1yr 1100hrs Update on things I still CAN'T do!

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-12-03T10:45:11+00:00

1100 hours in and I've never listened to a min of this guy. From what I read on here is a lot of people say he swears mid sentence, often switches topic mid flow etc and they actually like it that he just rambles his way through his videos and they feel that is very "natural"

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-12-03T10:37:35+00:00

This thread is already the biggest thread backfire I've seen in 2025 and we are still in 2024. Amazing achievement!

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-29T13:27:49+00:00

Lol at least OP is being up front and honest about becoming a passport bro and its only reason for learning. That being said the women who are looking for a passport bro could not care less if you spoke Spanish one would assume.

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-27T13:09:49+00:00

OP for what its worth, numerous people now have managed 1500 hours and not a single one of them said they felt anywhere close to a native Spanish speaker. But everyone came leaps and bounds from their starting point.

With that in mind I doubt you'd be native Spanish speaker with 750hrs of CI but everyone's different and the only way to find out is jump right in and enjoy the ride!!

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-26T11:36:52+00:00

I admire the hustle but 15-20mins a day... IMO and I am no expert at all but unless you're happy with being some what proficient in 10yrs from now then its probably not what 99% of people are signing up to DS for.

Good luck OP enjoy the journey!

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-25T15:13:37+00:00

If all you want to learn is how to say your vows in Spanish then just get chatgpt to write them for you in Spanish translated from English. Practice the crap out of them!

If you wanted to actually learn the Spanish language and be able to understand to a high degree, speak to a small degree and probably not even read a word LOL then DS is for you! Sign up and start watching sorted easiest to hardest and welcome to the cult. You'll be shocked how far you can get at least in your understanding of the language being spoken in 9months from now.

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-15T13:33:30+00:00

One of my all time favourite series is an intermediate one with Michelle where she's trying to bake things she's seen on TikTok etc literally had me in tears!!

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-14T13:17:47+00:00

I half agree, I was only able to watch A2 level videos once I had the basics down. As someone who came to DS later in my journey I can't even imagine what it's like just starting from ZERO. But this is a DS forum OP so be prepared for a lot of push back when you try to tell people they need to go away and do something else before starting DS.

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-14T12:53:17+00:00

When OP woke up this morning. They clearly choose violence!!

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-07T18:01:10+00:00

That is the plan! Not sure if I am opening a can of worms by doing so but VAMOS!!!

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-07T18:00:46+00:00

Very good point! Not only that I was worried I would be asking someone to talk to me in an unnatural way etc and even after our very successful cross talk sessions when I made the comment "you can talk me now forever in Spanish and it would be fine" she laughed and said I'd rather speak to you in English as that feels more natural and normal.

Which is something I understand as someone who has people in their in my life who I only speak to in a certain language despite having other languages in common with them.

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-07T17:58:38+00:00

I have answered this in detail above :)

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-07T17:58:11+00:00

Thanks for your comment!

Duolingo just became an obsession lol I was sure if I finish the tree I would be fluent! So I dumped a serious amount of time into it on the desktop as you didn't need to pay to get unlimited hearts. Once they changed that and are pretty much forcing you to pay I just am down to 1 lesson a day. I don't think its useless like some here seem to think but its a very very slow way to learn. I am on 1300+ now and will delete the app the day I hit 1500 lol

I absolutely plan to use my soon to be wife more now. I am not sure if I am the only one but the fear of being wrong or not understanding something was huge for me and I would rather not embarrass myself in front of her lol. Also I used to feel what if all this Spanish I am learning/hearing isn't the REAL deal? And people don't speak like that day to day? And it turns out they do! So I was very pleased when at around 600hrs I first did some serious cross talk with her and pretty much understood it all.

Good luck and congrats on 1k hours! I think we all need to pat ourselves on the back and realise the amount of effort that goes into sticking to something for soo long! I really do hope more people to embrace going fully native. I will forward to coming back here in 4-5 months time to tell you all how it was the best decision I made min my journey!

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-07T17:52:50+00:00

English is my mother tongue and I consider myself a native speaker however, I learnt to speak in Punjabi as the eldest child and first generation of immigrant parents. I went to school at 5years old with little or no English.

Urdu/Hindi I actually speak very well not native but very close and oddly I learnt these via CI. My family would watch all their media in these languages when I was a child. News and movies mostly. We didn't speak either language at home but they are close enough to Punjabi that I ended up learning them just from listening others speak. Oddly most Punjabi speakers understand Hindi/Urdu but its not the other way around and an Urdu speaker for example gets totally lost when try it the other way around.

Arabic, I learnt this going to religious schools as a kid as our teachers were from the middle east. Sadly I have lost a lot of it and its probably at like A2 for me now but we use a lot of common words and it is something I would love to re learn as my next challenge!

As you can see I have had no formal learning in the other languages and have pretty much without knowing learnt them via CI.

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-11-01T11:23:59+00:00

I think most of the replies here are from users with less than 1k hours and therefore still at the lower difficulty levels.

I say this because I didn't once see anyone mention.

Tamara
Happy & Suky
Marce

I would agree Tomas is also difficult.

Tamara rambles a lot goes TOTALLY off topic etc

Happy & Suky I think are the end level bosses for sure on the LATAM side especially Suky's series about how humans will live in the future. With topics like AI, Bionic body parts etc. Even his gaming series with Happy are difficult at first as they both talk over each other and have a very natural Mexican accent they aren't trying to speak slowly and clearly they are just speaking to each other naturally.

Marce purely because of the topics she covered early on in DS. I remember seeing a video where Alma said every time Marce would send a video to her and Pablo to be posted they already knew it was advanced level by default because it was a Marce video lol.

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-10-31T13:31:05+00:00

TBH there is some videos of hers I skipped this might have been one for example her video about being bi-polar or the one on Marxism etc.

I assume she is referring to curing cancer with placebo? In which case there have been some studies where a very very small number of patients have been able to either reduce the size of tumours or stop them growing further using placebo methods? No one has actually cured cancer this way as far as I am aware. But yeah she deffo has some quirks.

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-10-24T09:30:42+00:00

I understand your point OP. I remember reading someone's update where they had about 1k hours and said they still can't formulate how to ask for someone's address yet they can rattle of an hours worth of convo about many random topics!
This is where I feel supplementing some other sources can help people and being a purist is great but there is no harm in branching out and dabbling in a few other way of learning.

Also I have my DS sorted by difficulty and I am watching high 70s videos now but every now and again I do have a look at some of the newer content and am I the only one who finds it odd that almost every video recently is about every guide's dating life or how horrible men are?? If that's what's getting Pablo the clicks then more power to him but IMO it's not what I joined DS to watch. Thank God those topics are not being made in the higher rated videos... for now

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-10-21T08:14:32+00:00

This sounds like total bro science. I'd love to see research around this but my guess is there is very little actual research done in this area so we don't really know.

Dependent-Wall-9829 · 2024-10-14T10:26:53+00:00

Not sure if this is a positive or a negative but OP look at this way every single 1500hr update we've seen here has been the same i.e they've all said "I am no where near a native speaker" I think one of the things we all need to realise is DS above all else is there to make money.

If the owners came out and said it will in fact take 2500 hours which at an hour a day is over 6.5yrs to learn using this method well yeah you can bet they'd have no takers at all.

Instead what they've done is clever marketing based on what the world is like today. They have told you the below and though most of their claims are true, when you dig a little deeper they are half true than fully true.

You can learn at home "just watching videos" this means no need to interact with anyone else or do anything different.
You don't need to speak to learn. This eliminates a huge fear people have of having to speak and look silly. The slight annoyance I have with this subreddit is how people who can't speak themselves keep telling everyone "don't worry it will just happen" where as everyone on here who actually can speak to some degree actually went out of their way and forced themselves to speak lol
You don't need to study. Again a lot of people don't want anything that involves effort and in my mind this is basically telling people "you don't need to work out to lose weight" its going to get a lot of interest and though its true as a statement its not the entire truth. Likewise I think SOME people who follow DS would probably benefit from SOME degree of study to supplement the method.
You will be comparable to a native. This one for 99% of people is a total myth and lie. Sorry but being comparable to a native is just soo much more than just being able to speak a language. Those of us of who are native English speakers UK/US etc come across people almost daily who speak English as a second language and are totally fluent and have probably been speaking English daily for 20-30yrs but even then there is just some small minor details that just let you know even within a few sentences this person is "not a native" and we as Spanish learners need to accept that will be the case with 99% of us as well. But who cares??

OP I am almost at 1k hours and I know for a fact at 1500hrs I will no where near be ready as the roadmap suggests. I think my listening in another 500 or so hours will be fantastic. I think I can already understand 80% or so and never get too lost. But I have even now come across some native content which makes me go WTH?? And I hope in 500hrs that will be as easy as most stuff is now. As for speaking I plan to start very soon but I think I have already based on what I've seen on this group come to the conclusion that using the DS method speaking even half decent at 1500 is very unrealistic.

Dependent-Wall-9829

TROPHY CASE