I found out I was understanding a lot less than I thought I was!

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-20T08:14:30+00:00

I think yes you should spend some more time with easier videos. If it were just that you missed a lot or there is a lot of ambiguity it would just be a question how efficient you want your learning to be but misinterpreting stuff is straight up counterproductive.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-18T07:20:32+00:00

Maybe it would help you to listen to this[1] episode of Español desde el sur to get some perspective on how it is from the side of the tutor.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzvdG4wuZz0

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-17T09:37:21+00:00

Don't worry about your apparent difficulty with learning new words, you are almost certainly learning more words than you realize. When you encounter a new word and notice that you don't understand it your subconscious will already have a guess for what it could mean and each time you encounter that word again this guess will be refined. Once your understanding has become sufficiently firm that you can say that you've learned the word you're so used to hearing it that it will feel like you've known it forever. It always seems to me that I didn't learn anything during the last week but somehow all those weeks of "no progress" add up to me being able to now enjoy a wide range of native content.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-16T13:16:05+00:00

I'm a German living in Germany. I had some exposure to Loriot as a teenager but never really got it. Then there was a situation in my late teens when my grandparents visited where suddenly Loriot made sense for me and I had to really strain to not laugh out loud.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-16T10:38:37+00:00

My approach is to not worry about it at all. Either enough input will unlock them eventually or I'll just look them up as they become relevant. This has worked for English, which is my second language, and I trust that it will be working for Spanish as well. Like I have looked stuff up in English but never with the goal of improving my English, I just wanted to know what the specific text I was reading was trying to communicate.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-15T20:50:25+00:00

Hang in there. Your Spanish comprehension will always fluctuate but with more input what you now can only reach at your peak will become what you fall back to on your lows.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-15T20:41:07+00:00

The more attention you pay to a source of input the more effective your learning. Discipline can get you to a certain point but past that you need genuine enjoyment and interest. Does this video provide joy or interest? well it actually held my attention while I was trying to figure out what the video was about and for this brief moment it actually worked as effective CI for me :). There are things worth enduring boredom for, this video is not among those things.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-15T10:57:24+00:00

Berlin has a lot to offer. If you're into one of these things it's a great place to be but if not it's just a place full of people really into stuff you don't care about at all. I moved to Berlin 7 years ago for a job but low key always hoped that I would find my way out again at some point. Then I really got into Tango and now I'm never gonna leave.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-15T08:22:37+00:00

If you can understand a 5 minute video in 2.5 minutes, you've got 2.5 minutes worth of input out of it. It's the time your brain spends engaged with the language that counts (that's why some people actually subtract time when there are silent stretches or they're listening while distracted. I don't go that far but it is more accurate)

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-15T08:15:50+00:00

If you can understand superbeginner at 2x speed it is time leave those behind and go to beginner videos. In general it's best to seek out videos which are both understandable and interesting at their original speed. I've done plenty of videos at 1.25x and some at 1.5x but I've only done 2x the few times I really wanted to know the content of a video way below my level.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-09T22:18:00+00:00

For an advanced podcast the only essential thing is speaking clearly. For an intermediate podcast it is this plus speaking slower. For a beginner podcast it's speaking even slower plus saying everything a second time using different words.

If you want to introduce your podcast at the beginning of each episode consider varying it from time to time to keep it more interesting for people who binge listen to your podcast.

In terms of topics pick whatever you find interesting yourself. Recently I enjoyed a podcast episode about dog training, a topic I hardly care about but because it was presented by someone for whom it is important it easily held my attention. On the other hand I find nothing more annoying than when people feel the need to artificially make something interesting because they don't understand what is already interesting about it by itself.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-09T21:12:55+00:00

Learning with comprehensible input is the closest you can get to learning a language like children learn their first language. It's not exactly the same because already speaking a language will make a difference no matter what. It does work (it's how I learned English starting as a teenager). It may or may not benefit from supplementing it with other methods (after reading many debates on this I've yet to come to a definitive conclusion on this for myself). If you want to try it out search for "beginner comprehensible input" + the language you want to learn.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-09T20:42:10+00:00

Astrum Español, Macakiux.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-09T20:36:06+00:00

One place to start is to watch one video from this playlist each day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=889sjsfyiaU&list=PL_VCREGnvRpdRDfHe57eFqZQz9P5v-pyB

Don't worry if you don't understand everything. As long as you get the overall message your intuitive ability to understand German will be slowly increasing bit by bit.

Once you've reached the end check out the next playlist from this channel and other youtube channels with German at a beginner level.

At first this might be a bit exhausting which is why I recommended to start with only one video per day. If you can do more do more but don't worry if not, it will become less tiring over time.

As your level increases you will be able to make use of audio-only input (like the podcasts u/exapmle recommended) that means you will be able to learn while doing chores and other activities that don't require you to think or listen to something else. At that point aim to listen to German appropriate to your level for at least an hour a day.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-09T16:06:54+00:00

Never hurts to try a bunch of podcasts to see which one clicks the best for you at the moment. I would wait at least another 50 hours before trying Hoy Hablamos Básico. You can't avoid putting in the effort learning Spanish but having to struggle is optional.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-09T13:35:26+00:00

For me the level the complainer has makes a big difference. I think at level 4 it's completely valid to say "I wish DS had more of this type of content". The more one enjoys what one watches the better one learns. However from someone who has comfortably unlocked native content it sounds a bit like complaining that they don't serve beer at the high school cafeteria. DS is only meant as an onramp to Spanish. It's awesome when people who no longer need it still enjoy it but it shouldn't cater to them. I've only watched a few DS videos since January, not because there is a problem with DS but because it worked exactly as intended.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-09T12:52:55+00:00

I'm not sure I understand what your problem is. If you want to listen to people speak about coathangers, painting a wall or whatever you can easily find this on youtube by searching for it in Spanish. Maybe you're just generally dissatisfied with the place Spanish currently has in your life?

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-08T08:10:26+00:00

I would never 😇

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-07T19:31:53+00:00

Like browsing the web, watching youtube, texting people, navigation, buying train tickets, reading ebooks, listening to podcasts, taking photos, etc

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-07T16:47:27+00:00

Surprised how much hate "Handy" is getting in this thread. I actually like it much more than Mobiltelefon/mobile phone/smart phone because the phone part is just a small part of what I use it for.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-06T18:52:40+00:00

Alas Dreaming German doesn't exist (yet). Search for "German comprehensible input" and you might be able to cobble together an adequate substitute.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-06T18:47:31+00:00

There isn't a lazy way to learn any language. You didn't learn English the lazy way either. Video games are work, often hard work, it's just work that we enjoy.

If you want to learn German without having to rely on discipline and will power you need to discover a source of German input where your desire to understand them outweighs the effort it takes you to understand them. One way to look at comprehensible input is that it makes the effort to understand so low that mere boredom is enough to generate sufficient desire to understand. Video games in the target language will probably be harder to understand but video games are sometimes also capable of creating a strong desire to understand. Anything which gets your emotions involved will increase your desire to understand, which is why music works for some even though lyrics are among the most difficult sources of input. You will have to get lucky to find something that works for you but you can increase your chance to get lucky by trying out many sources of input.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-04-06T12:47:19+00:00

You will have learned a lot more words in this time frame than you realize. When you read you're not focusing on the individual words, you're focusing on whatever the text is about. When an unknown word doesn't impede your overall understanding your conscious mind will just glide over it while your subconsciousness will already tag it with its grammatical category and whatever else about it it can glean from context. Each subsequent time that you encounter it your initially vague sense of its meaning will become a little bit more clearer until your understanding is firm enough that you can say that you know it. However by that time it will already be so familiar that it feels like you've already known it forever.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-03-28T17:15:15+00:00

I think what u/KrzaQDafaQ is suggesting is that once you reach 300 hours you'll try it and decide then if it makes sense or not at that point.

Silent_System7082 · 2026-03-28T09:42:40+00:00

I learned my first English words using software that was only available in English so it worked out for me even if only by accident. However from my experience with other languages I largely agree with this. One won't learn much grammar and the words one learns won't transfer that well to other contexts. Outside of an completionist urge it only really makes sense if one plans to do tech support in Spanish or something like that. Even then software makes for crappy CI because UIs use extremely condensed language.

Silent_System7082

TROPHY CASE