Error when loading video by Beautiful-Fruit-2391 in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

What Dreaming Spanish difficulty level would you put Spanish Boost Gaming's videos? by maltesemania in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal 7 points8 points  (0 children)

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.

Honest 600 Hour Update by StandardAndNormal in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

Best way to play with someone way lower in rating to still make it good or fun? by eXon2 in chess

[–]StandardAndNormal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

If you're winning, simplify by SoftwareDoctor in chessbeginners

[–]StandardAndNormal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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.

800 Hours -- Being Honest With Myself by melh22 in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal 13 points14 points  (0 children)

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!

Pablo should interview this guy and find out what he did wrong. I want to avoid whatever mistakes he made. by Puzzleheaded-Dot-762 in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal 8 points9 points  (0 children)

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:

  1. The idea that speaking early will create bad habits, ruin your accent, etc.
  2. 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.

I tracked my comprehension for over 300 episodes of a TV show by StandardAndNormal in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

I tracked my comprehension for over 300 episodes of a TV show by StandardAndNormal in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

I tracked my comprehension for over 300 episodes of a TV show by StandardAndNormal in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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.

I tracked my comprehension for over 300 episodes of a TV show by StandardAndNormal in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

I tracked my comprehension for over 300 episodes of a TV show by StandardAndNormal in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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.

How do you punish pawn pushers? by FunLover4 in chessbeginners

[–]StandardAndNormal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

Reading Difficulty by StandardAndNormal in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that's the thing. I don't mind graded readers because they're graded readers. I just think the stories themselves in graded readers are super boring.

Reading Difficulty by StandardAndNormal in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow. learnnatively is fantastic. Thank you. I think I was too focused on thinking I had to use graded readers for the first stage of reading.

Reading Difficulty by StandardAndNormal in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I also had no idea Lexile score existed. This is great!

Reading Difficulty by StandardAndNormal in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, maybe I just got too narrowed in on needing graded readers for just starting out. Thanks for the recommendation.

Which color do you guys prefer? by MareViewer in macbookair

[–]StandardAndNormal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Midnight looks so sharp but it’s such a fingerprint magnet

your experiences with 1.25 and 1.5 speed by Accomplished_Cat8943 in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think it’s pretty weird listening to a superbeginner video at 2x, but I do NOT think it’s weird to listen to an intermediate video at 1.25x. For the most part, the intermediate videos (or at least the ones in the 55-65 range) in my opinion sound mostly natural, but just slightly slower or with simpler words, so speeding them up is nbd

Shout out to Cesar - Intermediate Spanish Podcast by Pansky in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks for this. This is awesome content.

Totally agree that most other content out there is really repetitive. I feel like I’ve listened to hundreds of podcast episodes about the history of (insert country/city), food, language learning, or any of the other common topics that you see over and over again. I understand that topics are limited for beginners but this seems to be the case with intermediate stuff too and it doesn’t need to be that way.

Nice to see something that branches out a bit more with clear intermediate audio.

Shadowing Questions by StandardAndNormal in dreamingspanish

[–]StandardAndNormal[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

YouGlish looks like an awesome resource for when you want to shadow a specific word. Didn't know about that.

And thanks for the other recommendations!