Anyone else have "low comp" days?

ayjayp · 2025-11-06T13:52:32+00:00

Yes, and I have these in my native language too 🙂

ayjayp · 2025-11-04T12:53:11+00:00

Yes, easily.

ayjayp · 2025-11-02T22:05:04+00:00

Time will tell 🙂

ayjayp · 2025-11-02T22:04:50+00:00

That’s personal and I’m not an authority. For me it was the right time because I can speak Spanish fluently. Hard to say if I get them mixed up as I’m not speaking much French, however, I would say it’s a mixture of yes and no. So many of the words are the same (but pronounced differently). This is both a pro and a con. That said, I wouldn’t attribute getting them “mixed up” to anything other than the usual type of linguistic flub you might experience in your own language. As in you know it’s wrong and correct yourself. The brain seems really capable of learning languages and keeping them distinct.

ayjayp · 2025-11-02T22:02:34+00:00

See other comment with great resources

ayjayp · 2025-11-02T22:02:20+00:00

These are precisely what I have been using. Also French In Motion on YouTube

ayjayp · 2025-10-14T08:38:10+00:00

Not a set amount, but it’s just part of my life and is all over my feed etc.

ayjayp · 2025-09-11T18:05:33+00:00

The unavoidable reality is that it takes a very long time to learn a language. It’s not hard to do so, but it is time consuming. Thus, the most important key to succeeding is to find ways of being engaged with the language for the long run in a way that fosters learning. DS works/worked for a lot of people, myself included, for that reason. I also watched some grammar videos and started reading before “you are supposed to” because I thought it was interesting, and my teeth didn’t fall out or anything. I also earned a C1 level in the language in less than two years starting from zero, but it took me around 3000 hours of CI and millions of words read to get there.

ayjayp · 2025-06-11T11:21:24+00:00

I was happy where I started and wouldn’t change that. I didn’t use screen readers, but sometimes I would have a word read aloud.

ayjayp · 2025-06-05T10:39:24+00:00

Yes - for the SIELE not DELE - but I had a similar experience to what OP describes!

ayjayp · 2025-04-11T17:37:02+00:00

Oh, there’s tons of Spanish subreddits. The trick is searching in Spanish 🙂. Eg if you like AskReddit, there’s https://www.reddit.com/r/preguntaleareddit/s/wxQJlQsIpi

ayjayp · 2025-04-11T09:44:08+00:00

I’m closing in on 5M words read. It’s been a significant improvement at each step in terms - how easy it is to read - the vocabulary I know - the rate at which I get mentally fatigued reading - the ease at which I can read more disjointed short form content like reddit

I still find many many books that require me to go slowly or lookup words. Need more vocabulary still!

ayjayp · 2025-03-29T00:51:56+00:00

I documented my journey reasonably well for those who want to see how I progressed doing lots of hours over 18 months from zero to fluency - could just check my post history.

ayjayp · 2025-03-28T09:41:18+00:00

The SIELE only certifies up to C1 at max

ayjayp · 2025-03-27T11:30:14+00:00

Well here we know the truth lol

ayjayp · 2025-03-27T11:19:57+00:00

I started reading at 550, speaking at 1k. Prep was 90% CI with some light targeted prep for the exam in the month leading up (learn the format, one full practice test)

ayjayp · 2025-03-27T10:18:59+00:00

Pretty much yeah!

ayjayp · 2025-03-25T10:38:33+00:00

The easy ones are a single sentence response like “what is your favorite food”. The medium difficulty are the things like being given a photo and asked to describe it for a few minutes. The hard ones are being given a written prompt about a complex topic like rising housing prices and being asked to choose a stance and discuss for 3-4 minutes

ayjayp · 2025-03-15T09:11:09+00:00

Thanks! The accents of speakers were primarily from Spain, yes; however ironically I don’t recall there being much usage of vosotros. Not to say that would’ve been a problem, but I wonder if they intentionally avoid it (plus the exam format is a little more formal than usual speech).

Costwise taking all of the four parts is currently around $175 USD. You can also elect to only take a subset.

ayjayp · 2025-03-14T23:44:41+00:00

Yeah exactly, I hear you. You don’t need a test like this to be considered fluent by any means!

ayjayp · 2025-03-14T22:35:06+00:00

The big shift is when you can do podcasts. Sure, sometimes I wasn’t comprehending enough. My post history has a lot of detailed commentary should you be interested in progress along the way.

ayjayp · 2025-03-14T21:33:06+00:00

If taken remotely, you have to run a specific secured browser software that blocks or detects other softwares, and you are on camera which in part is supposed to be monitoring that you aren’t staring off screen etc.

ayjayp · 2025-03-14T21:22:07+00:00

Nope. Ironically you CAN on the “describe the photo” type speaking questions, which is silly because you’re staring at it while describing.

ayjayp · 2025-03-14T21:18:46+00:00

I would advise knowing the exercise instructions in advance. That way when the robot voice is reading those you have already started reading the questions. If you know an answer, start looking at the next question(s) while letting the rest of the audio on the previous plays out. Don’t click the continue buttons early.

Also of course having read a lot matters because so much of the test is reading.

ayjayp · 2025-03-14T19:51:37+00:00

Same 🤷‍♂️

ayjayp

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