The year is a little over halfway through. I started the DS journey on the first day of the year. The goal has been to not miss a single day and to have a daily goal that is so moderate that it is easy to maintain motivation even in difficult times. Now the daily goal is 45 minutes but on average there are over 90 minutes a day, with many days of several hours, of course. Now I am at 370 hours and still on target, which is continuity and consistency.

I watch content that sparks my interest. Interesting DS for beginners as well as everything intermediate and something advanced. Documentaries and some cartoons on Netflix. Football analyses on Youtube, Luisito, and really whatever the algorithm happens to offer in Spanish. I choose the content based on interest, not so much on level. I comment in Spanish with the help of AI. I collect phrases that touch my heart.

Thank you to this community and to all of you with whom I have been able to share my journey.

Hey everyone, As of July 4 2026, I watched all the videos of Dreaming Spanish above Level 50. After I started watching Level 60+ videos, I decided that I would watch all the videos above Level 50 and that would be like a graduation from Dreaming Spanish.

I am feeling a sense of accomplishment and the journey has been absolutely amazing. More about it on my 1500 hours post - https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish/s/lDspWjYsiQ

I know that the spreadsheet has all the resources. However, I would really love if folks here could share the resources, they genuinely feel stand out 🙏.

I am looking forward to content in Spain's and Argentina's accent, but I am not strictly limited to them.

Attaching some of visuals that display my progression throughout my Spanish learning journey with this post.

Credits to dreaminginsights.com for beautiful visualizations.

Perhaps the most reassuring thing I have ever heard while studying Spanish was hearing Andrés admit he was not sure whether ¨sueldan" or "soldan" was correct.
It is at 7:20 into https://app.dreaming.com/spanish/watch?id=6a32a31e09d2527916e0416c

The second most reassuring was being told by a Colombian who reviewed a short story that theoretically was appropriate for intermediate level students of Spanish, but which I found almost impossible to understand that it was rather very advanced, in an antiquated and highly literary style that many native speakers would find challenging.
In short, I think many students are like me, beating ourselves up over our failings when sometimes our material would challenge native speakers and we need to cut ourselves some slack.

​

Update from 4,500 hours

My list of Colombian content recommendations

Background & tracking

I had no real Spanish experience prior to DS, aside from a few hours of the green owl. I don’t track my speaking time. I started tracking my reading at around 4,500 hours. More on that below.

My native - and only language - prior to starting to use DS was English. I’m very much an immersion-only learner. Meaning a purist. In fact, Spanish is probably my primary language now. Though it’s naturally not at the same level as my English, I only watch and listen to content in Spanish and spend 6 months a year in Colombia. I speak with a tutor and an Airbnb host - well, good friend - every day. Thus, English is just for work and family.

🧠 Autism: halve my hours

I’ve been diagnosed with two types of autism, plus other learning-related issues since childhood. My parents were at one point told to not expect me to speak at all. I will never be a good advert for DS. I think that most people could halve my current hours to be at a similar level of listening comprehension. Please keep this in mind.

💬 WhatsApp

I’m extremely lucky to have met my favourite Airbnb host from Medellín. We get along extremely well to the point of frequently eating out together when I stay there and we communicate on a daily basis, whether or not I’m in Colombia.

I mention this because my messages and calls with her on WhatsApp have very likely been more important for my Spanish than some of my past tutors. I’m very fortunate to be able to read and listen to her messages every day. Seeing and hearing how real local people text and speak so frequently has been beyond useful. I don’t count the words I read or the time I spend listening to her messages. I do count 50% of the length of our calls, though.

📚 Reading progress

As stated in my 4,500 update, reading ability wasn’t my problem. I could read and summarise basically any news article from “neutral” sources like BBC Mundo, as well as Colombian sources.

I’ve been reading more since I hit 4,500 hours, but not enough and not consistently. The problem is that reading was never a habit in English. I know that reading is much more important in terms of grammar than listening these days, but I’ve simply had problems forcing myself to care about it. I hope that this will now change as 5,000 hours was a big goal for me and I’m not in a rush to hit 6,000.

I’ve read approximately 500,000 words thus far, which isn’t a lot in reality. This doesn’t include the reading I’ve done with tutors, nor WhatsApp messages.

The majority is from news sources such as El Colombiano and La Silla Vacia. I’ve read most of a real novel - La Oculta - but novels and fiction are more important than news due to the subjunctive.

So far, only Delirio by Laura Restrepo has been difficult. It was challenging to its structure, rather than the words per se. I didn’t give it much of a chance and it might well be a fair bit easier now.

🎧 Current listening challenges

I don’t want to sound arrogant, but the only remaining challenges in terms of Colombian Spanish - and I only really care about Colombian Spanish - are very slang-heavy content and some strong coastal Colombian accents. Watching a dubbed film remains harder than native content for me because of the amount of exposure I’ve had to Colombian Spanish.

As a small example of my listening, someone was watching Caracol news at normal volume in a different room of my Airbnb about 2 weeks ago. Meanwhile, English language music was audible from a different house and cars were driving past. I wasn’t initially paying attention to the news broadcast at all. My brain simply picked it and focused on it. I understood without any conscious effort and that was that. While cool, things like this and multi-hour conversations with Airbnb hosts are becoming less and less surprising.

🏆 Recent wins

As noted in an update from my 4th trip to Colombia, I can now casually listen to conversations I like in restaurants etc and switch at will without loss of comprehension. I can easily filter out reasonable levels of background noise, too.

This became possible at some point between 4,000 and 4,800 hours. Thus, if you’re aiming for what I’d call real-world high level listening abilities in Spanish, maybe around 2,200 to 2,500 hours (remember to halve my hours) is a reasonable goal.

🗣️ Speaking

My grammar and pronunciation remain well behind my vocabulary, but it’s no longer as bad as it once was. My accent has naturally improved over the last couple of years simply by listening to more Colombian content. However, my pronunciation hasn’t improved nearly as quickly. I blame my various autism-related issues for this.

I had a teacher who helped me to improve my pronunciation prior to my 4th and current trip to my future home. That helped me to be somewhat better understood. I now have a more professional and more knowledgeable pronunciation tutor from Medellín.

I think that my pronunciation will improve a lot in the next few months. I plan on living in Medellín in the future and I want to sound as natural as possible to locals.

I teach English for a living and I’m very aware that lots of feedback works wonders.

Comprehension improvements

I used to test myself on whatever content is still challenging for me every 500 hours. I think it’s time for that to stop.

Vecinos is the last show standing for a couple of reasons. Primarily, its production values.

Sadly, the audio quality of this show that I adore is poor. The main issue is “background” music overwhelming the voice of the very quiet Tatiana in emotionally intimate scenes. The other issue is a limited number of very slang-heavy scenes. Bogotá slang from the working class Oscar combined with the aforementioned music issue made things hard.

The show was at 95% comprehension overall for me at 4,500 hours. Now, at 5,000 I can safely say that I can understand very close to 100% of those slang-heavy scenes. I only tested myself on those scenes this time around.

For reference: Vecinos

Some stats

My 5,000 hours milestone has taken 1,228 days since I started DS on the 22nd of February 2023. That’s roughly 4.07 hours every day, with zero days off or breaks. That’s what works for me. I’ve had family funerals and a lot of travel days during this time. No excuses.

The average hours a day at a given milestone can’t show everything. My input was easily over 5 hours a day at its peak and I’ve had a bunch of 10-hour days. I think that my highest input day was something like 11 hours and 20 minutes.

My dumb autistic brain can only focus on one goal at a time. Thus, I’ve also gained around 30 kilos since I started. I used to have abs and was relatively strong. I hope that less of a focus on maximising listening will mean I can be fit again one day.

I last watched a YouTube video, film or TV show in English on purpose during Christmas 2023. My family can’t understand Spanish, so it was unavoidable. I’ve long avoided music in my native language, too. I switched over to full-time Spanish input sometime during 2023, though I don’t remember exactly when. I’ve been outside the UK every Christmas since.

Context on the numbers

I’m very conservative and careful about what I log as input. I’ve never counted my own speaking as input, nor do I count any part of my lessons with teachers. The only things I count via the “talking with friends” section are 50% of long conversations and phone calls with Airbnb hosts.

I reduced the logged duration of TV shows and films to account for no talking, action scenes and when I know I’ve phased out/wasn’t paying attention. A 46-minute episode of Chica Vampiro, for example, isn’t logged as 46. It’s typically logged as 40; I know there will be singing, plus some parts without any real dialogue and the intro and credits. I never log the full runtime of a film. I’ll record the time up until the credits minus 20 to 30 minutes for music and action scenes.

I only log 50% of the duration of a podcast, because I’m always doing other things when listening. Be it walking, preparing food, eating or at the gym. Thus, 100% of the time would be dishonest and cheating myself. 50% seems fair.

Even though I am indeed strict with the minutes I log, I know that my autism and related issues mean that my 5,000 hours are not worth the same as a neuro typical person’s 5,000 hours. It’s for that reason that I always say that you should halve my hours. It’s rough and I have no empirical evidence for such things as it’s impossible to A/B test it. However, I’d say that someone with 2,500 to 3,000 hours should be at the same level of listening as I am with my 5,000.

I have to read a little in English to prevent my current level from getting worse and I’ve naturally been subjected to English content against my will. The single exception to all of this is Dai Dai, as it’s catchy and I love Shakira. There is supposedly a Spanish version, but it isn’t yet widely available.

Where I feel I am at 5,000 hours

I don’t want to sound arrogant, I really don’t. However, as noted above, my listening is pretty advanced these days. My reading comprehension is also high. I have no problems with the vast majority of Colombian content that I want to consume.

Naturally, news articles that cover more niche issues are more problematic, but I’m basically content. This will naturally improve with more listening and reading.

Remaining goals and the future

Though my listening will naturally continue to improve, nothing comes to mind that I still need to “achieve” in listening. Something will doubtless surprise me in the future, but I’m very content at my current level.

I still definitely need to improve my grammar and pronunciation. Reading and lots of feedback on my speaking will take care of that. I’ve zero interest in supplementing CI with grammar study. As noted, I’m very aware of the power of feedback. I need to make reading a real habit.

Medellín is my future home. There’s no question of this in my mind. For that reason, my pronunciation needs to be correct for the aforementioned city. Little things locals do need to be ingrained, such as using diminutives and rolling the correct rs in words. Rolling my rs is no problem. It’s more that which rs are rolled is different in Medellín than in Bogotá, for example.

How I plan on reaching an advanced level

Local slang (city-level) is important and more input of the right kind will help with that. However, knowing about local culture and important historical events is also extremely important to me.

I have a list of significant politicians and institutions that I need to understand. This all basically comes down to more input, but the right kind of input. Political news sites, lots of YouTube and reading etc.

As a side note, I’ve previously shared a post about moving beyond TV content and how to build a more advanced vocabulary at level 7. It will probably help some who haven’t seen it

Put simply, there's still a long way to go for what I want to achieve. My hours matter, but that’s no longer the most important metric.

I’ve certainly not finished

As always, I’m incredibly grateful to Pablo and the team. I continue to watch some DS videos because the content is fun. I’ll probably never “finish” Spanish. However, I’m incredibly grateful for what this $8 a month subscription and committing some time has done for me and my future in Medellín.

My updates will continue until I’m either living in Colombia full-time or the improvements stop. I think that there are still a lot of milestones and surprises left to come.

This woman makes fashion videos! I am definitely ahead of my level 3 and I can understand her pretty well. Definitely a lot of words/phrases that I miss but she has

1. Great audio equiptment

2. Focused topics always on fashion

3. "Easier" accent to understand (I know this is subjective)

I am really enjoying her videos and you might too!! <3

Love u all bye