For the last week I have been thinking "I haven't heard from Greg and Lisa in a while.." so this was a nice surprise. Keep it up ! I'm not far behind you at 563 hours, the long grind to L5 is almost over!
That made our day! Thank you for thinking of us! It has been a while...we have so much going on. I can't wait to be settled again. We're riding this motivation energy we have right now so hopefully level 5 doesn't take as long as level 4 did! 😅😰 563 is literally right behind us! Let's keep going!
Thank you so much for giving my channel a shout out!! 💛 The timing is comical… I just lost my voice for a few weeks 🤣 but after seeing all the support from people since this video I had to power through to upload a DS experience review video tomorrow. 🙌 It’s great to see videos of how Dreaming Spanish is working for you in an every day real life context. Keep it coming ☺️
I have been following you guys for about 3 months. This week I was looking out for an update from you guys, because I love your stuff. I feel that you guys are very honest and say it as it is. I wish you all the best in Spain.
I am 20 hours in to dreaming Spanish super beginner it’s going good. Today I also started watching bluey in Spanish no subtitles it crazy how much I’m understanding the overall meaning. I don’t understand all the words but I am understanding a lot of the words based on context and what they are doing and it’s compelling input.. so I trust my subconscious mind to do what it’s supposed to do. Just in the 20 hours I have gotten I see it’s already working I will continue to watch bluey and use it a my reference scale of understanding. My Daily goal on dreaming Spanish is 2 hours and 1 hour of bluey because I like the show.
I enjoy your updates. Your channel and the guy who goes to Costa Rica to see his dad, both of these channels got me to take dreaming spanish seriously. I always loved all their videos, but seeing the results of you two and the Costa Rican guy was all I needed.
I want to give a shoutout to you two for living the dream! I am new to Dreaming Spanish and to the Spanish language. I have completed 200 hours of study, and I am currently at level 3. My target is to study for 2 hours every day. I can see that my efforts are paying off because when I first started, I struggled with beginner levels and SB, but now I can mostly follow intermediate content. I really enjoy the Mexican and Colombian accents, but I am having a hard time with the Spanish accent. However, thanks to the great teaching of Pablo, I am gradually getting there! Good luck from Ireland. We're all in Europe now, haha!
Hi Paddy! The Spanish accent can be difficult. It's different. I am used to it now and I can understand both Mexican and Spanish accents. The Argentinian accent is still a little...huh?! haha. Keep getting after it!!
Thank you both for sharing your Spanish learning journey and helping to create this culture around Dreaming Spanish! I just spent the past hour binge watching some of your update videos and it's been so cool to see the progress you all have made and are continuing to make. I'm about to move on to the advanced videos now and it's been such an incredible experience. Really hoping the Dreaming Spanish team adds more languages once the Spanish video catalogue is a bit more fleshed out. Happy dreaming!
so cool! We just started watching Advanced too. It's exciting to see all the fun topics lol. I'm excited to find some good ones! I heard Pablo saying something about "Dreaming Languages" so let's see what they end up doing!
I've seen all of your videos and you guys along with 2 other channels inspired me to start using Dreaming Spanish and to document myself learning using Dreaming Spanish. I just posted a video about how I got into Spanish, I just hit 50 hours so I will be making another video about that update soon.
ah man, that is so cool! I watched your video and LOVE it! It's so good. You explain DS so much better than we did. haha! Keep going AJ! Can't wait to follow along with your journey!
I was inspired with your videos guys. Im from the philippines and also want to learn spanish, when i saw your videos i subscribe right away and im on 15 hrs already for just 2 days.
I think about you two once in a while. Good to see an update. I’m still jealous you have each other to share this experience with. My Korean is coming along and finally I feel pretty fluent at basic conversations. This is really big for me and I can’t wait to visit Korea and try it out even though I still have so much to learn. Anyway, one italki tutor talked about her experience learning English 2 years ago (so it’s recent). She started dating an American in Korea and they went from using Google Translate to now she is very comfortable talking to him in English. Her big thing was speaking. And speaking to yourself in your head as much as possible and looking up stuff you want to say in a translator and studying that rather than doing tons of input. I like input a lot but I also believe in practicing output like she said. Her thing is that her boyfriend has lived in Korea for five years and sounds like me (I’m excited by how good I sound now 😂) and all he does is read books and review flash cards and watch TH-cam etc. But he never speaks. So she is against input. I think she has a point. I’m doing the same thing with Korean. I wrote a ton of sentences in Korean in a notebook but yesterday switched to my phone. I always have my phone on me so it’s easier to pull out and review. And the Notes app that is built into iOS is really nice and has a lot of features like numbered lists. If you do HelloTalk and aren’t looking for dating (I’m single so happy to combine the two 😂) you can do the group stuff. The group stuff I’ve done hasn’t felt like a dating app thing ever - just language learning. Voice room and then you can pick either voice only or video chats. Both are great and I’ve only ever seen language learning content. I think HelloTalk moderates it and if you start talking about dating or something you can’t host rooms.
Thank you so much for your support Paul! It's always good to see your comments! I can't imagine learning Korean. The fact that you can do it even a little bit is amazing to me haha! I agree...we need to do something that involves talking. We need to "up" our game a little at this point. We are going to try Pimsleur again. Some people have advised it for that so we'll take their advice. Language transfer has me talking too so I have that as well. I talk to our boys too...partly for me and partly for them to hear it. We'll get it together one day! haha! Take care Paul...we'll chat later!
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut I’ve tried Pimsleur too but always quit after a week or so. Sometimes it was very expensive 😂. It seems like it would be good. I just like input too much. I think I rely on input too much and I’m really pushing myself to output now instead. Being in the country should help motivate to output. I hope it works out well for you. I will say once you past a certain point, output goes from being horrible to super fun. Keep that in mind. If you get fluent enough (I’m not sure what level that is but you’ll know) people won’t be able to shut you up 😂.
I enjoy watching y’all’s journey! I think all learners have a little back and forth of what works for them. At times I’m deep into watching telenovelas and other times I dont want to watch. Sometimes I want to do a workbook and other times I’ll try a Spanish salsa class. Pimsleur helped me learn Portuguese VERY fast . But I spoke it more than I understood it lol. Lots of ups and downs but as long as we keep going it all works out 🤙🏾💕
Yup...That's key right...just keep going and do something! I think we might give Pimsleur a chance again. Some people are encouraging us to try it again. I feel that at our level, it may help. We got this Victoria!
As a Spanish tutor myself, I highly recommend "Bitácora", it's a very modern Spanish book with texts about culture and everyday language, all very contextualised. That usually works very well alongside Comprehensible Input. The vocab is always the focus, and all the lessons have recalls to previous vocab. Hope it helps!
sometimes people overlook that engagement is much more powerful than mere input... that's why learning about the culture is really powerful, because you make it a part of who you are
Gracias por el video! I’ve been tuning in with you guys and your journey because I also want to move to Spain and i’m learning Spanish too. (I’m a native english speaker from London) I would urge you to give Pimsleur another shot. Try it for a couple weeks or a month, half an hour every day and i guarantee you will be more confident in speaking. I went from 0 spanish to comfortably having hour long conversations with natives in a short amount of time. I’ve been learning for 7 months now. DS for listening and Pimsleur for speaking. They both work like a charm for both input and output learning. Hope to see more update vids! It’s so great to see others on similar journeys
Thanks @SuperJeffacake This is one of the reasons I love this community. That does make sense. I will strongly consider it, and you'll probably be mentioned in our next video 🤣
I agree with that. I used Pimsleur around 20 years ago and then stopped using my Spanish. I started back on my Spanish Journey in May of 2023. Having used Pimsleur before I knew the weakness was in understanding Spanish speakers. I started Dreaming Spanish in July and I am at level three 270 hours. Listening to your examples I have to say that my ability to speak Spanish is way beyond yours. I am guessing though that your ability to understand people speaking to you is better than mine. Dreaming Spanish is really helping me in that department though. Pimsleur is fantastic at teaching one how to construct sentences and while the vocabulary is somewhat limited when you do learn a word or verb conjugation it is imprinted into your memory. There is no more translating because you know what you have learned. I am on lesson 16 of level 5 of Pimsleur and I use my Spanish daily with the cleaning staff at my office and some of my tennis buddies. I get complements all the time about how I am improving. I find Pimsleur and Dreaming Spanish perfect complements to each other. If you would try it again I think that by the time you get to level 3 your would be conversing with the locals at a really decent level.
Im currently at 561 hours. Defintely feeling the same in regards to wanting to use the language more. I understand that being in Spain you both feel the pressure to use the language more then i do being here in the U.S. Push through yall. Ive been doing 3-5 hours a day right now. I plan on getting to 600 hours before the end of April and 750 hours before my Cancun trip in June. Grinding hard everyday. I defintely feel alot closer to the language but anxious to use it daily. Ill be reading at or around 600-700 hours and im considering speaking early between 900-1000 hours. We will see. Thnx for the update yall!
You are really grinding! I wish we had that many hours under our belt before getting here. Would have made things a little easier. I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes for you in June! Don't forget to share with us!
I ran through Pimsleur before finding Dreaming Spanish. I can understand 99.9% of all the super beginner videos. I moved on to beginner and now it’s somewhat challenging, but I’m down for the ride.
OH MY GOSH you scared me to death! I thought you were giving up on Dreaming Spanish for a minute there! I was like oh great, now I have to do this too because I live in Mexico and also need to go faster and if Greg and Lisa do it... 😂Whew! I really don't think it goes a lot faster living in the country except for the simple things you say/do every day at restaurants, grocery stores, etc. Unless you were in an area that had no English, of course. Although once the time comes, you do have more people to choose from for conversing. I also did one of those speaking apps briefly (Tandem maybe) and it was totally like a dating app. I hated it! Anyway, great update. Good luck with the visas!!! It's such a process but great when it's finished! Keep up the good work!
Hahaha! No, DS is the only thing that works. We are not giving up on it! Thanks for the well wishes for the visa! We are excited and nervous. How many hours are you at in Comprehensible input?
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut I just crossed the 400 hour mark. It takes forrrrreverrrrrr! At about 300ish hours I started doing 3 hours a day. Before that I was all over the place! On a bad day, 15 or 30 minutes. 😫 But now I have a solid goal of 1100 hours by Christmas (1,096 to be exact). I add my hours into a spreadsheet every day that my husband made me and if I'm behind it shows by how much in red and if I'm ahead it shows by how much in blue. That way if I have a day where I don't make it but I did extra a few days before, I know I'm still on track. Or not!
I love the music of Alvaro Soler. I'm always trying to sing along to his songs, it's a good exercise for my pronunciation. Are you still watching Español con Juan? I often listen to his podcasts, they are always sooo funny and helpful..
First, I just wanted to say that you guys are great. I've never really looked forward to an update on TH-cam because I have never really followed anyone, but I was waiting for this one. Although I had done previous Spanish studies, I just started Dreaming Spanish in December. So, when you started talking about wavering with the program at the beginning of the video, I was like "oh no!!!" because I've drunk the Kool-Aid and I'm all in right now. :) Good luck with the rest of your journeys. Living in Spain, coupled with the built in support group that you have with each other and the rest of the Dreaming Spanish community, I have no doubt that you will succeed. Keep sending the updates.
Drunk the kool-aid!! hahahaha or should I say, jajajajaja!! At this point we are die hard DS fans. There just isn't anything else out there that has improved our comprehension more than it and I've been trying to learn Spanish for years before finding DS. Let's keep going and hopefully we can get more content out. We've been brainstorming.
I'm doing language transfer, pimsleur and dreaming spanish too. I feel like they reinforce each other really well. One suggestion i was told with language transfer is to do two lessons a day but make the first one the last lesson you listened to the day before. So like do lesson 10 and 11 on monday, then 11 and 12 on tuesday and so on. That way you can sleep on each lesson and space it out so you remember it better
Hey Bill! Oh cool! I think Greg decided today to stop Pimsleur haha...we are all over the place! haha! We can't decide what to do. 🥴 We were going to talk about that in a video soon. I think that's a GREAT idea about LT!! I feel like the material they provide can be overwhelming if you listen to it only once. Going through it again made a huge difference, especially since I'm reading now. I had planned on just watching 5 videos and then going back and listening to all 5 again then moving on. But your idea is better. Thanks Bill!
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut glad to help, y'all are inspiring. Maybe greg would like language transfer more, it's a bit more dynamic than pimsleur and lets you put together more complex sentences together quicker. I like pimsleur to practice pronunciation and it helps to develop an intuition for sentence structure. I also felt that my mouth is just not used to stringing spanish words together and I def needed to practice it
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut I know in the last video many of us recommended Pimsleur. If you re enged with Pimsleur you speaking ability would grow substantially. The examples you shared show that you know words, but not how to speak in sentences. Pimsleur will teach you how to do that.
Missed you guys. I'm at 580 hours now and I noticed another improvement in my listening skills. Por ejemplo, I could understand almost 80 % of the last two episodes de las chicas del cable en temporada dos. Pero el próximo episodio estaba un poco decepcionante. Always ups and downs. And now I'm afraid to start reading. Debería ser divertido pero no leo mucho... Keep goin'! Saludos desde Alemania..
Wow, your writing is great! You're right there with us at 580! That's a good idea to go back to those shows and see if I can understand them better. I tried to go back to Velvet the other day but Netflix took them down. booo. Saludos desde Malaga
Thanks guys for sharing your insights! I’m chugging along at 312 hours. Love your videos! I’ve hardly done anything this month as my MIL passed away, but since she is bilingual herself, I know she would want me to get back at it 😊.
Oh gosh, so sorry to hear about your MIL. :( Life does get in the way sometimes and that's ok. Giving ourselves a break and being kind to ourselves is so important. Get back to it when you're ready. Good to see you here!
Hi Greg and Lisa, it’s nice to see that you’re learning Spanish with the immersion approach! Since you’re living in Spain and wanting to learn more ‘conversational’ spanish, I would definitely recommend giving “Aquí no hay quien viva” a go. It’s a very enjoyable sitcom from the ‘00. If you don’t understand that much in the beginning, don’t worry too much, there’s a lot of repetitive frases and it’s about everyday situations so there’s a lot of context cues. There’s about 100 episodes so a lot of content! It’s helped me a lot personally :)! There’s a free website online where you can watch all of the episodes, I don’t think TH-cam allows me to drop it here. Good luck on your Spanish journey!
Hi Greg and Lisa! I always look forward to watching your videos. Thanks for sharing. Have you considered shadowing? It's a technique that you can use to practice your pronunciation by simultaneously repeating words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs of an audio or video. It's different from rote memorization in that the focus is on copying/mimicking the sound and rhythm of the speaker in the target language. It's sort of like what an interpreter would do, except you're not translating because you're copying the same language.
How funny! Greg was telling me he just started doing this but he would pause the video and repeat the phrase. I didn't know it had a name. Obviously, as we practiced it, we wouldn't need to pause the video. Interesting. We'll talk about this and see if it works for us. I really like the idea though!! Thank you for this
I love your videos and your transparency. I’ve been studying Spanish for a year with Duolingo and can understand Spanish when reading but it’s still very difficult to hear the language after 60 of input with Dreaming Spanish. I’m wondering if at your given levels has listening become easier for you two?
Hey Ray! Yes!! Listening has become waaaay easier! We are less distracted and able to focus for longer. Give yourself a break in the beginning because it will be hard to focus and listen because your understanding is low...but it will get better. Out of nowhere, it gets easier and easier. Trust the process!! Have fun!
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut Thank you, thank you, thank you! I was really becoming discouraged. I've tried everything from Rosetta Stone, to Pimsleur, to Duolingo and more. Thanks for the motivation, dedication, and transparency you two are truly an inspiration.
I went through all 5 levels of Pimsleur German and then through the first 2 levels of Spanish. Pimsleur is basically a phrase book with audio and very limited with what it can do.
We are trying it again but we'll keep you guys updated on how it's going. We decided to give it a chance because so many people praised it. We'll see though
Are you guys I'm so glad to see you made so much progress! So glad to see you guys have made it to Spain and that you are continuing your journey! I left a comment on your last video not long ago and got to the end and realized that you knew who Español con Juan is, however, I didn't know if you knew or not but he has books on Amazon that are beginner and intermediate level and I believe Upper intermediate level. I don't remember if he has any advanced books. His name is Juan Fernández. I have three of his books maybe four of them. I have two of them I know for a fact in the super beginner levels A1 and A2 and I believe I have a B1 and possibly a B2 level book. Hopefully after you get done with the ollie Richards one you could try those out and see what you think. Wishing you continued success and enjoyment on your journey!
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut I only know that because I was watching one of his playlist for beginner Spanish or intermediate and in one of those videos he mentioned being an author and having books for different levels of learning. When he showed the cover of the book I looked them up on Amazon and I bought them, but haven't had the chance to read them yet. In language learning I believe there are six levels. You have A1 and A2, B1 and B2, and C1 and C2. I hope they help you!
We just started Advanced material so we mostly watch them. Greg does nothing else but watch the screen. I am a multi-tasker, so I'll be cooking, doing chores, or doing my hair...stuff like that. I glance at the screen while I do those things though. I do understand it more when I'm focusing on listening and watching at the same time though. For intermediate videos, I can do other things and not watch the screen.
Comprehensible input is where you basically understand most of what is said or written. So, when you see a word(s) that you don't know, it's easier to recognize them in context and learn. The Dreaming Spanish platform is basically about receiving comprehensible input to learn languages. Of course, when you are a starting from zero, you they use pictures and expressions to try and make the input comprehensible until you build a base. The hours of comprehensible input are how they track your progress. There is a roadmap on the website which describes the levels 1 thru 7 and how they correspond to being a Superbeginner , Beginner, Intermediate , and Advanced.
Hi! Of course! Comprehensibel input is a method of acquiring a language with input that is comprehensible at the level you are at. So if you are a beginner, then you want to listen to content that is super easy...like cartoons or Super beginner Dreaming Spanish videos. The idea behind it is that you learn your second/third etc language in the same way you learned your first...through listening and reading. The hours represent the number of hours we have listened to input that is at our level of understanding. So in our case, we have listened to almost 600 hours of videos/podcasts that at our level. The DS platform gives you a platform to track those hours so it's super easy.
Level 4 was the worst. Level 5 seems to be much easier for me. 600 to 800 hours Dreaming Spanish advanced videos were still challenging but now I can listen to most of them as podcasts no problem and at about 780 hours I realized I can now watch anime dubbed in español and can understand the Charlas Hispanas podcasts pretty easily as well. I also listened to a native TH-cam video on a topic I was interested in and I believe I was able to understand that as well. I still can't quite watch native series but I'm sure that's just around the corner.
Glad to know level 4 is almost behind us! I can't wait to get into the 800 hr mark. Makes me want to watch 10 hours a day to get there haha! Shugging along though. It's exciting when you watch something and you understand it. DS is the only thing that got us to this level of understanding. It's crazy! Thanks for commenting!
We have a video coming out about this today or later tonight. Yes, we understand. Not speaking at a fast level but we can understand basic conversations.
Mango? I'll have to look that one up. I tried Rosetta and it didn't work. Not so much that IT didn't work, but more that I wasn't motivated to continue with it. 🥴😁 Thanks for this though!
Haha, I kind of understand what you're saying, it might be like, nosotros somos (assuming its you both) en malaga, pero vivemos en granada, tal vez o algo (maybe or something?) Good effort tho. Im from London and go Spain quite a bit, mostly Balearics, but my friends from granada, always telling me to go, looks pretty Arabic down there.
@@JonnyRootsDem I was trying to say, we are in Malaga now but we want to live in Granada. Maybe in a month or so (I said something though haha) In other words, we hope to move to Granada in a month.
My people. Keep leading the way for other dreamers. Luv y’all ✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾
Muchas Gracias Tio!!!
For the last week I have been thinking "I haven't heard from Greg and Lisa in a while.." so this was a nice surprise. Keep it up ! I'm not far behind you at 563 hours, the long grind to L5 is almost over!
That made our day! Thank you for thinking of us! It has been a while...we have so much going on. I can't wait to be settled again. We're riding this motivation energy we have right now so hopefully level 5 doesn't take as long as level 4 did! 😅😰 563 is literally right behind us! Let's keep going!
Thank you so much for giving my channel a shout out!! 💛 The timing is comical… I just lost my voice for a few weeks 🤣 but after seeing all the support from people since this video I had to power through to upload a DS experience review video tomorrow. 🙌
It’s great to see videos of how Dreaming Spanish is working for you in an every day real life context. Keep it coming ☺️
Hey Rue!!! I can't wait to see what you have in store for all of us!!
Thanks for the update guys!! I really appreciate it.
Thank YOU for visiting and watching!
I have been following you guys for about 3 months. This week I was looking out for an update from you guys, because I love your stuff. I feel that you guys are very honest and say it as it is.
I wish you all the best in Spain.
🥲🥹🥹🥹🥹 Thank you so much!!!
Lisa your Spanish (about the cafe) sounds GREAT! Look at you go girl!
Oh dang! Thank you so much!! 😳😊😊
I am 20 hours in to dreaming Spanish super beginner it’s going good. Today I also started watching bluey in Spanish no subtitles it crazy how much I’m understanding the overall meaning. I don’t understand all the words but I am understanding a lot of the words based on context and what they are doing and it’s compelling input.. so I trust my subconscious mind to do what it’s supposed to do. Just in the 20 hours I have gotten I see it’s already working I will continue to watch bluey and use it a my reference scale of understanding. My Daily goal on dreaming Spanish is 2 hours and 1 hour of bluey because I like the show.
That's awesome! Bluey is a great show too. Glad to have you as a part of the Dreaming Spanish community!
I enjoy your updates. Your channel and the guy who goes to Costa Rica to see his dad, both of these channels got me to take dreaming spanish seriously. I always loved all their videos, but seeing the results of you two and the Costa Rican guy was all I needed.
We watch Bryan's videos too! He inspires us too. It's cute seeing him talking to girls and being nervous. Thanks for watching and keep grinding!
I want to give a shoutout to you two for living the dream! I am new to Dreaming Spanish and to the Spanish language. I have completed 200 hours of study, and I am currently at level 3. My target is to study for 2 hours every day. I can see that my efforts are paying off because when I first started, I struggled with beginner levels and SB, but now I can mostly follow intermediate content. I really enjoy the Mexican and Colombian accents, but I am having a hard time with the Spanish accent. However, thanks to the great teaching of Pablo, I am gradually getting there! Good luck from Ireland. We're all in Europe now, haha!
Hi Paddy! The Spanish accent can be difficult. It's different. I am used to it now and I can understand both Mexican and Spanish accents. The Argentinian accent is still a little...huh?! haha. Keep getting after it!!
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut I will; I love the language, and plan on visiting Spain in 2026. I'll be level 7 by then. Oh yeah!
Thank you both for sharing your Spanish learning journey and helping to create this culture around Dreaming Spanish! I just spent the past hour binge watching some of your update videos and it's been so cool to see the progress you all have made and are continuing to make. I'm about to move on to the advanced videos now and it's been such an incredible experience. Really hoping the Dreaming Spanish team adds more languages once the Spanish video catalogue is a bit more fleshed out. Happy dreaming!
so cool! We just started watching Advanced too. It's exciting to see all the fun topics lol. I'm excited to find some good ones! I heard Pablo saying something about "Dreaming Languages" so let's see what they end up doing!
I've seen all of your videos and you guys along with 2 other channels inspired me to start using Dreaming Spanish and to document myself learning using Dreaming Spanish. I just posted a video about how I got into Spanish, I just hit 50 hours so I will be making another video about that update soon.
ah man, that is so cool! I watched your video and LOVE it! It's so good. You explain DS so much better than we did. haha! Keep going AJ! Can't wait to follow along with your journey!
I would love to see a video of your process and what it takes to move to Spain. Great job on the Spanish. Keep up the good work.
Our process on making the decision and how and what we did to move here?
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut Yes. I have dreams of moving to Spain some day and it all seems overwhelming.
Oh me too! I’m fascinated with the idea of the why and how you decided to make the move. Please 🙏🏼 😊
I second those comments. Would love to learn more about the why and how of your move and your thoughts now that you’re there.
I was inspired with your videos guys. Im from the philippines and also want to learn spanish, when i saw your videos i subscribe right away and im on 15 hrs already for just 2 days.
I think about you two once in a while. Good to see an update. I’m still jealous you have each other to share this experience with. My Korean is coming along and finally I feel pretty fluent at basic conversations. This is really big for me and I can’t wait to visit Korea and try it out even though I still have so much to learn.
Anyway, one italki tutor talked about her experience learning English 2 years ago (so it’s recent). She started dating an American in Korea and they went from using Google Translate to now she is very comfortable talking to him in English. Her big thing was speaking. And speaking to yourself in your head as much as possible and looking up stuff you want to say in a translator and studying that rather than doing tons of input. I like input a lot but I also believe in practicing output like she said. Her thing is that her boyfriend has lived in Korea for five years and sounds like me (I’m excited by how good I sound now 😂) and all he does is read books and review flash cards and watch TH-cam etc. But he never speaks. So she is against input. I think she has a point. I’m doing the same thing with Korean. I wrote a ton of sentences in Korean in a notebook but yesterday switched to my phone. I always have my phone on me so it’s easier to pull out and review. And the Notes app that is built into iOS is really nice and has a lot of features like numbered lists.
If you do HelloTalk and aren’t looking for dating (I’m single so happy to combine the two 😂) you can do the group stuff. The group stuff I’ve done hasn’t felt like a dating app thing ever - just language learning. Voice room and then you can pick either voice only or video chats. Both are great and I’ve only ever seen language learning content. I think HelloTalk moderates it and if you start talking about dating or something you can’t host rooms.
Thank you so much for your support Paul! It's always good to see your comments! I can't imagine learning Korean. The fact that you can do it even a little bit is amazing to me haha! I agree...we need to do something that involves talking. We need to "up" our game a little at this point. We are going to try Pimsleur again. Some people have advised it for that so we'll take their advice. Language transfer has me talking too so I have that as well. I talk to our boys too...partly for me and partly for them to hear it.
We'll get it together one day! haha! Take care Paul...we'll chat later!
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut I’ve tried Pimsleur too but always quit after a week or so. Sometimes it was very expensive 😂. It seems like it would be good. I just like input too much. I think I rely on input too much and I’m really pushing myself to output now instead. Being in the country should help motivate to output. I hope it works out well for you.
I will say once you past a certain point, output goes from being horrible to super fun. Keep that in mind. If you get fluent enough (I’m not sure what level that is but you’ll know) people won’t be able to shut you up 😂.
I enjoy watching y’all’s journey! I think all learners have a little back and forth of what works for them. At times I’m deep into watching telenovelas and other times I dont want to watch. Sometimes I want to do a workbook and other times I’ll try a Spanish salsa class. Pimsleur helped me learn Portuguese VERY fast . But I spoke it more than I understood it lol. Lots of ups and downs but as long as we keep going it all works out 🤙🏾💕
Yup...That's key right...just keep going and do something! I think we might give Pimsleur a chance again. Some people are encouraging us to try it again. I feel that at our level, it may help. We got this Victoria!
As a Spanish tutor myself, I highly recommend "Bitácora", it's a very modern Spanish book with texts about culture and everyday language, all very contextualised. That usually works very well alongside Comprehensible Input. The vocab is always the focus, and all the lessons have recalls to previous vocab. Hope it helps!
oh wow! Awesome! I'll look for it! Thank you for that
sometimes people overlook that engagement is much more powerful than mere input... that's why learning about the culture is really powerful, because you make it a part of who you are
Gracias por el video! I’ve been tuning in with you guys and your journey because I also want to move to Spain and i’m learning Spanish too. (I’m a native english speaker from London)
I would urge you to give Pimsleur another shot. Try it for a couple weeks or a month, half an hour every day and i guarantee you will be more confident in speaking. I went from 0 spanish to comfortably having hour long conversations with natives in a short amount of time.
I’ve been learning for 7 months now. DS for listening and Pimsleur for speaking. They both work like a charm for both input and output learning.
Hope to see more update vids! It’s so great to see others on similar journeys
Thanks @SuperJeffacake This is one of the reasons I love this community. That does make sense. I will strongly consider it, and you'll probably be mentioned in our next video 🤣
Pimsleur helped me to an intermediate level in German. I highly recommend it.
oh oh, looks like we might need to get that Pimsleur subscription again! lol! Thanks Super Jeff! 7 months wow!! Super impressive!
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut 😂
I agree with that. I used Pimsleur around 20 years ago and then stopped using my Spanish. I started back on my Spanish Journey in May of 2023. Having used Pimsleur before I knew the weakness was in understanding Spanish speakers. I started Dreaming Spanish in July and I am at level three 270 hours. Listening to your examples I have to say that my ability to speak Spanish is way beyond yours. I am guessing though that your ability to understand people speaking to you is better than mine. Dreaming Spanish is really helping me in that department though. Pimsleur is fantastic at teaching one how to construct sentences and while the vocabulary is somewhat limited when you do learn a word or verb conjugation it is imprinted into your memory. There is no more translating because you know what you have learned. I am on lesson 16 of level 5 of Pimsleur and I use my Spanish daily with the cleaning staff at my office and some of my tennis buddies. I get complements all the time about how I am improving. I find Pimsleur and Dreaming Spanish perfect complements to each other. If you would try it again I think that by the time you get to level 3 your would be conversing with the locals at a really decent level.
My first Dreaming Spanish update video will be out later this week! It's great to see so many of us making progress with it ☺
Oh daaaang!! Will it be on the channel @thestraightupguide? Or are you creating a new one?
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut It'll be on this channel, yes! 😀
Im currently at 561 hours. Defintely feeling the same in regards to wanting to use the language more. I understand that being in Spain you both feel the pressure to use the language more then i do being here in the U.S. Push through yall. Ive been doing 3-5 hours a day right now. I plan on getting to 600 hours before the end of April and 750 hours before my Cancun trip in June. Grinding hard everyday. I defintely feel alot closer to the language but anxious to use it daily. Ill be reading at or around 600-700 hours and im considering speaking early between 900-1000 hours. We will see. Thnx for the update yall!
You are really grinding! I wish we had that many hours under our belt before getting here. Would have made things a little easier. I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes for you in June! Don't forget to share with us!
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut Of course! Will do!
I ran through Pimsleur before finding Dreaming Spanish. I can understand 99.9% of all the super beginner videos. I moved on to beginner and now it’s somewhat challenging, but I’m down for the ride.
Yeah, I think Pimsleur is good when you are first starting out. It will probably propel you further with DS. Happy Learning!
OH MY GOSH you scared me to death! I thought you were giving up on Dreaming Spanish for a minute there! I was like oh great, now I have to do this too because I live in Mexico and also need to go faster and if Greg and Lisa do it... 😂Whew! I really don't think it goes a lot faster living in the country except for the simple things you say/do every day at restaurants, grocery stores, etc. Unless you were in an area that had no English, of course. Although once the time comes, you do have more people to choose from for conversing. I also did one of those speaking apps briefly (Tandem maybe) and it was totally like a dating app. I hated it! Anyway, great update. Good luck with the visas!!! It's such a process but great when it's finished! Keep up the good work!
Hahaha! No, DS is the only thing that works. We are not giving up on it! Thanks for the well wishes for the visa! We are excited and nervous. How many hours are you at in Comprehensible input?
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut I just crossed the 400 hour mark. It takes forrrrreverrrrrr! At about 300ish hours I started doing 3 hours a day. Before that I was all over the place! On a bad day, 15 or 30 minutes. 😫 But now I have a solid goal of 1100 hours by Christmas (1,096 to be exact). I add my hours into a spreadsheet every day that my husband made me and if I'm behind it shows by how much in red and if I'm ahead it shows by how much in blue. That way if I have a day where I don't make it but I did extra a few days before, I know I'm still on track. Or not!
Hola! Greetings from Poland :) just starded learning Spanish again and Im on 40h on dreaming spanish.
So awesome! It's the only thing that has improved our ability to understand Spanish. You got this!
I love the music of Alvaro Soler. I'm always trying to sing along to his songs, it's a good exercise for my pronunciation. Are you still watching Español con Juan? I often listen to his podcasts, they are always sooo funny and helpful..
Greg had his music on repeat for a while haha! I listen to con Juan from time to time. He's one of my oldies but goodies
First, I just wanted to say that you guys are great. I've never really looked forward to an update on TH-cam because I have never really followed anyone, but I was waiting for this one. Although I had done previous Spanish studies, I just started Dreaming Spanish in December. So, when you started talking about wavering with the program at the beginning of the video, I was like "oh no!!!" because I've drunk the Kool-Aid and I'm all in right now. :) Good luck with the rest of your journeys. Living in Spain, coupled with the built in support group that you have with each other and the rest of the Dreaming Spanish community, I have no doubt that you will succeed. Keep sending the updates.
Drunk the kool-aid!! hahahaha or should I say, jajajajaja!! At this point we are die hard DS fans. There just isn't anything else out there that has improved our comprehension more than it and I've been trying to learn Spanish for years before finding DS. Let's keep going and hopefully we can get more content out. We've been brainstorming.
I'm doing language transfer, pimsleur and dreaming spanish too. I feel like they reinforce each other really well. One suggestion i was told with language transfer is to do two lessons a day but make the first one the last lesson you listened to the day before. So like do lesson 10 and 11 on monday, then 11 and 12 on tuesday and so on. That way you can sleep on each lesson and space it out so you remember it better
Hey Bill! Oh cool! I think Greg decided today to stop Pimsleur haha...we are all over the place! haha! We can't decide what to do. 🥴 We were going to talk about that in a video soon. I think that's a GREAT idea about LT!! I feel like the material they provide can be overwhelming if you listen to it only once. Going through it again made a huge difference, especially since I'm reading now. I had planned on just watching 5 videos and then going back and listening to all 5 again then moving on. But your idea is better. Thanks Bill!
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut glad to help, y'all are inspiring. Maybe greg would like language transfer more, it's a bit more dynamic than pimsleur and lets you put together more complex sentences together quicker. I like pimsleur to practice pronunciation and it helps to develop an intuition for sentence structure. I also felt that my mouth is just not used to stringing spanish words together and I def needed to practice it
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut I know in the last video many of us recommended Pimsleur. If you re enged with Pimsleur you speaking ability would grow substantially. The examples you shared show that you know words, but not how to speak in sentences. Pimsleur will teach you how to do that.
Missed you guys. I'm at 580 hours now and I noticed another improvement in my listening skills. Por ejemplo, I could understand almost 80 % of the last two episodes de las chicas del cable en temporada dos. Pero el próximo episodio estaba un poco decepcionante. Always ups and downs. And now I'm afraid to start reading. Debería ser divertido pero no leo mucho... Keep goin'! Saludos desde Alemania..
Wow, your writing is great! You're right there with us at 580! That's a good idea to go back to those shows and see if I can understand them better. I tried to go back to Velvet the other day but Netflix took them down. booo. Saludos desde Malaga
Bien hecho amigos!
Gracias!!
Thanks guys for sharing your insights! I’m chugging along at 312 hours. Love your videos! I’ve hardly done anything this month as my MIL passed away, but since she is bilingual herself, I know she would want me to get back at it 😊.
Oh gosh, so sorry to hear about your MIL. :( Life does get in the way sometimes and that's ok. Giving ourselves a break and being kind to ourselves is so important. Get back to it when you're ready. Good to see you here!
Hi Greg and Lisa, it’s nice to see that you’re learning Spanish with the immersion approach! Since you’re living in Spain and wanting to learn more ‘conversational’ spanish, I would definitely recommend giving “Aquí no hay quien viva” a go. It’s a very enjoyable sitcom from the ‘00. If you don’t understand that much in the beginning, don’t worry too much, there’s a lot of repetitive frases and it’s about everyday situations so there’s a lot of context cues. There’s about 100 episodes so a lot of content! It’s helped me a lot personally :)! There’s a free website online where you can watch all of the episodes, I don’t think TH-cam allows me to drop it here. Good luck on your Spanish journey!
Oh cool! I'll ask my son about the free website. He's a master at finding free content haha! Thank you!!!
Hi Greg and Lisa! I always look forward to watching your videos. Thanks for sharing. Have you considered shadowing? It's a technique that you can use to practice your pronunciation by simultaneously repeating words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs of an audio or video. It's different from rote memorization in that the focus is on copying/mimicking the sound and rhythm of the speaker in the target language. It's sort of like what an interpreter would do, except you're not translating because you're copying the same language.
How funny! Greg was telling me he just started doing this but he would pause the video and repeat the phrase. I didn't know it had a name. Obviously, as we practiced it, we wouldn't need to pause the video. Interesting. We'll talk about this and see if it works for us. I really like the idea though!! Thank you for this
I love your videos and your transparency. I’ve been studying Spanish for a year with Duolingo and can understand Spanish when reading but it’s still very difficult to hear the language after 60 of input with Dreaming Spanish. I’m wondering if at your given levels has listening become easier for you two?
Hey Ray! Yes!! Listening has become waaaay easier! We are less distracted and able to focus for longer. Give yourself a break in the beginning because it will be hard to focus and listen because your understanding is low...but it will get better. Out of nowhere, it gets easier and easier. Trust the process!! Have fun!
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut Thank you, thank you, thank you! I was really becoming discouraged. I've tried everything from Rosetta Stone, to Pimsleur, to Duolingo and more. Thanks for the motivation, dedication, and transparency you two are truly an inspiration.
I went through all 5 levels of Pimsleur German and then through the first 2 levels of Spanish. Pimsleur is basically a phrase book with audio and very limited with what it can do.
We are trying it again but we'll keep you guys updated on how it's going. We decided to give it a chance because so many people praised it. We'll see though
Are you guys I'm so glad to see you made so much progress! So glad to see you guys have made it to Spain and that you are continuing your journey! I left a comment on your last video not long ago and got to the end and realized that you knew who Español con Juan is, however, I didn't know if you knew or not but he has books on Amazon that are beginner and intermediate level and I believe Upper intermediate level. I don't remember if he has any advanced books. His name is Juan Fernández. I have three of his books maybe four of them. I have two of them I know for a fact in the super beginner levels A1 and A2 and I believe I have a B1 and possibly a B2 level book. Hopefully after you get done with the ollie Richards one you could try those out and see what you think. Wishing you continued success and enjoyment on your journey!
I didn't know his last name was Fernandez! I have it in my Amazon cart now hahaha!
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut I only know that because I was watching one of his playlist for beginner Spanish or intermediate and in one of those videos he mentioned being an author and having books for different levels of learning. When he showed the cover of the book I looked them up on Amazon and I bought them, but haven't had the chance to read them yet. In language learning I believe there are six levels. You have A1 and A2, B1 and B2, and C1 and C2. I hope they help you!
great video. Do you listen to dreaming spanish while doing chores or walking around etc or are you also staring at the screen? thanks
We just started Advanced material so we mostly watch them. Greg does nothing else but watch the screen. I am a multi-tasker, so I'll be cooking, doing chores, or doing my hair...stuff like that. I glance at the screen while I do those things though. I do understand it more when I'm focusing on listening and watching at the same time though. For intermediate videos, I can do other things and not watch the screen.
I'm quite sure some of those scenes were in Malaga. Beautiful part of the world.
Yup, it truly is!
Great video!!
Thank you so much!!!
Do you mind going over what comprehensible input is, for people not familiar with Dreaming Spanish? What do the hours represent?
Comprehensible input is where you basically understand most of what is said or written. So, when you see a word(s) that you don't know, it's easier to recognize them in context and learn. The Dreaming Spanish platform is basically about receiving comprehensible input to learn languages. Of course, when you are a starting from zero, you they use pictures and expressions to try and make the input comprehensible until you build a base. The hours of comprehensible input are how they track your progress. There is a roadmap on the website which describes the levels 1 thru 7 and how they correspond to being a Superbeginner , Beginner, Intermediate , and Advanced.
Hi! Of course! Comprehensibel input is a method of acquiring a language with input that is comprehensible at the level you are at. So if you are a beginner, then you want to listen to content that is super easy...like cartoons or Super beginner Dreaming Spanish videos. The idea behind it is that you learn your second/third etc language in the same way you learned your first...through listening and reading. The hours represent the number of hours we have listened to input that is at our level of understanding. So in our case, we have listened to almost 600 hours of videos/podcasts that at our level. The DS platform gives you a platform to track those hours so it's super easy.
Comprehensible input is a nebulous theory that has been around for many decades.
Level 4 was the worst. Level 5 seems to be much easier for me. 600 to 800 hours Dreaming Spanish advanced videos were still challenging but now I can listen to most of them as podcasts no problem and at about 780 hours I realized I can now watch anime dubbed in español and can understand the Charlas Hispanas podcasts pretty easily as well. I also listened to a native TH-cam video on a topic I was interested in and I believe I was able to understand that as well. I still can't quite watch native series but I'm sure that's just around the corner.
Glad to know level 4 is almost behind us! I can't wait to get into the 800 hr mark. Makes me want to watch 10 hours a day to get there haha! Shugging along though. It's exciting when you watch something and you understand it. DS is the only thing that got us to this level of understanding. It's crazy! Thanks for commenting!
Not sure if I missed it or not but are you guys able to understand when someone is speaking to you in Spanish ?
We have a video coming out about this today or later tonight. Yes, we understand. Not speaking at a fast level but we can understand basic conversations.
If y’all have a US based library card, you can get mango or Rosetta Stone for free
Mango? I'll have to look that one up. I tried Rosetta and it didn't work. Not so much that IT didn't work, but more that I wasn't motivated to continue with it. 🥴😁 Thanks for this though!
@@GregandLisaLewis-vz6ut yeah Mango learning. It’s like Duolingo and Rosetta Stone. A platform for language learning
Donde eres en esapana?
Estamos en Malaga ahora, pero quieremos vivir en Granada. Tal Vez en un mes or algo.
Is that even right?! haha! I didn't look it up so...this is my writing skills haha
Haha, I kind of understand what you're saying, it might be like, nosotros somos (assuming its you both) en malaga, pero vivemos en granada, tal vez o algo (maybe or something?)
Good effort tho. Im from London and go Spain quite a bit, mostly Balearics, but my friends from granada, always telling me to go, looks pretty Arabic down there.
@@JonnyRootsDem I was trying to say, we are in Malaga now but we want to live in Granada. Maybe in a month or so (I said something though haha) In other words, we hope to move to Granada in a month.
@@Digilewi1 sounds good, all the best. I've subbed so I can follow your journey.
Try conversation exchange for language partners
Is that similar to Crosstalk?
Great video!!!!!
Thank you so much!!!!