u/Environmental-Fan536

(Background: ESOL teacher on summer vacation; Studied German, French, ASL and a little Japanese. No formal study of Spanish but have attempted self-study a couple of times.)

It's day 16 of using Dreaming Spanish, I've used it daily and met my 2-hour goal all but one day. I'm at 35 hours recorded. I think this is the first self-study method I've ever stuck with this long and I am happy with the results and plan to keep going.

I currently search for any videos, Beginner or Super Beginner, below difficulty 30. I do get bored with some of the easiest videos, but I usually can pick up a vocabulary word or two. I'm reflecting a LOT on this idea that the brain is a language-learning machine. We don't really have to DO anything to grab language from input; that's exactly what our brain WILL do if we just let it. So more and more, instead of just trying to cram an hour of input and get it over with, I try to just watch one or two short, easy videos, and give it my full attention for 3-6 minutes. Then take a break and do something else.

However, I can't shake my teaching mentality just yet. I also am very interested in grammar and language learning, so sometimes when I find my mind wandering, I do take notes. Sometimes, I fill out a "listening guide" template I created for myself, where I note the difficulty level of the video and then note which vocabulary words I am hearing. I sort them by "Old Friends: words I recently learned and am hearing again - AKA shoring up my vocab words"; "Cognates"; and "New to Me Words". For example in one video, there was a word "alquiler" that I couldnt quite decide if it meant "landlord" or "rent". So I just wrote it down and noted that I was unsure of it. If it comes up in a new video it will become an "Old Friend".

I also make a note of interesting grammatical expressions or uses. At the end, I try to write a simple recap of what happened in the video, keeping it in the present tense for right now. That forces me to make use of the new words and structures I am hearing.

For example, for one video I wrote:

"Ester ve un vestido. Quiere el vestido. Pero el vestido es muy caro. El vestido cuesta 500 dolares. Ester debe pagar el alquier. Su alquiler cuesta 500 dolares. Ester pregunta "Que hago?"

I don't do this all the time, just for about 3 or 4 of the easiest videos, because otherwise I am finding them too boring to get through. Doing this really helps me decide if one video is easier or harder than another, because the easiest videos don't have me writing any words or grammatical structures down. I only note things that are new to me.

That's how I can see that at hour 35, I am about 95-98% comfortable at difficulty level 28. Comprehension level varies due to how familiar the vocabulary is for me.

I don't count anything but Dreamins Spanish as input right now, but I also have started doing a little grammar and writing to see if I like them.

My friend told me about Ella Verbs - a website where you can just practice verb conjugation. This is very important to me, because I was not happy that I didn't feel I could confidently and correctly conjugate even regular verbs in the simplest, present tense. I need reassurance that I am going to be able to speak and write in a grammatically correct way, at least at a basic level, even if I decide to stop Dreaming Spanish over the summer. So I went through about 2 hours of exercises on this website and feel much better about my ability to conjugate these verbs now; I will say that I believe the past 35 hours of listening made the verbs suddenly sound a lot more familiar and automatic. When I type in the correct form of each verb, I'm not really thinking about it logically; instead I am asking myself what just sounds right.

https://app.ellaverbs.com

At the start of the summer I took a couple of online tests to see what my current level of knowledge was. I found a good test of grammar which asked me 15 questions at the A1 level, and I only scored 40% correct. Since it was multiple choice with 3 answers each, that wasn't so great. I took it again yesterday and scored 93% correct so that makes me feel good, too.

I have also started listening to "Language Transfer" episodes in Spanish. At first I did not like the episodes, but once I got to episode #7, I think I started to understand the point of them, and saw how useful they are. I also like that they are very short. I think I can add them in to my work day commute once school starts in the fall.

https://www.languagetransfer.org/complete-spanish

Finally, I discovered a site where you can practice spelling from dictation called SpeechLing Dictation that seems pretty useful. I've only used it for an hour or so.

https://speechling.com/dictation

All in all, I am still very enthusiastic about this method and still have my goal to complete at least 50 hours this summer of Dreaming Spanish. Using the app to count my hours is a very good incentive for me.

*** Update ****.

Well maybe I'm not so excited. The second training I tried to listen to, clearly the Spanish audio was an AI translation and voiced by AI, or text to speech or something. It definitely did not sound native at all and the sentence structure seemed translated more word-by-word. So I don't think it counts at all as good input!

The first training course I did sounded like it was narrated by a human, fluent speaker of Spanish though. **

***Original post:*****

I'm probably the only school teacher in my district who is excited to receive the link to next school year's mandatory compliance training (bloodborne pathogens, IEPs and 504s, Anti-Bias training etc...).

There are the same self-paced videos (over 6 hours!) we need to complete every. single. year and the information seldom changes. Yet you can't just take the quiz at the end. You need to play all 6 hours, and click ahead every 2 to 6 minutes. So you really do have to pay attention, no getting around it.

But I just saw that I can listen to them in Spanish! And I played a few already, and they are right at my listening level, particularly because I am already extremely familiar with the subject matter.

So now it is 6+ hours I can add to my Dreaming Spanish input!

I started Dreaming Spanish 10 days ago, on June 20th. (For background, I am an ESOL teacher who just started my summer break; I have studied French and have learned a little Spanish here and there over the years, but never stuck with any self-study program before!)

I decided to aim for 2 hours a day of input while I am on summer break, hoping to get to Level 2 before I got back to work.

I did about 10 hours of Super beginner videos around difficulty level 5-15. Usually there was just one or two words I did not know. I am definitely learning a lot of vocabulary every day through this method, but it has been a bit of a slog to get in a full two hours every day of these videos.

It is easy to understand the Super Beginner videos, but I am just finding that they do not hold my interest. (In particular, the videos about people's dating experiences - at first they were OK because they did teach me some new vocabulary, but... they just aren't for me.) To force myself to pay attention, sometimes I would open up a Google Doc while watching a video, and type dictation as the videos would play. I know that isn't the method, but I enjoy writing as I listen and it keeps my mind from wandering...

I recently switched into watching videos at the 35-40 level. Even though there may be a few more words I don't know, I would much rather watch these. I like the travel videos, Shel and Sebastian trying different Korean snacks, and Let's Play Flaggle with Augustina! In terms of learning, I particularly enjoy watching a whole series (like Flaggle) where the vocabulary repeats itself often. The videos are longer, they are more interesting to me, and the time flies by instead of dragging as it did with the videos under level 20.

I can definitely tell just these 25 hours of focused listening have helped improve my listening comprehension. Yesterday I walked past a group of Spanish-speaking arborists cutting down a large tree, and I understood them saying "Hey guys stop for a minute, let the lady get out of the way!" I would not have been able to pick out these words as easily just a few weeks ago.

I often find myself most interested in watching some videos late at night, after my brain has had a rest. I'm keeping track a little bit of new words I am learning. At the 1-20 difficulty level I was learning about 5 new words per day; now at the 35-40 level I'm learning about 10- 15 new words per day; some days more like 20 depending on what I am watching.

Just thought I'd add my update as someone who is just starting and has very low hours to report - am hoping to keep updating as I get more hours in!

https://preview.redd.it/gmmmbutadiah1.png?width=2352&format=png&auto=webp&s=d9d76d67c86fa25414d84caf01660a0e85089fe3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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