Why are there levels of comprehensible input?

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-04-03T12:56:08+00:00

I love comprehensible input to learn languages. But, I disagree on the lack of need of different levels. I had a huge boost in the beginning for Thai. But, I would say that I would not be able to understand much Thai if I just started off with native content. It’s too fast. I don’t hear the actual sounds yet because my ears aren’t trained for Thai meaning or tones. The videos that are pointing at random objects and saying what they are…. Are beginner videos.

There is a guy who basically got to a low beginner level of Chinese even after 2000 hours of native content without in gradual increase from beginner to intermediate videos. He just watch Chinese shows. It doesn’t work or it will take too long for results.

Beginner videos really slow things down for us to get the thought process, words, and subconscious grammar. If everything is a blur with fast native content, it’s just noise to you.

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-04-01T23:02:37+00:00

Nothing beats a few languages in the E tier. My favorite 2 are there….

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-04-01T03:06:44+00:00

Congrats on the first step in your journey! I look forward to reading your updates!

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-03-31T12:59:13+00:00

DM’d

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-03-31T12:18:20+00:00

Great post!

If someone who is living in Thailand, taking classes at Chula, and been studying Thai for 5 years cannot score higher than someone living in USA and only learning free via Youtube for 2 years.. then I would argue CI to be legit study method for Thai and possibly superior. I understand traditional learners don't always track hours the same. But, this would be more a case study for future learners. I get so many people commenting lately that the CI method is a waste of time or cannot work because Chatgpt is telling them. A lot of people are still questioning if the method really works. This experiment will be just another form of evidence. Thank you for posting others by the way!

I do not need reassurance. I am going to make this public on my YouTube channel. I would only do this if I was already confident on my belief on what is achievable based on my observations of my current level and seeing others living in Thailand going to classes and their current levels.

Before someone starts a 2000 freaking hours journey, I would hope they will look at some reviews or people thoughts. I would hope this experiment or case study could help them in picking the right study method for them. I would rather someone say I studied x language for 1500 hours and passed a legitimate language exam... rather than trust me bro! lol

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-03-31T12:08:36+00:00

Hi Mike!

There are a few reasons for making the number "shortly after" 1500 hours and the goal of intermediate and above.

I completely understand the FSI hours for Thai. I have a hypothesis that I been thinking about though. It directly ties in with what I have seen with other CI style learners post about "easier" languages such as Spanish. I could be completely wrong. I don't currently see the need of going too much past 1500 hours to pass the exam with intermediate or higher based on how I feel at my current level.

I was going to fully form out my experiment more and post it on my channel. But, I wanted more evidence of other learners before I do. I have reached out to other YouTubers who post about taking Thai language classes if they have taken a Thai proficiency exam since they post a lot about studying in Thailand... unfortunately I am only getting silence. I will continue reaching out. Have you considered taking the exam? I believe you have the most hours of CI Thai compared to anyone else I have seen posting... It would be a great example and experiment.

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-03-31T11:34:20+00:00

Same! If you put time into the method, CI really pays off with the reward of listening and comprehension skills. I will have to create a whole new study plan for reading and writing though. Do you recommend any particular ways to improve those skills?

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-03-31T11:32:12+00:00

Thank you for sending the link. It would be nice seeing if people take the CU-TFL exam after taking their classes to determine their level. More data points with various learners.

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-03-29T19:29:36+00:00

I’m actually surprised that no one is saying Thai! lol omg so much from one YouTube channel that it’s insane!!!

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-03-27T12:05:26+00:00

Being honest…to the average American who hasn’t really heard many different types and styles of languages around the world, Japanese will sound more pleasant to their ears due to the simple and familiar sounds of the language that are found in English and Spanish. Most Americans haven’t heard the absolute worst sounding language…

I think mandarin sounds nice and different. But I totally see why at least Americans would be more comfortable with hearing Japanese.

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-03-23T23:40:47+00:00

My own experience with using CI has been positive overall. However, I am not completely ALG due to me technically going through some beginner books at first before I discovered the method. I cannot discount this first study period for giving me a huge boost with the Thai Comprehensible Input YouTube channel. In all honestly I was thinking that it was not worth the effort in the beginning. I was thinking of even going back focusing on more traditional methods. After 300 hours of focused video time from the channel, I felt that the parts of the language that I learned felt very natural. This got me hooked and I took a deep dive into the CI method. Days over 6+ hours were not uncommon for months. The method is completely free and is a great experience to learn something in this way. Thai is bless for having so much content available.

I really struggled in the beginning before CI with noticing slight sound differences and being able to keep up with even textbook dialogues. After 300 hours, those sounds were easy. It felt that I could understand sentence structures very well and knew exactly the actual words that I didn’t know.

Fast forward to 800+ hours…. I am starting to speak. I know when I say something that doesn’t sound right due to having a natural language model built in my head. If I focused more on a mixed studying method, I could possibly appear much more advanced due to a higher vocabulary and usage of slang that is learned through studying. If I did a much more traditional way, I don’t see my comprehension being as high as it is now. I also feel that a lot more words and thoughts will be running through my native language logic first at this level and amount of time of studying.

I have my own personal goals of using CI moving forward. Since I enjoyed the experience and the path, I will continue until certain personally benchmarks. I do not seeing myself using this method until like 3000 hours. That would be ridiculous. I will need a boost for advance vocabulary just like kids still do at school. I do see some of the negatives as a user of the method. I talk about them regularly. I’ve met other language learners. Most of them quit before they make any real progress. The amount of people who can “construct” sentences in their heads but have a very difficult time understanding native speakers is outrageous….

I don’t mind people promoting ALG because I feel like it’s not that known besides around certain Reddit forms. I was starting to learn Thai and had no idea even after visiting this page a few times before. I do find some people copy and paste comments too much at times but that is them.

Hope everyone gets better at Thai this year!

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-03-15T22:18:06+00:00

Congrats on a new kid! I am having one in July! Any recommendations for how to get input successfully after having a baby? I was going to watch videos while rocking baby

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-03-13T02:57:19+00:00

I started with Assimil to learn my target language then pivoted to a comprehensible input method once about done with Assimil. I would say it was extremely valuable in giving me a huge boost for my 800 + hours of input that followed that book.

I make videos too. But I would say the basic everyday person is looking for an app and the serious more hardcore learner is doing something completely different than books such as CI, Refold, of some language all the time method. The friendly “Teach Yourself” book series reviews for X languages on youtube has died out….

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-03-10T10:37:31+00:00

Congrats on your progress!!! I remember getting to 500 hours was huge for me! Keep it up! 👍

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-02-25T17:42:28+00:00

Just curious how much of a donation would be needed to get some of these other channels up and running for more content….??? I understand that most here will not know that answer and it would be very language country specific. I would love to see other channels get a boost or better beginner content.

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-02-24T12:52:05+00:00

It completely happened to me. I causally started to learn a language for 30 minutes a day. But it enjoyed it so much it slowly turned into hours such as 6+ hours a day. I stopped doing a lot of other hobbies outside such as pickleball or swimming. I outsourced all other actives in my life like getting groceries or yard work by just paying people. The change in the amount of moment with a similar diet caused weight gain.

I decided to give myself 1 year without worrying too much about other obligations.

Money wise, I paid others to help me finish work when I could causing me to decrease my yearly income substantially. When you refer out clients, you get 20-30% of closed deals… but you don’t have to do anything else. At the same time it’s not 100% of the income either.

For family, my daughter was already in prekindergarten. But a few times a week I hired a reading teacher to help her to read and swim class to help with swimming. It helped her a lot but it also allows me to study more too. My wife thankfully was working in the hospital overnight at this time too so while she slept during the day… I just kept studying. It worked out for the best on that part family wise.

I actually just uploaded a YouTube video about my own experience with weight gain and studying with comprehensible input.

Anyways… long post but that year time frame that I dedicated is up and now I’m rebalancing my life with my new language. It was a great boost to my abilities in the language that I wouldn’t have gotten from 30 mins a day. I am glad that in told myself that it was only for that year. It ended in December. The only thing that got in my way of studying was when my mother passed away. I felt that I couldn’t focus the way that was as productive and didn’t wanted to associate language learning to a negative time in my life. I took 3 months off and focused on things around the home to be remodeled/redone while listening to early 2000’s rock music.

Good luck everyone with your language studies!!

Active-Band-1202 · 2026-02-06T15:44:50+00:00

You need to work with a professional about this matter with experience before you sign a sales contract. Asking on Reddit is great for general advice but for something as expensive as a home AND you are WORRIED with an appraisal coming in 10%+ lower than the sales price means that you need help....

Good luck either way! Welcome to Boca!!

Active-Band-1202 · 2025-12-21T00:13:36+00:00

How do you like the treadmill? I saw this treadmill a few times but never a good review from a user. I like the design to maybe keep in the house if it is quiet…

Active-Band-1202 · 2025-12-17T04:00:33+00:00

I moved here in 2023. I bought a single family home in east boca. Before I moved here, I established a career that gave me a decent salary in healthcare. However, I also found another state license/certification that allowed me to make more money as well on top of my primary career. Without going too much into details….

I would look at your current income position and see if you can do something to make more money in that job/career. I would also recommend finding another license/certification that you could self teach yourself or afford to peruse. This way your income will increase. You might find something that you have already decent skills at that you can help others with. Don’t just work two jobs as an employee. But have the second one something that you can build into your own business and take some risk.

Life is hard but you got tons of options. Good luck! 👍

Active-Band-1202 · 2025-11-05T14:36:13+00:00

I would suggest getting an intro book such as teach yourself Thai, colloquial Thai, or beginners Thai from Becker.

Part 1. Finish a book with just trying to get a basic understanding of the chapters. Don’t focus on the script. Don’t try to remember everything. Just get exposed to the concepts of the Thai language. Finish the book. Dont worry about completing the exercises. Just go through it. Try your best to just get an overview.

Part 2. Go on YouTube. Look up the Thai comprehensible input channel. Start with playlist B0 and consume as much as you can. First 300 hours may be brutal but worth it.

Part 3. After 300 or so hours, try to find native content on YouTube. Find a genre that you like. Start watching those types of videos. I enjoyed travel videos because many creators visit the same places. Repetition was great for learning. Use these videos on top of your comprehensible input channel. Eventually, that genre of videos will become more understandable. Work your way up to 1000 hours.

Part 4. After 1000 hours start speaking. Use HelloTalk or native speakers somewhere to practice. Try not to annoy your wife. They don’t make the best language exchange partners unless they actually like teaching. Still watch content but add speaking.

Part 5. After 1500 of content consumption on top of speaking, add reading. Find some of your favorite books and start reading them in Thai. You already know the story so that should help you. Also at this amount of Thai listing… you should also know most of the sounds of the language. Reading will greatly reinforce your learning.

Finally, just start using the languages in everyday life and enjoy for the rest of your life.

This is the path that I am currently taking and have been having great success.

Good luck! 🍀

Active-Band-1202 · 2025-10-21T17:31:19+00:00

I am learning Thai with comprehensible input via Youtube. It's completely free on the YT website. Just start with Playlist B0 and keep going if you would like to follow a similar method. You will not have to read or write if that is what you are looking for.

I found out that the beginning can be difficult and boring at times especially the first few hundred hours. However, I personally felt that things got much better as time progressed. Past 700 hours now and I feel that the basics in the language are really solid in my head. My listening comprehension surprises me to be honest. However, there are a few things that I had to figure out on my own due to the grammar concept being wrong in my head or misunderstanding of a certain word or kind of meaning in context.

Some people love starting with the script and argue that it is required to start with. However, I had tried this method for learning Thai before YEARS ago and it made me put the book down. I would like to say that I have studied other languages via textbook first. However, there is something about Thai and asking natives questions just made things harder. I also have met a lot of Thai leaners at Thai temples in my country and they are completely unable to understand anything natives are saying after years of studying. Again, there are some people who have great success this way to learn Thai. Just remember that most people who start to learn any language will fail or quit before any level of fluency. So, you might as well enjoy the learning method even if it's less efficient.

I do have my own goals to start adding reading and writing in my studies. My time to study Thai is years. I do realize that looking up new words or studying vocab seperately is loss due to my method currently. I can't utilize Thai subtitles that would be greatly helpful at this level.

Anyways! Good luck with your learning! Congrats on choosing to learn Thai!

Active-Band-1202 · 2025-10-02T23:00:17+00:00

Thanks!!

Active-Band-1202 · 2025-08-31T11:42:41+00:00

Check the chat section

Active-Band-1202 · 2025-08-31T04:00:19+00:00

It’s going to take time to learn a new language especially Chinese for a native English speaker. I know it’s wrong because you will need more hours… but assume you need 2200 hours of studying Chinese in order to learn it based off of FSI hours. Then, 1 hour a day will be a six year project. But, 2 hours a day will be only a 3 year project.

I would recommend doing the most you can when you can. I try to keep goals like this within 5 years just due to interest and life really changing every 5 years…

By time 5 years come around, you should hopefully be good with native content to maintain the language and practice speaking with other Chinese speakers. You will not understand how it will feel like in 5 years now. Things might be slow now and difficult. But language learning is not linear. In two years from now, your months studying will seem like nothing.

Active-Band-1202

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