500 hours of conversation (French) following on from about 2-3 years of CI (TH-cam, Netflix etc.) to be able to converse freely... fluently, if you prefer. I'm now doing the same thing with my Spanish, which is progressing* at about 1.5 - 2x the rate that my French did. Well done. Keep going 👍
Congratulations!!! Great job!!! That's a huge milestone! I'm coming up on 900 hours and I definitely feel like I'm behind the roadmap, but I think that's my fault for using subtitles more than I should have earlier on. I couldn't stand the whole "ambiguity" thing! I'm learning to now. Better late than never. Oh, and thanks for the tip about the TH-cam speed update. I can't believe I didn't notice. I just thought hmmmm...looks different and off I went. 😂 Looking forward to your next update!
I still use subtitles a lot. My interpretation is that they are bad in the beginning before your brain knows what Spanish really sounds like. Once you acquire an ear for Spanish sounds, I think subtitles are ok.
Congratulations, dude. Don't lose the motivation to learn; that's the main key. especially if you feel like you are having a hard time understanding Spanish from certain people or country. spanish from Spain can be a bit different from Mexican or any other Hispanic country.
Well done. Great update as always, honest, succinct and with advice. I continue with my journey and have recently reached 600 hours, I did this in 6 months but as I said in a previous reply, I live in Spain( 3 years next month and have been learning for 2 1/2 years, all at home) and I do 3 hours every day. My biggest problem was understanding/ comprehending nearly anything that was said to me by locals. The DS and other comprehensible input has helped me significantly with this; I have to agree with you about the roadmap, I’m meant to be able to understand a native speaker speaking normal to me, sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t and they have to adapt their speaking for me. I realise that the roadmap is just a guide and everyone is different, but with CI I have improved my comprehension massively. One question to you and to anyone else reading this, when do you stop translating in your head? I still do this lots and I can’t seem to stop, I watch all levels of videos to try and help with this. In fact sometimes I think, have I translated that or did I just understand. Perhaps I’m sweating too much about this as they would say in the States.. I’d welcome any advice about this. Once again, well done, a massive achievement to comprehend TV shows etc.
Thank you for your comments. I think the translating in my head became less and less at around 1,000 to 1,200 hours. Pablo said in one video that if you are still translating in your head, it means you still do not know that vocabulary well enough. You know the meaning of the word but it has not been sufficiently internalized yet. My advice is not to worry about the translating. It will eventually go away. Don't sweat it! You will do great living in Spain.
You are correct sir . I'm at over 1300 hours of almost exclusively Dreaming Spanish and I'm no where near being fluent . Probably barely intermediate . It still is for me the best way , but Pablo's road map is way way off . A friend of mine also uses Dreaming Spanish and is over 1500 hours and is not even close to fluent . Intermediate at best .
Are you understanding 80% to 90% on regular TH-cam videos or are they non Dreaming Spanish videos but still geared toward beginning language learners? You sir are making a great story.
Thanks for the comment. Most are non DS videos geared toward beginning learners. The important thing is the videos have to catch my attention and I have to be interested in the subject matter. I will watch advanced videos and turn on the subtitles if the subjects interest me.
Aprender el idioma no es nunca lineal. Yo tengo una experiencia similar. Este será mi tercer año aprendiendo ruso y francés. Si echo la vista dos años atrás, puedo ver un progreso enorme en ambos idiomas (de los que empecé desde cero). Sin embargo, aún estoy lejos de poder hablar ninguno de los idiomas. Yo también me centro únicamente en entender el idioma hablado, por lo que el resto de áreas están muy por debajo de mi nivel de compresión oral, aunque, sorprendentemente para mí, no tan bajas como esperaría. Puedo leer tanto ruso como francés a nivel principiante alto-intermedio. Aunque lo que peor llevo es hablar cualquiera de los idiomas, pero eso no me preocupa porque sé que incluso sin hablar el idioma, esa parte también se trabaja. Mucho ánimo, estoy convencido de que lograrás tu objetivo de aprender español. PD: Hace unos días me preguntaba por ti y tu progreso, cuando yo estuve analizando el mío mentalmente me viniste a la mente. Así que ha sido una grata sorpresa ver que estás contento con el progreso y que tú método elegido te está dando resultados donde otros fallaron.
I bet at this point if you put in an hour a day (or most days) in conversation practice (not crosstalk) on italki, you'd be killing it inside of a couple hundred hours.
Ah so you are not doing pure CI. I think thats very sensible. One might say you could just disregard the concept of CI altogether and just work with input and a dictionary, notepad. And use a little grammar reference. Have you tried shadowing, chorusing, mirroring? That took my speaking to a whole new level in weeks.
I will not disregard the concept of CI. That is what brought me to this point. I would never have been able to understand someone speaking in Spanish without training my ears and brain with CI.
Felicidades con tu viaje de aprendiendo español.
The words popping into your head thing is exactly how it happens, and it's a sign that you're learning "right." I find they just come to me as I'm talking; when I need the word it just appears (for the most part), like magic. I was talking the other day and I wanted to say 'celery', and it suddenly just came to me out of nowhere. I don't ever recall seeing that word, much less learning it, but I guess I read or heard it somewhere and it got into my subconscious; I'd certainly never used it before. This happens quite often but that one really took me aback because usually, I have a feeling of having encountered the word before. Good work on your consistency. 👍
Kudos to you! Keep it up! It's great how you are sticking to your method. I like the idea of comprehensible input but for me it's just one method of many that I am applying for my own language journey. But as you say in your video you have other methods as well that you are applying at the same time.
Many greetings from Switzerland, Daniel.
Great update! It's very inspiring to see you improve in Spanish at your age!
Who you calling old? 🤣
@@tinynhhouse5467 60 years young
Congratulations. It also took me 3 years to get to 1500 hours. You should go to Mexico for a week or two. I recommend Oaxaca. it's a charming little town where you will have to use your spanish. Take the tours in spanish and stay at the small charming hotel camba where Arturo and the crew will speak to you in spanish and take care of you.
Hello. Well done. I learned (acquired) French using CI. Later, as I was trying to acquire Spanish, I found Dreaming Spanish on TH-cam and I have used their videos as part of my Spanish journey. I think the roadmap's 1500 hours is an underestimate (at least, for first time adult acquirers, see below*). I also think speaking is, or should be, above and beyond this i.e. additional time, either in parallel as you progress, and / or after you have made some significant CI progress. For my part, I found that I needed around 500 hours of conversation (French) following on from about 2-3 years of CI (TH-cam, Netflix etc.) to be able to converse freely... fluently, if you prefer. I'm now doing the same thing with my Spanish, which is progressing* at about 1.5 - 2x the rate that my French did. Well done. Keep going 👍
Thanks for the moral support and encouragement!
I am so impressed by how constant you have been, well done for reaching 1500. I would love to hear a speaking sample.
You will have to wait for another 200 or 300 hours! 😀
Congratulations!!! Great job!!! That's a huge milestone! I'm coming up on 900 hours and I definitely feel like I'm behind the roadmap, but I think that's my fault for using subtitles more than I should have earlier on. I couldn't stand the whole "ambiguity" thing! I'm learning to now. Better late than never. Oh, and thanks for the tip about the TH-cam speed update. I can't believe I didn't notice. I just thought hmmmm...looks different and off I went. 😂 Looking forward to your next update!
I still use subtitles a lot. My interpretation is that they are bad in the beginning before your brain knows what Spanish really sounds like. Once you acquire an ear for Spanish sounds, I think subtitles are ok.
Nice. I always regret not learning German from my Dad when I had the chance.
Yeah man, I know what you mean. We can't go back but we can keep pushing forward in all things. Have a good week!
Congratulations, dude. Don't lose the motivation to learn; that's the main key. especially if you feel like you are having a hard time understanding Spanish from certain people or country. spanish from Spain can be a bit different from Mexican or any other Hispanic country.
I agree, the Dreaming Spanish roadmap is grossly over exaggerated.
Well done. Great update as always, honest, succinct and with advice. I continue with my journey and have recently reached 600 hours, I did this in 6 months but as I said in a previous reply, I live in Spain( 3 years next month and have been learning for 2 1/2 years, all at home) and I do 3 hours every day. My biggest problem was understanding/ comprehending nearly anything that was said to me by locals. The DS and other comprehensible input has helped me significantly with this; I have to agree with you about the roadmap, I’m meant to be able to understand a native speaker speaking normal to me, sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t and they have to adapt their speaking for me. I realise that the roadmap is just a guide and everyone is different, but with CI I have improved my comprehension massively. One question to you and to anyone else reading this, when do you stop translating in your head? I still do this lots and I can’t seem to stop, I watch all levels of videos to try and help with this. In fact sometimes I think, have I translated that or did I just understand. Perhaps I’m sweating too much about this as they would say in the States.. I’d welcome any advice about this. Once again, well done, a massive achievement to comprehend TV shows etc.
Thank you for your comments.
I think the translating in my head became less and less at around 1,000 to 1,200 hours. Pablo said in one video that if you are still translating in your head, it means you still do not know that vocabulary well enough. You know the meaning of the word but it has not been sufficiently internalized yet. My advice is not to worry about the translating. It will eventually go away. Don't sweat it! You will do great living in Spain.
Thanks for the advice because I’ve started to stress about this a lot lately.
You are correct sir . I'm at over 1300 hours of almost exclusively Dreaming Spanish and I'm no where near being fluent . Probably barely intermediate . It still is for me the best way , but Pablo's road map is way way off . A friend of mine also uses Dreaming Spanish and is over 1500 hours and is not even close to fluent . Intermediate at best .
Are you understanding 80% to 90% on regular TH-cam videos or are they non Dreaming Spanish videos but still geared toward beginning language learners? You sir are making a great story.
Thanks for the comment.
Most are non DS videos geared toward beginning learners. The important thing is the videos have to catch my attention and I have to be interested in the subject matter. I will watch advanced videos and turn on the subtitles if the subjects interest me.
You might want to check out the TPRS method. Their "circling" drill is very similar to Tony Marsh's Language Matrix.
Aprender el idioma no es nunca lineal. Yo tengo una experiencia similar. Este será mi tercer año aprendiendo ruso y francés. Si echo la vista dos años atrás, puedo ver un progreso enorme en ambos idiomas (de los que empecé desde cero). Sin embargo, aún estoy lejos de poder hablar ninguno de los idiomas. Yo también me centro únicamente en entender el idioma hablado, por lo que el resto de áreas están muy por debajo de mi nivel de compresión oral, aunque, sorprendentemente para mí, no tan bajas como esperaría. Puedo leer tanto ruso como francés a nivel principiante alto-intermedio. Aunque lo que peor llevo es hablar cualquiera de los idiomas, pero eso no me preocupa porque sé que incluso sin hablar el idioma, esa parte también se trabaja.
Mucho ánimo, estoy convencido de que lograrás tu objetivo de aprender español.
PD: Hace unos días me preguntaba por ti y tu progreso, cuando yo estuve analizando el mío mentalmente me viniste a la mente. Así que ha sido una grata sorpresa ver que estás contento con el progreso y que tú método elegido te está dando resultados donde otros fallaron.
Не сдавайся 💪🏻
Gracias.
I bet at this point if you put in an hour a day (or most days) in conversation practice (not crosstalk) on italki, you'd be killing it inside of a couple hundred hours.
¿Hay algún acento que te parezca más fácil o más difícil?
I find the Argentinian accent to be more difficult.
@@tinynhhouse5467 thats ok my mother language is spanish and there are some spanish accent that i find harder to understand than english lol
Ah so you are not doing pure CI. I think thats very sensible. One might say you could just disregard the concept of CI altogether and just work with input and a dictionary, notepad. And use a little grammar reference.
Have you tried shadowing, chorusing, mirroring? That took my speaking to a whole new level in weeks.
I will not disregard the concept of CI. That is what brought me to this point. I would never have been able to understand someone speaking in Spanish without training my ears and brain with CI.
@tinynhhouse5467 sounds like a mental hangup rather than objective reality.
Necesitas hablar un poquito en espanol para darnos una idea de tu nivel de espanol.