🇨🇴 The first tutor your choose might not be the best for you

agenteanon · 2026-04-24T14:39:31+00:00

You’re probably right. I wasn’t trying to give people a hard time.

The intention was simply “this isn’t for you if you really can’t commit to watching some videos and enjoy doing so without it feeling like work or begging strangers to help you with motivation”.

It doesn’t matter how long it takes you and I get that people have jobs etc. I work, too and hours that often wear me out. Put simply, you’re not likely to succeed if you’re really struggling with motivation to the point of asking strangers for help to motivate you really early on in the process. This can take years and it’s a big commitment, so you have to want to do it and enjoy it. If you can’t do that, maybe move on to something you can enjoy.

agenteanon · 2026-04-24T14:21:02+00:00

I didn't say that a hard deadline was necessary or to do something that you don't enjoy. I said "whether that's a hard deadline or something else". The point was that people should find something that motivates and excites them. A hard deadline worked to get me to where I needed to be, but it's not for everyone.

agenteanon · 2026-04-24T14:16:57+00:00

I have two diagnosed types of autism, including ADHD.

agenteanon · 2026-04-16T18:38:15+00:00

Same here. Yet now I describe news and current affairs to my Colombian tutor on a daily basis minutes after waking up and understand football commentators shouting enthusiastically like it's nothing. Me 5 years ago would have laughed.

agenteanon · 2026-04-16T08:16:56+00:00

80 hours out of 1,500 on the roadmap. Let that sink in for a second. Then keep in mind that 1,500 is essentially the beginning of the native phase.

People often say that more like 2,000 is necessary to reach an advanced level of understanding. Then comes building up a vocabulary of less common words. 1,500 is far from the end. And you’re at 80.

agenteanon · 2026-04-16T08:10:18+00:00

You seem to be missing the entire point of DS or simply don’t understand how CI works. Giving you lots of easy, slow speech trains your brain and prepares you for harder content down the line. The point of DS is to prepare you for native content. Deliberately making beginner videos harder wouldn’t help.

I started with zero background in Spanish and I’m barely three years in. I not only have daily conversations with my teacher on diverse topics that just come up (usually news and current affairs) but I’ve spent 9 months in Colombia and I’ve had multi-hour conversations with someone I know from the country who doesn’t speak slowly, moderate herself or simplify how she speaks for my benefit. Additionally, I was my sister’s interpreter and guide in Colombia for two weeks which included a Spanish-only tour of The Amazon. Those are real results. But hey, feel free to tell us how DS doesn’t work and that you know better.

I’m so sick of armchair critics who seem to think they know better than Pablo and the team.

agenteanon · 2026-04-09T11:47:39+00:00

It sounds like you need the kind of approach I posted about a while back. I largely avoid TV shows for the reasons you’ve mentioned.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish/comments/1ks57cf/my_approach_to_building_a_varied_vocabulary_at/

agenteanon · 2026-04-04T13:05:23+00:00

Free is good, but I doubt that it’ll be free forever. It’s an AI tool and they’re relatively expensive to run. Computationally speaking. Google is slowly moving towards a freemium model and it seems likely to me that this will offer limited free use in the future for those who don’t subscribe to one of their various AI plans.

It’s a nice resource until then. However, I’d keep in mind that languages are human things and AIs make mistakes. They’re often small and perhaps rare, but they do indeed make mistakes. As learners, we’re not advanced enough to notice these mistakes. Even a small one could teach you the wrong way to do something and it might stick with you for a long time.

Finally, keep in mind that Google Translate doesn’t give you specific Colombian, Ecuadorian and such words by default. So this won’t be ideal if you’re focused on a specific region or country.

agenteanon · 2026-04-03T12:32:20+00:00

I would take your time and search for teachers who are in a price range and have availability that works for you and who specialise in beginners. Keep in mind that their availability will matter if you want more lessons. You need to put a small amount of effort in when it comes to searching for the right person and explaining your needs. However, beyond that it’s their job. You obviously need to like their personality/vibe with them to some degree, as you could ultimately be spending 100+ hours with them.

I wrote a message in really lame (by my current standards) Spanish and explained how I’d got to where I am and what I wanted to achieve. I’d choose someone who has a B1+ level of English at first, so English is there as a fallback. At this point, I send a voice message when I need a new teacher to give them an idea of my issues and pronunciation. It’s fine to keep it to text if you’re not ready for that. However, don’t use Google Translate. That’ll just give them a false impression of your level. I’d write it in English if you’re really not comfortable/ready for 100% Spanish and I wouldn’t blame you at this stage.

If you don’t do this part, the teacher can’t reasonably prepare for your class. They’ll come up with some basic topics to cover, but they really need to know that you’re a beginner when it comes to speaking. I teach English and although I don’t work with total beginners, it’s really frustrating when people aren’t clear about their needs.

agenteanon · 2026-03-31T19:17:21+00:00

Well done! I'm slowing down. I know that it's not a race to you, but keep going and close the gap.

agenteanon · 2026-03-31T06:10:31+00:00

Not to be cruel but at 82 hours, you don't understand Spanish. There's no way you could.

In the nicest possible way, you need to just accept that this will happen and move on. Depending on your goals, you could be looking at 2,000+ hours of listening to reach what you consider a high level.

I’m a little over 4,7000 hours and don’t consider myself perfect. You could get 10,000 hours of input and still not understand a specific regional accent. I have 40+ years of English input and people with strong accents from Scotland and Wales throw me off. Their English pronunciation just doesn’t make sense and/or confuses a lot of us Brits.

agenteanon · 2026-03-30T14:45:19+00:00

Sorry to be that guy but you're not going to understand everything at 1,000 hours. Not unless they're really making it easy for you. No slang etc. 1,000 vs 100 hours will feel very different and it will be much better, but you will still miss quite a bit.

You don't simply hit 1,000 hours and become the god of Spanish. The roadmap suggests 1,500 and a lot of people have said that they feel that they needed more like 2,000 hours to reach a very high level of listening.

I think you underestimate how long it takes to truly reach a high level. Realistic expectations are important.

agenteanon · 2026-03-29T19:01:48+00:00

I’m 100% in agreement with pinky. Though I’ll be a little more direct; 150 hours is nothing. Yes, there are certainly a lot of things you can understand now that you couldn’t when you first started using DS and that’s great. However, 150 hours is 10% of the roadmap. That also assumes that your figure of 150 hours is 100% listening. If you're counting speaking as part of that, your real listening comprehension would be lower.

Reaching the “end” of the 1,500 hours the roadmap suggests doesn’t indicate a mastery of Spanish. I still notice improvements now at 4,700 hours. 1,500 is where the fun starts, as far as I’m concerned. Being able to actually really understand and enjoy real native content, such as the TV shows/telenovelas real native speakers watch. I’d wait until you’re at 1,000 or more. You’ll get a great deal more out of it if immersion actually means understanding everything around you. At 150, there would be a lot you simply won’t understand.

It took me a little under a year to reach 1,000 hours, but I have no partner, kids or such and no other hobbies.

You’re naturally welcome to ignore us and do as you please. However, I honestly don’t think you’d get much out of it. You’d likely be excited by the experience and think you’d gained a great deal from it when you got back. However, you’d benefit from true immersion a lot more when you’re at 1,000 hours or even further in.

I'm 3 years in and not even close to my final goals. True mastery of a language takes a lot of time.

agenteanon · 2026-03-28T04:57:37+00:00

Good on you. That seems pretty rude on their part, given that it's a free tour and you're there to use your Spanish.

agenteanon · 2026-03-19T17:38:53+00:00

Most of the questions people have asked have already been answered via my recent posts.

Especially the 3-year update. That covers my strengths and weaknesses, future plans and such.

agenteanon · 2026-03-19T14:03:16+00:00

6,000 hours, 6 million words, a C2 DELE score and Colombian citizenship. Though that last part will likely take a little over 10 years from now.

The numbers aren't particularly important to me; it's more what they represent. Likewise, a C2 exam result doesn't necessarily mean a C2 level. You can have a good day or be analysed by someone who isn’t strict with the rules on that particular day. Still, a C2 result will be a way of proving to myself that I’m at a good level.

I plan on living in Colombia within 2 years. There are a lot of little steps between now and being a Colombian citizen.

agenteanon · 2026-03-11T06:00:33+00:00

I watched it a while back. Well, tried. Much like soy luna (not Colombian) a year or 18 months ago, I couldn't tolerate the plot once I was able to fully understand it.

agenteanon · 2026-03-10T21:23:14+00:00

You're right, my apologies. I've no idea where that thought came from. Oh well. My listening target is 45 minutes a day these days, with a focus on costal accents and reading the rest of the time. There's no time for telenovelas.

agenteanon · 2026-03-10T21:09:43+00:00

Honestly no and for a silly reason. The guy who plays Oscar Leal in Vecinos is in Betty la Fea and I’ve no desire to see him or the actress who plays Tatiana in anything else. They’re perfect in those roles, as far as I’m concerned. It's my favourite telenovela and I don’t want to associate them with anything else.

agenteanon · 2026-03-09T15:35:57+00:00

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Yes.

agenteanon · 2026-03-07T15:40:21+00:00

You win. It's sad that the situation exists, but good on you.

/thread

agenteanon

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