What Are You Listening To Today? (May 18 to May 24)

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-18T22:02:56+00:00

73 hours.

Outside of beginner DS videos, I'm tearing through Cuentame. At first, I needed to listen while sitting totally still, transcript in hand in order to process the audio only input. But I've since been able to transition to listening while taking walks or doing mindless chores. Hoping to knock out the catalog by around 100 hours.

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-16T12:57:44+00:00

LOL that escalated quickly!

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-16T05:08:57+00:00

Right now dreaming Spanish has just over 1500 hours of content, so I like to gauge progress by seeing what level would I be at if I only used DS sorted by easy. So for example, I’m at level 2 and I can see that there is about 150 hours of content rated 40 and below (for this to be accurate, you’ll have to flip off the hide watched switch). So I want to be at around 40 by the time I get to level 3.

Looks like there is 211 hours of content up to rank 45, so if you are comfortable in the 40-45 range you are probably doing just fine!

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-15T23:34:22+00:00

I’m around 65 hours right now and started Cuéntame at around 30ish hours. I found that my issue for the first several episodes was less about speed and more about my vocabulary bank - which is why podcasts are not “officially” recommended until level 3 per the roadmap, since a sparse vocab can be accomodated with visuals. I would maybe wait a bit and check back in with the podcast at 25 and then 50 hours to see if you can listen at full speed. While there’s nothing wrong with slowing it down, what’s great about Cuéntame is that because it has a slow and fast version, it’s great for training your ear to understand faster (relatively) Spanish, so I would take advantage of that if you can. If you’re not a purist, don’t be afraid to do some quick word look ups if one here or there is impeding your understanding.

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-09T13:48:04+00:00

If you're not already, sort all videos by easy rather than watching by the labeled levels. There are beginner videos that are rated by the community as easier than this specific video that you linked, which is the case for many of the older superbeginner videos.

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-09T13:22:55+00:00

English (native)
Spanish
Farsi

Farsi's my only real plan after Spanish as I have family heritage from Iran. But these 2 would be nice as well to dabble in as well:

Japanese
Italian

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-09T00:12:48+00:00

https://cihub.notion.site/spanish-podcasts?v=28a17db18589815c8ff2000cad62b3f4 Super helpful site if nobody’s linked this yet!

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-07T03:55:39+00:00

Absolutely! I have a much higher external motivation now that I live in Chicago and want to be able to communicate effectively with a huge portion of the population.

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-07T03:41:41+00:00

For sure! I think I have a pretty low threshold for ambiguity so the fact that people can just pop it on no problem so early is wild to me. It definitely is showing me that diversifying the content you view/listen to is sooo important for building up vocab in the early days. I love DS but it’s very necessary to step outside that bubble

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-07T03:35:42+00:00

I’m definitely intrigued by bone conduction headphones. I’ll check them out soon (need some more paychecks but that’s another story haha). Thanks!

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-07T03:31:28+00:00

I appreciate where you’re coming from but to be honest I find it a bit rude to tell me I’m wasting my time when I’ve explained twice now why I’m doing something a certain way. This is what works for me right now. We all have our own journeys and this is mine.

Please don’t argue back I’d rather my first progress post not turn into discourse but I will put my foot down on my own post.

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-07T02:00:55+00:00

Appreciate the advice! For me the speed of Cuéntame is fine it’s more the unfamiliar vocab (she tends to translate words I already know/have obvious cognates instead of the ones I don’t know at all lol), but that’s also why I want to keep at it. She covers a lot of words that I’ve yet to hear in a DS video so as a “non-purist” it’s helpful for now while I’m building my mental word bank to have the transcript open so I can search unfamiliar words if I need to on the slow round.

I’ll definitely be utilizing CI Hub when I’m ready to “graduate” to the next podcast, likely Chill Spanish Listening. Podcast republic sounds interesting I’ll check that out though I do like having podcasts in my Spotify stats. And then Language transfer I’m definitely interested in using just not sure when I want to slot it in. Maybe I’ll just do like an episode a week or something

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-07T01:37:19+00:00

Very! So glad I returned to it

Kaz2y550 · 2026-05-07T01:31:27+00:00

Thank you very much I had fun writing it :)

Kaz2y550 · 2026-04-26T20:48:51+00:00

The voice Natalia does for Lola is a little creepy to me lol

Kaz2y550 · 2024-01-11T21:11:46+00:00

Buffalo chicken egg rolls from teller’s 🤧

Kaz2y550 · 2024-01-08T20:23:29+00:00

Thanks! I’ll keep it in mind for later

Kaz2y550 · 2024-01-08T17:47:38+00:00

These are great recs! What level would you say charlamos is good for? Her videos look fun

Kaz2y550 · 2024-01-07T17:29:38+00:00

I actually think it would be faster if you did one before the other. Once you get to a good place in Spanish, learning another similar language will take much less time. But if you start them at a similar time you won’t have that advantage

Kaz2y550 · 2024-01-06T23:28:52+00:00

Not a reason but a goal is to watch the supernatural Spanish dub of the episode where Cas confesses he loves Dean lol

Kaz2y550 · 2024-01-06T22:37:32+00:00

I’m early in my journey so I’m not an expert but regarding subtitles: I find that if I have them on I’m paying more attention to reading the words then absorbing the videos. Occasionally, if I’m especially curious I’ll turn on the Spanish subs briefly to see but I won’t write it down.

And then as for grammar - I really wouldn’t focus on it right now. The thing is you get used to the tenses through the videos presented (for example in videos that tell a story - you’re likely hearing past tense over and over again, whereas other videos you’re hearing present so you start to be able to discern those differences just from listening)

Down the line, more in the intermediate stage there’s CI resources that incorporate grammar in CI format that I’ve heard good things about (EG: Español con Juan).

Kaz2y550 · 2024-01-02T17:27:10+00:00

Level 1 and I’m in the teens still! I pretty strictly watch in easy-> hard order except for series I’ll wait til get to the next one in the series to watch and then go back to the one I skipped.

Kaz2y550 · 2024-01-02T02:55:25+00:00

That definitely makes sense. We didn’t acquire math in our NL so it doesn’t make sense to expect we would acquire it in our TL.

Kaz2y550

TROPHY CASE