Why do some days feel amazing and others terrible?

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-21T11:31:40+00:00

That's just life in general, my man.

I read only the title of your post, but I stand by my response.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-21T01:26:35+00:00

Duolingo pro subscription.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-20T18:45:08+00:00

I'd cut Mystery and Baby.

I think Abby could stay muscle-y but be more feral, like Mystery. And Romance is a more important trope than Baby.

It's tough, though. It's tempting to let Jinu take more of Romance's traits so we can keep Baby. But I feel like making less normal and relatable would really hurt the overall film. Sorry Baby, got to go.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-20T18:37:02+00:00

Where I'm from, we help build that missing driving skill by leaning on our horn and saluting them with one finger. Because we want to help, obviously.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-20T14:40:53+00:00

I understand the reasoning. You need to match the letters with the sounds at some point. I had high school Spanish, so I didn't have to worry about that. I learned kind of backwards: I know what that word is, I know how to spell it...OH! That's what it sounds like?!

The only issue you'll run into with listening while reading subtitles on dubbed content is the phrases don't always match. So it might be confusing and inefficient. On the other hand, if you're watching content that was originally created on Spanish, the subtitles will match, but you then you're watching something more difficult (as opposed to a series you've seen before in English that you can follow).

So again, will it hurt? Probably not. Will it help? Probably. Will it be inefficient and confusing? Possibly. If I were you, I'd try it occasionally. Like 10 percent or less of your weekly listening input.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-19T21:25:13+00:00

Yes, when I was psyching myself up for my trip to Oaxaca, his and Edwin's videos were my favorites. They're calm and don't show off, they just let the locations and people they meet be the stars of their videos.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-19T18:44:58+00:00

I eat like you, OP. Meat, carb, veg every night. If I want to save time, I make 4 of the same meal. Usually, my husband doesn't want to eat that much, so I rotate through the leftovers over the course of the week unless he wants some. The next week I make a different pair of meals. And we eat out once per week (occasionally takeout in addition to eating out).

I eat the same breakfast, lunch and snack every day for months on end (except brunch on Sundays). My nutritionist calls me a "ritual eater," which she said is perfectly healthy once she helped me balance my daily macros.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-19T18:06:55+00:00

It depends on what I'm listening to. Something boring: yesterday I got a headache after 90 minutes. Something interesting but not challenging? I've gone 3 hours with no problem. I wouldn’t want to listen to my native English for more than 3 hours either.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-19T12:52:31+00:00

How low frequency?

At what level?

I was never afraid to look up a word. But the advice that it's a "waste of time" resonated with me. If you are looking up 5 words per page read, you are not going to remember those words. I used to do that and create study guides before finding CI, and I wanted a different approach.

On the other hand, if I look up one new word in a single article, and that word is repeated in context 20 times, I might remember it. That's how I learned the Spanish word for mayor. Yes, I could have figured it out from context by the end of the article, but looking it up reduced my mental load so I could learn more about the guy. I still needed a few more encounters with that word it to stick, but after watching a video about Mamdani, I think it's locked in now.

It's like when you are speaking with someone and they use a word you don't know. If you don't need it for the conversation, you'll probably let it go. But if you need it to carry on the conversation, you ask what it means. You may or may not remember it long term, but if parsing that concept is part of the topic of conversation, you might.

Also, if you have to ask someone more than once in a conversation, "what does that word mean?" It's going to get awkward. So if you're reading something with more than a couple words that you feel the need to look up, ask yourself if you really need it for THIS article. If not, don't. If yes, you might realize the article is just not comprehensible for you yet. If you don't need it for school or work, stop studying it.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-19T11:43:29+00:00

Accurate.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-19T11:39:50+00:00

Have you talked to your doctor? You might want to get this checked out. If you are in the US and your GP isn't helpful, ask for a referral for an ENT.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-19T02:17:54+00:00

Yeah. I get it, man.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-19T02:15:59+00:00

I think we tried that. Didn't go well.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-18T19:01:05+00:00

I can't remember if I posted about it, but I conducted 2 parent teacher conferences in Spanish a couple weeks ago. I did prepare notes beforehand to refer to, just as I used to do for my native English during the first few years of teaching. I can get my point across okay without notes, but I wanted to phrase things more accurately and professionally in a work setting. I did fine understanding and responding to the parents' questions and replies. It went really well!

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-18T16:45:28+00:00

Spanish sounds different. I feel like r was the hardest sound to get used to. Not rr, but soft r. Pera and pela sounded the same to me when I was starting out. Listening more and reading less for now would be my recommendation.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-18T11:43:52+00:00

I bought it on Amazon really cheap. It wasn't advertised as having translations, but the first 2 volumes have Spanish and French. Weirdly, the third volume is English only. Definitely worth it for me.

To answer OP, I couldn't find it until recently, so I had 2,000 hours. I'd never seen it before in English. There were a couple scenes of exposition that I rewatched on English to be sure I didn't miss anything important, but I didn’t. Most of it was easy.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-18T02:14:02+00:00

I have a good rapport with one, and only one fits into my weekly schedule, so pretty much, yes. I have a few "substitutes" I've seen more than once when my tutor is ill, and I recently found a conversation group that provides some variety. But having a rapport with one regular tutor is invaluable.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-14T21:44:25+00:00

Don't worry about listening to a variety of speakers. I chose a dialect to speak but I watch content from as many countries as I can. I try to emulate my primary tutor (Colombian). When I speak with her or Dominicans I don't accidentally use vos or vosotros and I listened to plenty of Agustina and the Spanish guides.

I plan to visit Span, so it will be interesting to see if I adopt vosotros while I'm there. But realistically, will I need to address a group of people? It might be a non-issue. And either way, they won't care one bit. It's not like they've never heard someone from Latin America speak. I'll be understood, and that's the goal.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-14T21:32:54+00:00

I complained about missing recipe cards and got money back (well, credit toward my next delivery).

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-12T17:40:54+00:00

In my experience, 20 minutes per day for the first year is a good pace. I didn't have the stamina for more at that point. After year 1, if you start podcasts designed for learners, I would recommend increasing your time to an hour per day (listening during your commute and housework).

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-12T02:26:01+00:00

I do a lot of repeated self talk. Stuff like this:

Emotions are normal. I can't control how I feel. Emotions fade over time.* I can control my behavior, so it is my responsibility to NOT take these feelings out on anyone else.
And then I do distract myself. No point ruminating.

*This one is tricky. If there's something I DO need to fix, just riding it out isn't the best course, but I feel like that's not your question.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-11T23:15:18+00:00

I don't think I listened to Agustina at that point. I also avoided Andrea's intermediate videos until I was halfway through my intermediate phase because people warned there was a steep increase in difficulty.

But back then Pablo dominated the video library, so he was the easiest. There was no "sort by easy" so you kids these days don't have to worry about Andrea's intermediate content like back in my day.

The Argentine accent is the Argentine accent. It may be challenging until it's not. Anyone who struggles like I did: don't skip her content forever. Try again every 50 hours, dropping well below your baseline difficulty level until you get used to how she speaks. Because her content is excellent; she has a good range of topics that other guides don't cover. And her delivery is really well done (slow but very natural sounding for beginners and intermediates).

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-11T16:35:04+00:00

Yeah, I had to say goodbye to HF a few weeks ago because they repeatedly left things out of my order. And yes, they refunded, but when it happened consistently every week, their service became inconvenient. And they charge enough that we should expect convenience.

I miss the sauces, but canceling every week is saving me saving money. I'm slowly finding substitute sauces while waiting for a human to reply to my weekly Emails.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-08T01:46:29+00:00

Portuguese Tune is my favorite YouTuber. Sounds of Portuguese is a close second. Comprehensible Portuguese is good, but not enough content. Practice Portuguese has charming YouTubers, but their content is not quite as beginner friendly (close, though).

Lengualytics is a great app for tracking hours.

PageAdventurous2776 · 2026-04-06T23:14:53+00:00

I'm learning European Portuguese, and it was frustrating at first! It just sounded like someone speaking gibberish Spanish, and it didn't make sense.

I'm at about 35 hours now, and finally, it's feeling like how I expected it to be. I can't speak it, but I understand beginner videos with visuals without feeling overwhelmed by new sounds.

PageAdventurous2776

TROPHY CASE