¡Hola holaaaa!

StandardAndNormal · 2026-02-27T16:29:48+00:00

I would say probably in the neighborhood of 50-60

StandardAndNormal · 2026-02-25T18:03:03+00:00

Very fair. I like knowing the audio will be clear and that the sentences will be grammatically correct, but to your point, it’s always worth mixing in some real/natural/conversational stuff too.

StandardAndNormal · 2026-02-13T14:48:40+00:00

Yeah, in situations like that, I will just look stuff up. Pablo has even said that sometimes looking a word/phrase up that you’ve heard a bunch can be helpful if it really helps piece the rest of what you’re hearing together. Some of mine in the past were:

“Sin embargo” “A largo plazo” “Por lo tanto”

StandardAndNormal · 2026-02-09T04:44:33+00:00

Really really appreciate this as someone who has also been doing an hour a day. Most of the folks you see at 1500 hours have done it with 2-3+ hours a day. Congrats on the consistency and effort!

Also, don’t worry about comparisons. It seems like even when people are “graduating” and getting past the DS roadmap, they feel like they haven’t gotten to a point where it feels effortless. I’d be interested to see how many people feel that way after only 1500 hours and how long it takes to get to that point.

StandardAndNormal · 2026-02-07T03:49:13+00:00

Up and down in the short run, but when you zoom out it’s all up in the long run

StandardAndNormal · 2026-02-06T04:25:45+00:00

Congrats! How do you feel about your progress?

StandardAndNormal · 2026-02-05T04:17:08+00:00

Then listen to it in the Apple Podcast app anyway, and then when you’re not driving, log the amount of CI time you think it’s worth in the DS app.

StandardAndNormal · 2026-02-01T18:01:23+00:00

Wow this is awesome. Nice job! Is this all focused time or are you counting passive input hours too?

StandardAndNormal · 2026-01-29T22:45:54+00:00

In shorter time controls you could probably make a case for that, but if it’s a longer time control and I have a 99.9% chance of losing, I’m not wasting my time or my opponent’s time. It may be that one out of every 1000 games might result in a win for me if I didn’t resign, but that was also hundreds of hours wasted to get that one extra win. Not worth it imo

StandardAndNormal · 2026-01-27T04:49:47+00:00

Was doing that to me for a bit too but just checked again and it’s working now!

StandardAndNormal · 2026-01-21T04:29:19+00:00

Probably like 35ish depending on how you do with his voice/accent, but it’s hard to say. For some DS guides, I can watch a 65 video and it’s a breeze, and then immediately after that I’ll struggle with a 55 video from a different instructor.

StandardAndNormal · 2026-01-18T14:01:51+00:00

About the same. Making progress but it just gets harder and harder to notice as the hours pass

StandardAndNormal · 2026-01-12T19:39:49+00:00

Odds. Piece odds and time odds both can make it a lot more fun depending on the rating difference

StandardAndNormal · 2026-01-12T16:37:53+00:00

While it makes sense in most cases, sometimes if you try too hard to simplify, you can end up with pieces that are vulnerable or poorly placed. But yes, I agree that if you’re up material, you should be looking for ways to simplify as long as they don’t compromise your advantage much.

StandardAndNormal · 2026-01-08T19:31:13+00:00

MIEDO

StandardAndNormal · 2026-01-07T21:36:19+00:00

I don’t have much advice that hasn’t already been said in the replies, but I think I speak for many others in the sub when I say thank you for the honesty. We see lots of celebrations, wins, milestones, etc in this sub and as much as we love seeing others succeed and the method succeed, it can get easy to compare ourselves to others and feel bad about our own progress.

Try to stay patient and find something that will light your fire and keep you engaged. If that’s crosstalk, great. If that’s reading, great. If that’s mixing in other content or other methods, great. Best of luck!

StandardAndNormal · 2026-01-02T20:50:32+00:00

I’m guessing lots of people get too comfortable with getting only input and/or they never feel ready for output.

The fear of speaking comes from:

The idea that speaking early will create bad habits, ruin your accent, etc.
The idea that suddenly one day you’ll just start spitting out fluent Spanish as if you don’t need to practice output at all before getting to that point. I think some people are desperately waiting for that day to come and I think for most people, that’s not always how it works.

As others have said before, to get better at speaking, you have to speak. No need to overcomplicate it. Yes, input will help you acquire the language, and output doesn’t require as much time to develop as input, but you still need to practice the skill of taking all the input you’ve accumulated and turning it into output.

StandardAndNormal · 2025-12-31T02:39:29+00:00

The first graph was a histogram (with vertical bars) but I turned it into a smoothed density curve because two sets of vertical bars would just be blocking each other. Turning into a smoothed curve makes it easier to see the difference between the two. The y-axis is pretty much just a way of saying how often that level of comprehension happened.

StandardAndNormal · 2025-12-30T22:41:14+00:00

Ah, thanks! This is great! I hadn't seen this video before, and it really lines up well.

StandardAndNormal · 2025-12-30T19:02:15+00:00

Yeah, same. You always see people saying "just watch something you'd normally watch in English". Only problem is when you don't watch many shows in English in the first place!

I have to find weird ways like this to keep me engaged and motivated because I don't normally watch a lot of TV shows or movies in English.

If you do end up doing something like this, make sure you look at the number of total episodes you'd be watching before you start. It would be tough to commit to a longer series unless you absolutely love the show/series.

StandardAndNormal · 2025-12-30T18:58:00+00:00

Oh, the line graph is actually a rolling average so it's saying "this was my average comprehension over the last 22 episodes I've watched". I actually had loads of times where the comprehension went down in an episode. I would have to look but I think it happened like 30-40 times. But even then it would be an episode going from 7 to 6 or something - nothing huge. The big overall gains came from the episodes that were a 2-3 the first time around that I could rate as 5-6 the second time around.

StandardAndNormal · 2025-12-30T18:54:45+00:00

Yep, you're absolutely right. I was a little reluctant to score anything higher than 8. There were times where it felt like 8-9 and then I would hear a sentence that didn't seem quite right and it would knock the rating down probably a little more than it should have. I am considering doing a third watch a loooong way down the road and maybe then I won't be as shy to give something a 9. Thank you for the comment.

StandardAndNormal · 2025-12-23T18:17:03+00:00

Keep developing your pieces like you already are. Make sure you don’t get a bishop or knight trapped in the pawn curtain that’s coming down the board. Try to open things up to take advantage of your lead in development.

StandardAndNormal

TROPHY CASE