u/Minos-Helios

You can’t just study only input and expect to be able to speak and write and read amazingly in Spanish that not how works yes input is a great foundation for understanding Spanish better I will admit that cause it’s easier to get better at them other skills if you can understand Spanish really well but them other skills are still separate things I be honest with all the people here you should start reading at 600 hours that’s like the good middle ground there and also start speaking around that time too, cause I see post sometimes people saying I have this amount of hours like 800 or 1500 hours and my speaking and reading and writing is terrible well that’s cause you never work on that much. If you don’t work on them things you just be able to understand people really well that’s it so don’t blame dreaming Spanish or say dreaming Spanish oversells no you just ain’t work on your other skills, some people in here might need a lot more time to learn and that’s okay stop comparing yourself to other people this is your own race your own marathon but that’s all I have to say everyone have a good weekend.

I am away from Santo Domingo I am in a villa in the middle of the jungle okay everyone got that so not many people here speak English. I am at 505 hours it’s still challenging for me to understand them but my brain has been able to understand some words they say not a lot but words I heard million times before when they ask me what country I am from they don’t say país they say pai which I figure that out also they don’t say gracias they say gracia’ which can be hard to figure out but I been able to order food and juice to my villa using this WhatsApp number thing, I will admit Dominicans are very helpful and they been correcting me when I say a word wrong so I love the experience I will update you all again in December when I go to Colombia for 1 month see you all then since I been on vacation I ain’t averaging my normal 4 hours and 20 mins a day I been doing maybe 2 or 3 hours a day while here which is okay to me but yes see you again in December for Colombia.

So on chat gpt and google Gemini there a call option, you can tell me them hey speak slower to me in Spanish and let’s have a basic conversation correct me when I am wrong. Don’t sound amazing but if you’re new to speaking it can work great and why i recommend Gemini is because you can pick a dialect with that one. So I thought I would just share this tool if you don’t have money for a tutor you can start out that way and then ease you’re way into talking to native speakers after a couple of hours.

For me it’s cucaracha 🤣 I heard it once and I never forgot it now I am at 427 hours so I ain’t Spanish expert but that one word stuck in my head forever. But I let you know my progress at 600 hours or 1000 hours I only do dreaming Spanish input cause I don’t really understand the intermediate and advanced content all that well sometimes I can catch a whole sentence other days I might only catch 1 or 5 words. But that’s all I wanted to share tell me a word you never forgot you have heard.