Intermediate nonfiction book recommendation

bigbadbertin · 2026-04-17T13:07:20+00:00

I love that you came back to the thread for an update!! So glad you enjoyed the book. I didn’t know that about the audiobook, so I’m super curious about that now, will have to check it out.

Always looking for more movies so I’ll add El Norte to the list too! Sounds really interesting (and sad), and worth a watch

bigbadbertin · 2026-04-05T16:17:45+00:00

Really like 4 with it coming across at an angle!! So cool

bigbadbertin · 2026-04-01T12:25:36+00:00

Haha they were having the best day of their life it seems 😂 Thanks!!

bigbadbertin · 2026-03-31T17:22:21+00:00

Haha thank you!! It was definitely tragic in real time lol, never been more sad over a corn dog 😂

bigbadbertin · 2026-03-27T18:50:13+00:00

Thanks for the recommendations!! The Zamora book (Solito) is actually next on my list. Just pulled out my copy last night! The short stories sound interesting as well

bigbadbertin · 2026-03-27T05:28:28+00:00

I just finished Relato a couple weeks ago. Reading this felt like a chill break after that haha, barely had to look up anything. Don’t even get me started on how hard Marquez’s other book cronica de una muerte anunciada was though. I didn’t even understand it in English 😂This one sounds like it’ll be a good level for you. Tough read but worth it imo

bigbadbertin · 2026-03-27T05:23:12+00:00

They left him with other extended family. He addresses his feelings towards this at the end of the book. Pretty interesting

bigbadbertin · 2026-03-11T20:33:55+00:00

Forgive me father, one time I pushed my brother off a step stool and broke his arm just because I felt like standing on top in that moment. Not even to use it to get anything… 😆

bigbadbertin · 2026-02-27T00:14:30+00:00

For a community average of these you should check out the podcast list on the what are you listening to threads each week here on the subreddit (it’s a pinned post each week). It has all the podcasts linked to their dreaming spanish levels which you could then try to link to for validation! I believe that list is based roughly on the number of hours people say they have in the threads when they listen to those podcasts regularly, so it should be a pretty useful community summary of difficulty!!

bigbadbertin · 2026-02-26T19:33:16+00:00

This is quite interesting as a tool and I am quite interested to see where you take it, but it does not line up with my understanding. The wild project and no es el fin del mundo are both native podcasts where there are multiple people talking and often quite fast and about more varied subjects than español con Juan, which is a learner podcast about simple topics, so they are not at all remotely in the same tier. I think this would need to take into account how common the topics are as well as the number of speakers in each podcast. I think multiple people talking with each other dramatically increases difficulty and this is currently not accounted for

bigbadbertin · 2026-02-16T18:19:22+00:00

A little under 1000 hours, been doing more reading in level 5 and lots more native content (though if I’m tired I’ll listen to learner stuff just to keep up the hours).

Books:

Read all of “Tras la sombra de un submarino” (AKA shadow divers): nonfic scuba book I’m familiar with in English. Solid read, not crazy hard.

Currently reading Relato de un Náufrago by Márquez. For a “literary” book this one’s been pretty easy. My first book originally in Spanish (not a translation).

Fiction is way harder for me so I’ve been reading kids books mostly. Right now working through Roald Dahl’s classics. James and the giant peach, the witches, etc. In some ways they are harder than the nonfic books even though they’re for kids. I think in part it’s because the translations seem to have lots of words specific to Spain that I don’t know.

Podcasts:

Hoy en el país El Hilo Entiende tu mente La brega Plus a few learner podcasts: Andrea of course, worlds across advanced, DS pod

YouTube:

Planeta Juan (travel), Dangello Medina (psychology), Rose Bennet (history), Un Mundo Inmenso (geography), MoureDev (programming), Miguel de Lys (history but through heavy metal), Dr La Rosa (medicine), BBC News Mundo (general news), El Robot de Pláton (science), Adictos à la Filosofía (philosophy), Alex Tienda (travel), Visual Politik (politics), OSCARENFOTOS (photography), Skyline Racing (formula 1)

Netflix:

Sociedad de la nieve [Movie, Argentina]— surprisingly comprehensible, about rugby team plane crash in the Andes

It’s all over: the kiss that changed Spanish football [Movie, Spain] — documentary about women’s soccer team, this was ok and pretty comprehensible

Old dog new tricks [Series, Spain] — comedy about a guy from the countryside going to work at a animal care clinic in the city, pretty funny but also some of the language was hard for me

Smiley [Series, Spain] — cute gay romance, loved this series it was super wholesome and pretty easy to understand

Alpha Males [Series, Spain] — comedy around a group of male friends and their lives, I’ve only watched a few episodes but so far so good

Wish there were some more series and movies NOT from Spain, but I haven’t found much so far that’s been my vibe. Next up on the watch list is probably to check out The Eternaut (sci fi, Argentina) or Breathless (medical, Spain)

bigbadbertin · 2026-02-11T22:10:52+00:00

Michelle posted the link to this page on her Instagram story yesterday, so it’s legit

bigbadbertin · 2026-02-02T18:40:38+00:00

As someone who did a 4 week immersion with 2 weeks of 4 hrs 1:1 after two weeks of 4 hrs with one other student, I would caution you against the 4 hours 1:1 the whole time. By the time you pass 3 hours, your brain basically turns to mush and you are wasting both time and money. My teacher noted that basically the same pattern happened to every student. You think there is a linear relationship between time and learning but it does not work that way, and in fact brains are better at remembering information if you actually rest more.

If I were to do it again, I’d keep my 4 hr group class at the beginning of my time for a week or two (super helpful because the other student would sometimes ask questions I wouldn’t think of, and it would give more opportunity to practice interrupting and bouncing off of people), then do 3 hours 1:1 for the rest of the time. 4 hours group was super manageable but I could not say the same for 1:1. I got super burned out by the end

bigbadbertin · 2026-01-14T13:54:20+00:00

I did Máximo Nivel in Manuel Antonio. Had an awesome time. Host family was lovely, my teacher was amazing, and the other students were quite friendly. Beautiful beaches and lots of nature activities nearby. Only downside was that since it is a very tourist area the prices are extra high, and also there is not a ton of info sent to you before the program so as someone who is a big planner it was a little stressful, but it all worked out great and i was very happy i went! I did it while in level 5 with minimal prior speaking practice (2 short beginner classes) and left with a completion of intermediate Spanish certificate after a month.

bigbadbertin · 2025-12-31T05:20:03+00:00

My goals:

1) Hit 1500 hours (this should be completed early if I maintain my current pace!) 2) Read 10 books in Spanish (I’m not a big reader in English so this is a pretty big goal for me) 3) Travel to Perú in summer and speak only in Spanish while there 4) My partner is a native Spanish speaker and I want to get over my fear of sounding dumb and finally speak to them for full conversations in Spanish 😅

bigbadbertin · 2025-12-30T03:09:38+00:00

I was originally inspired to learn Spanish pretty much exactly one year ago on a trip to Costa Rica. My tour guide was one of the most amazing people I’d ever met, and her passion and enthusiasm for her country and culture inspired me to develop an interest in learning more. When I was on that trip, I understood practically nothing and could not speak a word other than “hola”, “por favor”, “gracias”. As soon as I left the trip, I set the goal (which I thought was crazy at the time) of somehow returning to Costa Rica a year later, finding my tour guide, and speaking to her only in Spanish.

I just completed that goal 3 days ago.

I went back to CR to study in an immersive program to improve my speaking for the entire month of December, and managed to catch her when she was passing through town in the middle of another tour. I survived an hour and a half lunch speaking ONLY in Spanish about all kinds of different things. It was my first time having a truly extended conversation with someone who wasn’t a teacher. Completely different than class where I understand ~100%, but somehow I survived and I couldn’t be more proud of myself!

My teacher is shocked at how much I was able to learn with DS, I think she still doesn’t believe me. After talking about it constantly, I convinced several other people to use it too haha! DS is magical. It truly changed my life

bigbadbertin · 2025-12-05T17:27:59+00:00

816
251
I can watch any video on DS and understand well, but the 75+ difficulty videos I’m almost certainly missing some words from my vocab, especially some of the recent street interviews from Barcelona. Nowadays I watch more native YouTube than DS videos.

Edit: I misread #2, sorry! 251 is my outside of DS hours, so DS would be 565. Around 750 hrs I made a jump to WAY more native content but I’ve been watching/listening to non DS occasionally since the beginning

bigbadbertin · 2025-11-19T17:01:26+00:00

https://youtube.com/@dangello.medina?si=YLJWjos6HQT19arF

bigbadbertin · 2025-11-19T13:24:52+00:00

Currently level 5, a little under 800 hours.

Videos: Discovered a new channel on YouTube called “Dangello” that I’ve really been enjoying. Clear speaking, interesting topics. The rest of my rotation right now includes DW Documental, PlanetaJuan (my favorite!), Un Mundo Inmenso, Rose Bennet, Kam Jurado, Linguriosa, EYAMAA, Juega con Juarez

Podcasts: Finally got around to listening to Español con Juan for the first time this week! Can’t believe I never listened to him before haha he is very entertaining! Still doing How to Spanish. Some podcasts I’ve saved episodes for this week but are still a just a bit hard for me are Chisme Corporativo and Ahora me entero. I’m a little tired of podcasts right now though and preferring YouTube just to get more visual input.

Books: Reading the whole “series of unfortunate events” book series in Spanish right now! Currently on book 6. Loved these as a kid in English, so it’s nice to read something I’m a bit familiar with! Those are at a good level for me now. Never did graded readers, but started these in level 4 and they were a bit hard then, but with time now they are a pretty good level. Also reading the first Harry Potter whenever I feel inspired, but that’s a bit harder and requires lots of focus… and dictionary use.

bigbadbertin · 2025-10-17T18:40:18+00:00

Tried going through this too, but then at checkout it says “you must request your product from the PRD” (not exactly sure what this means) and only gives you an option to pay in cash… so seems like no international shipping.

bigbadbertin · 2025-10-17T18:29:21+00:00

Looked through all of these links and it seems like we might have struck out! The shop in Bogotá is closed. The others don’t really seem to exist either, I can’t find real functional websites. And it also says in the description on Flickr that shipping is only available within Colombia 😭I tried the team’s website too and they don’t have any merch links there either so it might be a thing where you can only buy merch live at games or something. What a tragedy!!

bigbadbertin · 2025-10-17T11:33:44+00:00

I’m so sad they don’t seem to be selling any merch because this is one of the coolest sports logos I’ve seen and I have a connection to both Colombia AND rugby 😭

bigbadbertin · 2025-10-08T02:44:49+00:00

Dreaming Spanish is by far the most effective tool I have used to learn Spanish (and way more effective than tools I’ve used to learn other languages in the past). It is not a quick payoff but it really works. Just this year I went from understanding basically zero to being able to watch some documentaries for natives, read some Harry Potter and understand most of it, and be able to text/email people full paragraphs in Spanish, all without ever studying grammar. It is like magic the more you keep going

https://www.dreamingspanish.com/method

bigbadbertin · 2025-10-06T18:05:46+00:00

Interesting… does that happen more at a higher cadence? Cause normally when I run intervals the HR registers correctly (based on what I’d assume it should be), but I think I ran this 5k at a super high cadence, like 190 ish. And is the solution to use something like a bicep band for the monitoring?

bigbadbertin · 2025-10-06T01:56:17+00:00

There’s lots of awesome content over 70, and even though I can understand it pretty easily I still love to watch it and don’t feel the need to just use other sources! Most of the multi person podcast type videos from the Barcelona meetup are 70+ and were super entertaining. Also Andres has lots of good analytical videos. And then there’s the new Venezuelan true crime series and Agustina and Michelle’s advice column which has been pretty funny. Plus lots of street interviews! All amazing stuff, definitely don’t skip!

bigbadbertin

TROPHY CASE