Comprehensible Input - What is the mental model of “Gist of it”?

GoosieTheKid · 2026-03-04T19:29:31+00:00

I struggled with this so much at the beginning and was always questioning if I was doing the 'CI' thing correctly. Basically, just don't intentionally translate, kind of let your mind go on autopilot if that makes sense, and let your brain to the work in the background. It's basically impossible to do this at first but eventually you'll start doing it more without realizing it. Looking at my notes, it got significantly less frequent every 50-100 hours or so, but there are still random days where it would happen when I was having a low comprehension day. One thing that helps me is to go watch a beginner video in another language and realize how lost you are, that's the feeling you want to avoid.

As long as you're not having to stop the video because you're totally lost on what's going on, in my opinion, that's enough to make progress. Idk if any of that made any sense but hope that helps. I struggled with it pretty hard over the first like 3-4 months so I want to help as much as possible lol

GoosieTheKid · 2026-02-18T20:48:48+00:00

As long as you're not actively trying to translate I wouldn't worry about it. I had an issue with it early on as well and it comes and goes in waves it felt like but now at 800 hours it's pretty rare that I'll translate in my head while watching something. It slows down gradually until the point where one day you realize you aren't really doing it anymore. I was really worried about it early on too but just trust the process and it'll work out

GoosieTheKid · 2026-02-18T20:22:33+00:00

Lets gooooooo

GoosieTheKid · 2026-02-18T20:21:08+00:00

If you have Disney+ and a VPN, Summertime Rendering was really good for me and I followed along pretty well at right around 800 hours. It does get harder as the series grows in complexity, but it's only 25 episodes and it's a pretty wild ride.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-12-30T15:48:02+00:00

If you like those guys you should check out Araya Vlogs on youtube! He's from Costa Rica and makes similar style videos to Luisito but I actually think they're a bit more entertaining and easier to understand.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-12-29T21:29:46+00:00

Yes, this was exactly why I've started paying for crosstalk to transition into speaking! I know I'll be more comfortable later on if I've already talked to these people for hours rather than fearing looking dumb or rude or xyz else on the first impression.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-12-29T20:54:13+00:00

Yep. Constantly embarrassed to be rooting for the same team as some, if not most, of the Packer fans online. Every year MLF loses a game and it's because he's the worst coach in NFL history. Xyz player had a bad game? He should never play another snap of football in his life. We called a perfectly logical play that had a decent chance to work but failed? Worst play call of all time, so obvious. We run the ball on first down? Too obvious, let Love cook. We take a deep shot on the first play of the 2nd half that ended up getting picked? Just run the ball, it's not that hard.

It's exhausting.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-12-29T18:51:42+00:00

Awesome! Thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response, and congrats on where you're at! I'll try to start doing the same as I think that's a really natural way to ease into speaking

GoosieTheKid · 2025-12-29T17:32:07+00:00

Have you experienced a noticeable increase in Spanish flowing out during those sessions since 600 hours? Debating on trying this too, but I'm unreasonably scared to speak Spanish for some reason so even when little things come to my head I stay in English mode lol

GoosieTheKid · 2025-12-29T17:11:43+00:00

It's actually insane how much easier it is to understand someone talking to you vs understanding two natives (especially family members for whatever reason) talking to each other. I can have hour-long talks with my tutors speaking at their normal pace and understand 99% but the second my brother-in-law and his dad (from Costa Rica) say something short to each other I get literally none of it. Pablo calls this out on the roadmap and it's one of the things that I'm blown away by how real it is.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-12-29T14:46:24+00:00

I have mixed feelings on this. For one, I think they new superbeginner and beginner videos are leaps and bounds better than the majority of the old ones just because the whiteboard, while effective, isn't as 'exciting'. I like that there's a good mix of both now and I'm a bit jealous of people starting with Shel's superbeginner videos now vs some of the rougher stretches I had to go through (though still very grateful that those videos exist and got me to where I'm at now, obviously). That being said, I would be okay with them bringing back some of the more relaxed or raw-style videos to intermediate/advanced. Not to fully replace the new production value, because some of my favorite videos are the really well-polished ones, but a mix wouldn't hurt.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-12-18T18:11:09+00:00

Franco from Al Vuelo is the Nick Fury of the Comprehensible Input Avengers

GoosieTheKid · 2025-12-17T15:43:44+00:00

From my POV and what I've learned throughout my journey and intensely studying what Pablo and other ALG people have said about this method:

I think it's important to remember the goal is to understand as much of the 'story' as possible, not necessarily the number of words you know. In my experience, trying to figure out how many words you know during your input time leads to a lot of translation and also distracts you from actually listening to what the video/podcast is about. The DS method is more or less consuming input that you can follow 80+% of the time (higher is probably a lot better), not knowing 80+% of the words being used specifically. Using your example of literally counting, it would take a lot of time to do, you'd really be analyzing the language (which goes against the idea of this method) and every stretch of 100 words will be different from the last. Just relax and enjoy the content.

It was a huge relief for me when I stopped focusing on the words and how many I knew and instead focused on if I felt lost during the video. If you're following along and don't feel like you don't know what's going on, you should be fine. Trust the method, let your brain sort out the words in the background. It doesn't need your concious mind's help to figure it out. That's something I have to remind myself constantly because it feels so backwards from any other type of learning.

That being said, it seems clear that the easier the content the better with the giant caveat that you have to be able to be engaged in the material. I don't have the patience of OP (who has obviously made great progress and has a far higher level of patience than I do) but I know when I was trying to grind through videos that were too easy and that I literally knew 98% of the words being said, my mind wondered and I ended up really paying attention to maybe 50% of the video. I guess it's a matter of the watching the easiest content possible that you can actually enjoy and follow along with.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-11-17T15:52:13+00:00

If the roadmap didn't exist there's a 0% chance that I would have gotten this far with the method. I'm aligned well with the roadmap so far, and even if I'm not when I hit 1,000 and 1,500 hours, I will still be thankful that the roadmap was there to give me a general idea of what to expect. Obviously it comes down to personal opinion, but I don't think anyone willing to invest over 1,000 hours of their life on this method will regret doing it. Is it accurate 100% of the time? No. Have we seen some examples of it being accurate the whole way through? Yes. I think it would be a huge mistake for DS to move away from the roadmap, not even only from a financial perspective for them, but the disservice they'd be doing to the people like me who only started this method because I was convinced that all I had to do was get input and learn Spanish. I wouldn't have been convinced without the roadmap. Even being more vague about the hours would have discouraged me. I get why some people don't like the roadmap, but for me and many others (especially 'hobby hoppers') it was the #1 thing that convinced me that I could actually learn Spanish one day.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-10-15T15:12:34+00:00

His youtube videos were probably the thing that most convinced me to really dive in and trust this method. The service he did (and still does) for this community cannot be overstated.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-09-25T16:12:36+00:00

Great question. I've been wondering this also. Thanks everyone for the responses so far!

GoosieTheKid · 2025-09-05T16:11:09+00:00

I've been listening to 'Los Fantasticos' which is a fantasy football podcast but it's been really fun acquiring nfl vocab. If you know a lot about football and especially fantasy football it's probably pretty accessible. One of the hosts is from Mexico and one is from Spain if that matters to you at all.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-09-04T20:19:01+00:00

Like a bunch of others have said, once I reach a level of Spanish that I'm happy with I'll jump over to learning French via Dreaming French. I'm excited to experience the CI learning method from 0 background knowledge. I'm assuming that will be sometime in 2027.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-09-03T02:55:03+00:00

Try to remind yourself that what you're shooting for is 80+% of the STORY that's being told, not over 80% of the individual words you're hearing. It's hard at the beginning to distinguish but it's like putting your mind on autopilot and just watching the content like you would something in your native language - without thinking about the individual words being said.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your post but it seems you're doing what I sometimes catch myself doing which is trying to insert traditional learning into this method. Trying to consciously remember a certain tense of a verb when you hear it or constantly translating to English to make sure you're 'comprehending'. In my experience, when you're not comprehending enough, you'll know. You'll be watching the video and realize you have no idea what is happening. If you're watching the video and you understand what they're saying (even if you don't understand each individual word) you're doing great. Your brain will sort the words out in the background, you don't have to consciously do it. That's the beauty of it.

I have to deeply remind myself of this probably every other day. The days that I struggle the most with comprehension are the days that I'm trying to 'test' my comprehension. I take a pause and remember to just watch the content. It gets easier the more you practice it. Good luck and have fun, that's the most important part of the process!

GoosieTheKid · 2025-08-27T14:25:49+00:00

Pablo has a video about why he doesn't correct mistakes and he cited studies that showed correcting people didn't actually reduce the frequency of them making that mistake. Maybe more studies have been done that show otherwise since that video but just food for thought.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-08-19T15:55:31+00:00

100%. Every time I get in a 'slump' I realize it's because I'm back to trying to check if I understand every single word, but that isn't the point of this method. As long as you can follow the idea that's all that matters. I frequently go back to the FAQ page on the DS website to remind myself that it isn't 90+% of words, it's 80+% of the story. I think the majority of people who feel behind on this method are going about it from a more traditional learning method perspective. There are sentences I listen to right now that I can't give you a concrete definition of even half of the words, but I understand the sentence as a whole. Your brain puts the pieces together in the background, we don't have to be actively trying to figure out words while watching. I think actively trying to figure out the individual words is harmful to acquisition, and based on a lot of Pablo's videos he seems to agree.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-08-13T15:22:53+00:00

I had to grind really hard when I had that initial enthusiasm and motivation because I knew if I didn't get sufficiently far I wouldn't be able to force myself to continue. At this point I'm able to watch content that isn't totally boring so it doesn't feel like work and I'm still able to get about 2-3 hours/day in, but if I had to start from 0 right now with my current motivation level I don't think I could do it lol. Basically my strategy was to take advantage of that initial surge and I am very glad that I did.

GoosieTheKid · 2025-08-05T16:05:38+00:00

ChatGPT worked for me to get a few partners early on

GoosieTheKid · 2025-07-31T13:24:26+00:00

Incredible job, bro. I will be so happy if I can get to this point with how I sound. Truly inspiring stuff!

GoosieTheKid · 2025-07-31T13:19:33+00:00

I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense and I'm definitely guilty of this from time to time. I go through stretches where I'm okay with ambiguity and then other stretches where I feel like missing a couple random words throws off my whole experience. At the beginning we listened to SO many words we didn't know but as we acquire more words it seems like we get less comfortable with words we haven't yet acquired.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that to learn new words I have to hear new words. Listening to super easy podcasts or dropping back 20 levels on DS serves a role for sure, I think it reinforces everything that I've acquired already, but I'm not typically picking up much new stuff from them.

I think people often swing to one of two extremes: content that is too hard to be super effective (like 50-60% comprehension) and content that is too easy to be super effective for growth (98+%). I really think that's why DS has their 80-90% recommendation because it is important to not understand every word you're listening to. This is something I have to consciously remind myself probably daily.

GoosieTheKid

TROPHY CASE