Another 1000 hour update
Background
I’m a middle-aged mom with a full plate of work, house and kid care, school volunteering, and family time. I'd been learning Spanish for a year or two with other resources when I found DS, and I do have an academic background in other languages, but I could barely understand a word anyone said.
It’s taken me 3.5 years to get to 1000 hours and will probably take another year and half to get to 1500. I’m okay with that! The fact that I’ve gotten this far is so amazing to me. It’s been a lifelong goal to actually learn a language, and this is farthest I’ve ever gotten after high school German, college Latin, and grad school French-for-translation.
Most of my hours are consumed while walking, doing dishes or laundry, driving, knitting, or doing other chores. I know that’s not what Pablo wants, but it would simply not get done otherwise!
Listening
I can understand just about every DS video, although I have to really focus on the hardest advanced ones. When the speakers are clear and not super fast, YouTube videos on history, language, and books (the subjects I usually pick) are comprehensible. I’m still only at about 60% of most shows and movies made for native audiences.
Reading
I’ve been reading Spanish since long before DS and am closing in on 1.7 million words. I’m very comfortable with ambiguity in reading, so I’ve tended to read books that are not really in a comprehensible sweet spot but that I enjoy. Again, probably not the most efficient, but (for me) the most sustainable approach.
Speaking
At about 800 hours, I signed up for a month trial of Worlds Across, took two lessons, had one good and one very mediocre experience, and then decided I was going to focus on reading out loud and talking to myself/ my husband for a while. I don’t live around a lot of Spanish speakers and we don’t have any trips planned, so I didn't feel a big rush.
There’s a natural experiment in my household: my husband was a Spanish minor in college, and my teenager took AP Spanish Language last year (5!) and is taking AP Spanish Lit this year. Compared to them, my grammar/ speaking is truly dire. I conjugate wildly, use the wrong pronouns, and generally make a fool of myself. However! My vocabulary is loads better than both of theirs. That’s partly just a function of my brain being sticky when it comes to words, but when we’re discussing how to say something, it often bubbles up out of some unconscious well.
Writing
I’ve done a bit of this but it really hasn’t been a focus and probably won’t be for a while.
Overall, I’m so grateful to DS for enabling me to learn and keep learning Spanish. There’s no doubt in my mind that, at this point in my life, I wouldn’t have been able to do it any other way.