u/scottadams364

After a few months of study I felt like I hit a hit a point where progress was ramped up and feeling consistent. It was pretty motivating. Then after a month or so, it was feeling stagnant. Like my input wasn’t advancing, I wasn’t picking up new vocabulary, and I kept feeling stuck in my speaking sessions. Then, in the last week or so, I feel another surge of increasing skills, easier retrieval for output and remembering new vocabulary. What I’m realizing is that, as they say, progress is not linear. You may feel like you’re not making progress, but pushing through the “stuck” is part of the process to get to the next step in the journey. In other words, try not to get discouraged, it all accumulates toward the overall progress, and we’ll continue to get where we’re going.

It seems to me that at the various levels (right now I’m on 55) Andrea’s videos feel noticeably faster and more advance than say Agustina or Natalia at the same level. Has anyone noticed this?

I trust that DS (and CI in general) is slowly improving my ability to comprehend and parse Spanish at increasingly native rhythms. But I don't seem to be picking up much vocabulary from the CI. I want to stop and look up words as I hear them (I am not a purist, I use DS as a targeted CI component of my learning). But pausing and switching to my SpanishDict app, searching, etc, then switching back to DS (and rewind a tad) is eating up my time. Dual Subtitles are my best solution - I ignore them unless I didn't understand, then glance and the Spanish, and if needed, glance at the English for translation. This is very efficient on Youtube (even though I have to be sitting at my computer). However it doesn't work on the DS website. In a perfect world, I'd have the dual subtitles that work for DS, and even more ideally that work on my phone. Has anyone found a solution for this?

My wife will be out of the country for 2 weeks starting end of September. I want to immerse myself in Spanish the most effective way I can during that time. I’m thinking about doing 12 hours of iTalki conversation during that time (90 minutes 4 times a week). Does this seem counterproductive, like I’m doing too much in a short amount of time? Has anyone done this much? For tutors, have you had a student go to you this frequently? I’m about mid-B1 level (Spanish) if that matters.

For the last couple months, most of my input has been podcasts, or podcast-friendly Dreaming Spanish, where I’m not watching a video. This is because I’m usually driving, folding laundry, it’s doing dishes, etc. I’m starting to understand that I really need some of my input to be fully focused, even if it’s only 15 of my 45 minutes per day.

I’ve tried just sitting and listening to podcasts with no video, and that’s better than multitasking. But it seems like when I watch a video, even if it’s literally just a camera on them speaking, that for some reason, it seems to sink in better. It doesn’t seem logical that it would make a difference, but for some reason it appears to. Does anyone else feel this way?

I feel like what the CEFR estimates to get to each level are way off, at least for me. I re-picked up my category 1 target language study almost 5 months ago, studying on average 2 hours a day. That's about 300 hours. I started at about nearly A2 (personal estimate), and I estimate my level now around mid B1 (not yet achieving B1). I think it will take me 400-500 hours total to get from A2 to B1 (an additional 100-200 hours from now). CEFR says this should take 150-200 hours.

I guess it's possible that my starting and current estimates are off, and that I've made more progress than I think, but I still feel safe to say that the realistic hours are like double what CEFR claims.

EDIT:
As some have noted, the hour estimates aren’t from CEFR itself (I learned), but are what come up when I’ve searched various sites via google and from what AI says. I don’t know where those numbers come from specifically. Looks like other institutions, like Cambridge maybe, but I do frequently see estimates which are fairly in line with one another.

I took 3 years of high school Spanish, and never once heard about this subjunctive. That means one of two things:

1 - We completely avoided sentences that would’ve required the subjunctive, or
2 - We used one of the other simple tenses instead, incorrectly, completely not even acknowledging the fact that it should be subjunctive.

As I’m learning subjunctive, there are a LOT of constructions that require it, so I find option 1 highly unlikely. I’m assuming it’s #2, and that to teachers who were fluent in Spanish and had a native-like ear for the language, is sounded wrong and they probably cringed knowing that they were teaching it incorrectly (probably for simplicity, which I assume was obligatory by the district).

So what’s the answer, and how wrong does it sound to hear someone speak without using subjunctive?

I made a post some weeks ago that I graduated from Español al Vuelo (EaV) to Spanish Boost Podcast (SBP), and it was an appropriate jump. In 3-4 weeks it went from being a bit challenging, to I listen at 1.5x speed, which is great as far as progress. I'm now a couple hours into Español a la Mexican (EalM), and it's a BIG jump for me, faster than SBP was at 1.5x speed including more advanced vocabulary. Some episodes I can get 90-95% if I'm fully focused, but some episodes are a struggle even at a reduced 0.9x speed.

This question is for anyone who AGREES with that assessment. I say that because there are a couple recommendation lists floating around and they disagree with me. Someone's Notion list I reference puts SBP and EALM at the same level, and I think there's a huge difference. And there's a google doc that gets referenced here that puts EaV above SBP, which wasn't my experience. So apparently these things can be pretty subjective.

So, if you also found EalM to be too big of a jump from SBP, do you have an inbetween podcast that you'd recommend I check out? Preferably from LatAm, but if there's a strong recommendation for a Spain podcast, I'll check it out too. I'm looking for audio only since I'm rarely looking at video anymore.

I’m 2 chapters into Fantasma del Pasado. I chose Juan because my research suggested that his content is less dry than Paco Ardit. Something that stuck out to me REAL quick was his constant use of the present perfect instead of the preterite. I didn’t know this was such a common thing in Spain. I found it confusing and off putting because that’s not the way I intend to speak and I don’t find it very helpful to practice. It was really throwing off my reading rhythm.

What I’m doing instead, since I’m the type of reader with an internal voice, is say in my head instead the preterite equivalent of his present perfect constructions as I read. I’m doing the same thing translating from vosotros to ustedes. Since I mentally “hear” the story, this has been more useful to me for my comprehension, and is turning out to also be a useful (and kind of fun) conjugation exercises.

Social media can be such a waste of time, but I found a way for it to double as practice in Spanish. When I read posts and comments, I translate into Spanish as I read (kind of whispered under my breath). I’ve surprised myself with how much I can translate and also how quickly. I’m reading it anyway, it doesn’t slow me down THAT much, and it’s all basically output/production practice. When I reach something I’m not sure how to say, I switch over to SpanishDict and see how. I don’t make it a flashcard or anything, I just mentally note it and move on, which plants a seed for the next time it might come up. I’m finding it to be quite fun and beneficial.

I’m around an early B1 level. In the past few weeks, I feel like I’ve hit a stride where I’m able to pick up and implement things more easily and it’s motivating! I’m still translating in my head for both input and output. But It’s gotten quicker and less mentally taxing in both directions. I’m wondering, with stronger fluency, does the internal translating eventually almost disappear? I’ve accepted that if it doesn’t that’s okay. I’m advancing at a rate where I can foresee the ability in a couple years to communicate with relative ease, despite the translating, and I feel okay about that. Regardless, I’m curious how much better it gets.

I have a daily goal of 45 minutes listening to CI. I probably hit that on average (some days less, many days more). I’m early B1 in my TL, my listening is pretty good, and my speaking is getting stronger.

I’m slow at reading, even in my native English. In my TL, it’s my weakest of the 4 I/O categories. One of my biggest speaking problems is using the correct genders (articles and adjective agreement). Is this something I’d see a disproportional benefit from getting some comprehensible reading under my belt, even if it’s at the expense of my comprehensible listening time? It’s WAY less WPM of input than listening, but are the benefits more than sheer word volume?

A question for natives:

I’ve recently realized that this is something I do a lot, and I’m wondering if it’s important that I fix it. For example, “tiene”. I pronounce it tee-EN-eh. I’ve recently learned that it should be pronounced TYEN-eh. Same goes for many other instances in that same vein. Is this a typical hallmark of an American/foreign accent? Is it something that stands out as being noticeable? Regardless, I plan on intentionally correcting this, but I’m curious how representative is of a gringo.

EDIT:
I edited the phonetic pronunciation because it’s misleading and detracting from the question.

Sorry if this isn't the proper sub for this, but it's the one I tend to post in for Spanish.

I've been doing iTalki lessons for 7 weeks. I tried a tutor after my first 3 hours, 5 weeks ago. I enjoyed her (let's call her Karen, because her name is Karen), but I went back to my first tutor who I love. I've put in 9 hours with him in the last 5 weeks. I just had another session with Karen, and about half way through, she said "I have to ask, have you been practicing a lot? Because I can tell you've advanced a lot since our first lesson." She said last time I didn't speak so fluidly, and I have a stronger vocabulary. I was stoked to hear that! Even though I already felt like that was the case and feel more confident having conversations, I was thrilled that she noticed, and enough to comment on it.

I purchased the 1000 card Spanish frequency deck a few months ago, I’ll reach the 1000th card in a couple weeks. I think Refold claims that these are the 1000 most frequent words that are not cognates or near cognates, and that the rest of the top 4700 words are (near) cognates. Does anyone know how accurate that is?

When I finish the deck, I was thinking about speeding through a 5000 most frequent words deck, which the creator built straight from an official frequency dictionary. In theory, if Refold’s claims are accurate, almost all the cards will either be repeats from the Refold deck (quick easy button or suspend), or (near) cognates that should be quick and easy to learn (less time spent on retrieval and reviews, mostly with easy button deferment).

There are many basic words I don’t know that haven’t come up in the Refold deck. That tells me that they are probably cognates that I could even guess correctly, but I haven’t been exposed to them. Ripping through a few thousand cognates would greatly increase my output vocabulary. When I need to pull a word now that’s “probably” a cognate, I will be more confident to say it if I can remember that it’s in fact correct.

Takeaway question:
Has anyone confirmed to any degree if the whole “3700 of the top 4700 words are cognates) claim?

I put maybe 20 hours into Español Al Vuelo, and I was understanding like 95% or better. I recently moved to Spanish Boost Podcast, I’m a few hours in. It is a couple notches more advanced in both vocabulary and speed, as expected. I’m understanding around 85%. There are definitely more words that I don’t know than in the last podcast. Do you think this level of comprehension is acceptable for CI?

Where do you get your content for reading, like graded readers or otherwise? I want to read primarily on my phone. I don’t mind purchasing some stuff as needed, but do you buy PDFs, or kindle books? Import purchased content to LingQ? What have you found is your process? People say “200k words read” etc, how are they tracking that?

EDIT:
Thanks for the suggestions. I purchased a Juan Fernández kindle book for $6. I probably won’t be reading so much that the cost is an issue, so buying is the simplest route.

I’m early intermediate in Spanish. I only find a couple hours a day for study (which includes any CI) because I’m doing things with my family. Well my wife will be in Europe for 2 weeks in the fall (I’m in Arizona). Besides work and having my 13 yo with me (he’s pretty low maintenance and independent), I’m pretty much a free bird for 2 weeks. I’d love to take this opportunity to dive deep in a useful way into my Spanish. Does anyone have ideas how I can use this time? I currently do 1 hour a week of iTalki conversation, should I just book a couple hours every day and rack up like 20 hours of output? Anyone ever find like a local community that does pure conversational meetups or anything like that? I feel like I could cram 3 months of progress into these 2 weeks if I’m smart about it, but not sure how exactly. Would love some ideas.

Does anyone know of a great video doing a thorough deep dive on common profanity and how it’s used? Ideally it would be mostly stuff that would apply in Mexico.

I don’t think I’ve watched DS in about a month. Almost all of my input since then has come from Español Al Vuelo. I quite enjoy the podcast, and since I rarely dedicate fully focused time to input, I’m usually doing something that prevents me from actively watching a video, so the audio only format is working best for me. For now I’m keeping my DS subscription because it’s a cheap backup option, and I owe Pablo a little more money since it’s what got me into comprehensible input. I really disagree with the pure ALG approach, but comprehensible input is definitely a key ingredient of a well-rounded approach. I’m interested to see if I have progressed enough that I can jump from difficulty 50 to difficulty 55 or so on DS after these additional hours away. Eventually I will run out of episodes of this podcast, and will move onto the next, which I think will be either Spanish Boost Podcast or Español a la Mexicana. One of those seems like the logical next step. I hope I enjoy it as much as this one.