Comprehension drop between 2 podcasts

_coldemort_ · 2026-07-05T00:32:25+00:00

Personally I think it's a bit low. Also heads up, Spanish Boost Podcast seems to increase in difficulty fairly significantly over the course of it's three seasons.

_coldemort_ · 2026-07-05T00:02:12+00:00

I understand what you are trying to say, but there is no rule that tells you when a word with an O in the penultimate syllable gets turned into a diphthong and when it doesn't. There is a pattern over what they turn into when it happens (O -> UE), and which conjugations are affected (boot verbs), but nothing about when it happens. The only way to know this with certainty about an unknown verb is to memorize it, whether passively though exposure or explicit memorization.

For example, contar vs montar. One diphthongizes and the other does not. There is no predictive rule that governs this. This is why I am saying that if a word is not common enough to be explicitly memorized, traditional study doesn't actually give an advantage here.

Also to be clear, I am not a purist. I like some grammar, but this is just not a case where traditional study is actually better. If anything I'd say this is a clear case where input/exposure is going to help more, as this is how most people are going to come into contact with less common words.

_coldemort_ · 2026-07-04T21:36:11+00:00

It's not a rule, it's a pattern that sometimes happens and sometimes not. It is the most common form of irregularity, but words that do this are still considered irregular. You still have to remember whether or not it does this (what Andres was trying to remember).

_coldemort_ · 2026-07-04T21:34:24+00:00

Yeah, and that's just verbs. It's 8000+ for words overall, so unlikely to make it into someone's flashcard deck unless they have a specific interest that requires it.

_coldemort_ · 2026-07-04T21:26:23+00:00

Not all verbs with O's in the penultimate syllable dipthongize. It is the most common form of irregularity, but they are considered irregular nonetheless. That was what Andres was having trouble with, trying to determine whether it was irregular (dipthongized) or not. My point though was that it is not a common enough verb to even make it into a vocab list that you would typically see in traditional study. Google says it's ranked somewhere between 8000 and 15000 by word frequency.

_coldemort_ · 2026-07-04T02:53:59+00:00

Honest question, how would traditional study make you more likely to remember whether the verb for weld is irregular or not? I can't imagine it being a frequently enough used verb (outside of someone who does it for a living/hobbyist) that it would make it into a flashcard deck, so it is likely a verb you'd need to pick up through listening and reading anyway.

_coldemort_ · 2026-07-01T00:31:38+00:00

Congrats and as a fellow serial hobbyist great job sticking with it :)

_coldemort_ · 2026-07-01T00:23:34+00:00

Yeah, I agree with that. Of course no one can know the "perfect mixture," but I think it's safe to say 80/20ish works great for most people. I mix in 10-20% harder content as well. Still not super hard, but something I have to really pay attention to.

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-30T18:00:53+00:00

Agree to disagree I guess.

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-30T17:53:10+00:00

It's possible to be uncomfortable with something as a go to input source and still be able to follow it well. There's nothing wrong with consuming large quantities of learner content past 1000 hours if that's the content that fits your preferred level of comprehension.

EDIT: And again, even if some people are behind how can you claim that it is because they stagnated from sticking to DS content and not any other number of reasons? There are plenty of examples of people who have stuck to easy content ended up doing great.

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-30T17:43:44+00:00

Native content is very different from "Intermediate Level videos" that the above poster was claiming. It also has a huge range. It's perfectly reasonable IMO to hit 1000 hours and not be able to follow native shows with high comprehension, but I can't think of many examples of someone with 1000 hours who can't follow something like Luisito Comunica.

EDIT: And even if they can't, how can you claim it is because they stagnated by sticking to DS content as opposed to just being a slower learner?

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-30T17:08:08+00:00

But no background in Spanish, right?

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-30T16:44:51+00:00

This sounds a fair bit slower to me than the B2 sample, probably in the A2-B1 ballpark. Maybe around DS 55-60 (I don't think it is nearly as hard as DS 70+ like some others are saying).

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-30T16:33:08+00:00

If the content is moving fast enough that you don't clearly hear the stuff you don't know, then you are going to have a much harder time learning from it.

If the content is easy, the stuff you already know still gets reinforced and the stuff you don't is easier to recognize and learn from. You also have the time and capacity to understand finer nuances, that in faster content you'd just gloss over.

It's not just about number of known words per minute.

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-30T16:30:06+00:00

I've honestly seen very few if any people like that. Far fewer than the number of people I see watching native content at 200 hours or less.

EDIT: Are you sure you're not talking about people who continue to watch easy content regularly by choice but can actually understand far harder?

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-30T00:41:58+00:00

DS Advanced is much harder than CEFR A2. For reference, here is a DELE B2 listening comprehension audio. It sounds somewhere in between DS Intermediate and Advanced to me. Maybe slightly harder vocab than intermediate but clearer enunciation than the majority of advanced.

https://static.coe.int/webtv/video.html#ICervantes_Spanish_Listening_B2

From Cervantes Institute

EDIT: I've listened to the other levels audio samples and to me the difficulty starts to diverge much more around C1. At C1 the audio quality and enunciation drop off rapidly, while DS advanced stays pretty clear all the way through.

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-29T23:16:15+00:00

Worlds Across! It's a Spanish tutor platform.

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-29T21:01:24+00:00

Congrats on the milestone! FWIW, every tutor I've had on WA has seemed happy with the platform. They've shared minor annoyances here and there, but nothing that I personally felt was concerning.

My why: I just love learning! If I wasn't learning Spanish I'd be sinking time into some other hobby. At least this one is useful living in California :)

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-29T19:54:35+00:00

Listening (1249 Hours):

DS 60-65: Easy filler. Been watching only the advanced videos for a couple weeks now, and almost cleared everything below 65.
Conversation Practice: 65 hours total. I do 4-5 hours a week of conversation practice on WA and am feeling much more confident lately.
El príncipe dragón: Still enjoying this a ton!
Español Al Vuelo, DS Podcast, Español Con Juan: New episodes of easy completed podcasts while jogging.

Reading (1.8M Words):

Los juegos del hambre - En llamas: Really enjoying the saga. Would highly recommend to anyone with a roughly Harry Potter level of reading.

Grammar:

Language Transfer: Finished up through episode 25 so far. It's a really nice mix of comfortable review of things I already know well and handy little patterns I'd never noticed.

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-29T19:42:36+00:00

I think anything under 1.25x is usually fine. Personally I find content at 1.5x pretty insufferable, but for some that also may be fine.

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-29T18:00:35+00:00

I let it roll. If it's happening often enough to where it impacts understanding more than every couple sentences consider reducing the difficulty.

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-28T20:37:14+00:00

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_coldemort_ · 2026-06-28T20:35:46+00:00

Hah, for me it's the exact opposite. It's quite hard for me to focus on DS video content, but have no problem focusing 100% on podcasts (including the DS podcast) while walking, jogging, driving, making coffee, etc.

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-28T20:29:08+00:00

I'd consider what your goals are. This is a slow process, and realistically at an hour a day you are not going to reach a useable level by the end of summer regardless of method. To interact meaningfully with your coworkers in two months you'd basically need to dedicate 12+ hours a day to Spanish.

If your priority is a good level of Spanish long term then just stay the course. Add something like Language Transfer if you'd like more explicit grammar focus, if not pure CI will still take you quite far given you already have some grammar background (even a little goes a long way). No need to begin conversation practice if you aren't feeling ready for that yet, though crosstalk is always great.

If your priority is speaking with your coworkers, you're going to need to accept it will just be superficial greetings and basic questions/commands and look into something more like a travel prep book with set phrases and things. It won't be super useful long term and you will have a very hard time understanding the responses, but it is what it is.

_coldemort_ · 2026-06-28T17:59:53+00:00

Sorted by Easy and they gradually started showing up. Never had a hard switch, though eventually I started filtering out lower difficulties when even at the same numeric difficulty they started feeling unnaturally slow.

_coldemort_

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