I posted a while back that one of my hosts in Medellín mentioned that my conversational fluency had dramatically increased in a roughly 8-month period. I wanted to specifically post about the why and elaborate, as a simple change can lead to real differences in your conversational fluency.

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I’ve had many, many tutors in the past. However, I’ve only really switched when necessary - scheduling reasons or similar things - and was in a bit of a routine. My tutors up until about 4 months ago would give me text to read, summarise (at times) and ask me related questions. The difficulty of these articles and questions definitely evolved over time, however I was effectively only responding.

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What changed was a desire to solely get grammar feedback. This naturally led to me choosing the topics and less talking from my tutor. Without realising it, I created a situation in which I forced myself to think more fluidly in the language and without preparation.

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My main lessons are usually at 11pm Colombia time. Whether in the UK (4 or 5 am) or in Colombia, I specifically get up for that lesson. Thus, there’s no preparation time and I don’t choose a topic the day before. I have a few minutes (or less) to think about what I want to talk about, depending on how awake I am.

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Put simply, your goals should evolve as your Spanish gets better. Getting along or being comfortable with a tutor can lead to a routine that doesn’t actually challenge you and limits your progress. This can obviously hold you back without knowing it. Part of the problem is that it’s hard to judge how fluid you are.

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The post in question is here, for anyone interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish/comments/1tea8k1/week\_one\_in\_medell%C3%ADn\_your\_spanish\_has\_improved\_90/

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.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m currently in Belén, one of the less touristy zones in Medellín.

My host was here a few days ago with her cousin to do a deep clean before she went off on a trip. Her cousin doesn’t like English at all. Meanwhile, my host sometimes likes to practice her English with me.

They were here for 2 to 3 hours - it was at least 2 hours - during which I casually spoke to both of them. I was encouraged to speak to my host’s cousin so she didn’t feel isolated. Thus, it was a case of English mixed with Spanish with my host - when she didn’t understand something in English - and Spanish with her cousin. Lots of switching back and forth. I’d say that 75% of the 2+ hours was in Spanish. There was no struggling for words at all on my part during this long, 3-way chat.

My host’s English is okay, but not at the same level as my Spanish. I had quite a varied conversation with her cousin about topics like her views on religion growing up in a Catholic country and D1 vs Ara, which are the two biggest discount supermarkets here. As well as places I’ve visited in the world and Colombia and where I’ll be going. She was shocked to find out that I have a tattoo of the Colombian flag on my leg, that Peru has penguins - I’ll be visiting for a couple of days just for that - and that 4 more countries take care of/own parts of The Amazon than she previously thought.

The cousin didn’t have any problems understanding me, except for one word that I mispronounced over and over. As I said in another recent post, I’m aware that I need to shorten how I pronounce some letters when I speak Spanish to be better understood. I simply need more feedback on this.

I don’t know if I’d call this a win per se, as it didn’t seem challenging. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but this is simply normal for me at this point. The point of this post is to say that no matter how many lessons we have from the comfort of our homes, there are certain benefits you get from being in a country where your target language is spoken. Or, in my case, my future home.

I’ll be heading to Cartagena in a little over 12 hours. The goal of my time in some coastal cities this time around is more real life input. I’d say that my comprehension of Caribbean/coastal Colombian Spanish is around 80% or so, whereas I’m very close to 100% with basically every other part of the country. Excluding guys in their 60s who don’t enunciate and only speak in local slang.

Having first visited Belén, where I got a rave review for my Spanish, I next visited the hardest parts of Medellín for me in terms of pronunciation. My presence in these two zones practically doubles the western tourist population. That is to say that they're essentially non-native speaker free, as there's nothing touristy. Thus, locals aren't used to non-native (AKA terrible) pronunciation.

As noted in my post about people from Spain finally being able to understand me I had several months of pronunciation lessons in the run-up to this 4th trip to Colombia. Though the guy definitely wasn't perfect, the lessons have helped. I now have a pronunciation tutor from Medellín who is far stricter with me than the previous guy.

Anyway, the results have been mixed in these zones. I was last there about 8 months ago.

First, my host in Buenos Aires: “Yes, I see you understand me better, and I understand you better too. You're doing great!”. She told me that she could understand about 60% of what I said the previous time I was there.

There’s a 24-hour bakery very closeby which has always been the toughest test for me. I was accused of speaking English twice the last time I was there. That was a little frustrating. The only real problem this time was that I forgot the word for trays the first time and pronounced it poorly the following day. It wasn’t perfect, but it was much better than last time.

The final place I routinely use as a benchmark is a vegan restaurant in La Candelaria. I confidently ordered one thing and got something entirely different last time, which was pretty discouraging. None of that this time! I was understood perfectly well.

I’m pleased that I’ve been understood better than before in these places which are not at all touristy. I honestly expected that several months of pronunciation lessons would get me to a better level than I am at this moment. That said, I know that my first pronunciation tutor wasn’t perfect. I’m aware, for example, that I’m often misunderstood when I say words that end in an o. Based on how my new tutor reacts, I need to shorten some of my letters. I’m confident that more feedback will fix this.

I’ll return to Bogota in July, which will likely be the easiest test of all. I talk with my hosts there quite a lot.

I've not had any issues being understood by any Uber drivers at all thus far during this trip. That happened a good 10/15% of the time last time for rides that started in Buenos Aires.

I’ll be in Belén until the 27th, before heading to Cartagena. I also have some time in Barranquilla and Bucaramanga. Coastal accents still aren’t completely clear for me. I have a couple of days in Lima just to see penguins. My trip will conclude in Istanbul, because cats.

The quote is a review of sorts from my favourite host in Medellín.

We usually have coffee or lunch a couple of times while I'm at her place. She's also one of the most positive and supportive people I've ever met. I waited to write this because her initial comment was a *slightly* over the top "twenty thousand percent”.

Anyway, the real, honest assessment is that she thinks that my fluidity, pronunciation and related things have improved by around 90% during the roughly 8 months since I was last at her place.

We've always had fairly long conversations, with our very first being 30+ minutes when I arrived at her place during my second trip to Colombia. We had a few 90-minute conversations during my third trip. However, our conversations were often me speaking Spanish and replying to her English. However, She used far less English with me during the latter part of that third trip because she said it was clear that I understood almost everything. The only English she uses with me these days is when it accidentally slips out because she associates my name with the UK.

I explained about Attenborough turning 100, his importance to the UK and answered her questions about the royal family while we were waiting for a table at a restaurant a few days ago. However, what really stood out was how much my ability to isolate individual conversations has improved. I could turn my head/pick a nearby table and effectively zoom in on their conversation without any major issues understanding. Switching from one to the other caused no problems.

I'm essentially working night shift hours at the moment and am often pretty tired when we go out to eat. Put another way, my brain is doing fairly well under less than optimal conditions.

I briefly visited a coffee place in El Poblado today that I like very much and used to visit regularly. I'd not been there for a little over a year and my Spanish is great, according to the staff. They didn't used to notice much in terms of changes every 6 months, so I'll take it as a win. A couple of the staff were very enthusiastic about this. I was surprised to be remembered.

I've been focused almost 100% on Colombian Spanish for almost 2 years. That “specialisation" has resulted in my comprehension of Spanish from Spain largely standing still. Indeed, my brief periods in Spain have been amusingly devoid of mutual understanding. Meanwhile, Colombians have generally understood me well since my second trip. This is the start of my fourth, with each one being 3 months long.

Spain is just an airport to me. I understand why a lot of people love the country, but the only part of the Spanish speaking world I care about is Colombia.

Anyway, this seems to have changed. I didn't need to repeat myself once during the 8 or so interactions I had in Madrid airport. Everyone understood me well, including the routine part when I'm called to explain why - effectively - I don't have a return ticket on their system. Most people don't book 2 single tickets and spend 3 months in the country. The customer service rep has always switched to English in the past when I’ve needed to explain and show them that I do indeed have a ticket to leave the country. This time my pronunciation was not only sufficient to be understood by her, but it was actually complimented during the interaction.

As I've mentioned before, I've had several months of pronunciation lessons. This has clearly been useful and doesn't have to be expensive. I managed to find a guy who was competent at this for $4 a lesson on Preply. I wouldn't recommend him as he's certainly not perfect - and has since upped his price - but the idea was to improve my level before this trip. I've now got a more professional and more knowledgeable expert from Medellín. The long-term goal is to not sound like a foreigner, or at least more natural for a Colombian audience. I don’t expect to sound like an authentic paisa, but we’ll see.

It's likely rare that people using DS and CI need such help. I'm blaming it on my autism and related issues. That said, I think it’s a good idea to find someone from the place you want to sound like if sounding natural is a priority for you. In my case, pronunciation in Medellín is very different to that in Bogotá. For example, people in Medellín often pronounce the final r in a word as a strong/rolled r, rather than a soft r.

Amusingly, I’ve spent so much time doing exercises to strengthen my rolled rs, that producing a soft r is now a challenge.

Anyway, if Spaniards can now broadly understand me well and couldn't before and Colombians largely could before, I should be very easy to understand in Colombia.

This may seem very obvious to some, but not all the teachers on platforms such as Preply and iTalki are good. Language learners are obviously not natives and it’s easy to be blind to this as a learner. After all, even the most advanced of us are learners.

As an example, I decided several months back that I really needed to improve my pronunciation. I found a guy from Bogota who seemed good and that was that. However, he gave me a false level of confidence by allowing me to read far too quickly. I was making a lot of errors and had no idea until I recently had some more trial lessons.

You don’t want to waste your money or time on this, so I’d try a few teachers and be sure. After all, you may well be spending a lot of money on and time with someone. This is particularly important for me, as pronunciation in different regions of Colombia can differ quite substantially.

Anyway, I’ll be back in Colombia in 2 days for another 3-month trip.

I’ll be at around 4,830 hours on arrival.

Other than spending some more time visiting coastal cities than I have previously, I’m curious to see whether my pronunciation has improved in the last 6 months. According to my regular Airbnb hosts and in the parts of Medellin I spend time in that are basically free of Western tourists.

I plan on applying for a real visa this time, rather than using the 90-day stamp on arrival. That would mean 2 years of total flexibility to visit the country I love most in the world as and when I please.

I now have a tutor for pronunciation from Medellín, which should improve things a lot in the long-term.

Expect updates in the coming weeks and months.

This is a repost; it seems that Reddit’s filters took issue with my previous attempts. I’ve no idea why.