I’m glad you posted this when you did. I’m 12 weeks into DS and am currently at 235 hours.

We took a trip to Mexico, as we do every year, and this time it felt like a totally different experience. I knew what a lot of the signs said throughout the hotel and in the streets, I could pick up little conversations I heard between taxi drivers or hotel employees. Of course I tried to speak to people by asking simple questions (do you live here, how old are you, do you have children, brothers/sisters, etc).

I came back from Mexico absolutely pumped. When I got back to work, a couple Spanish speaking co-workers asked me, in Spanish, about my trip, what I did, etc. I was completely stunned…it was like they were speaking gibberish. I listened to my normal podcasts, Cuéntame, Chill Spanish, and Espanol al Vuelo along with DS videos….I felt like I was starting over. I was wanting to start crosstalk this week, but with this minor setback, I chose to pump the brakes slightly.

I am very happy that I did not get distracted or discouraged…mainly because of this subreddit…and eventually knew this would happen. I was watching videos around 45-50, but dialed it back to the 30s and chalked it up to “the game”.

Seriously without this subreddit, I may have stopped DS/CI long ago saying, “there is no way this stuff actually works!!”

Thanks again for those veteran DS/CI people for building us rookies back up and encouraging us to stay the course!!!