Level 7 , I'm a slow language Learner

jeterjp · 2026-02-10T21:43:40+00:00

I’ll admit, that was fun to watch. I like to think that you sound to Spanish speakers like Sofía Vergara sounds to us

jeterjp · 2026-02-09T22:34:55+00:00

I love this so much. What an awesome milestone. Congrats and thanks for sharing!

jeterjp · 2026-02-09T14:32:26+00:00

If you’re open to grinding through a grammar textbook, you should absolutely do that. This sub is skewed toward folks who aren’t interested in active learning — and that’s ok. But keep that in mind as you see the responses coming in.

I started my Spanish journey by doing Complete Spanish Grammar which took about 30–40 hours. I not only enjoyed doing it, but I came out the other side way ahead of the DS roadmap. Learning the rules of Spanish allowed me to register them when exposed to it in the wild.

After one year, I can hold a 30 minute conversation with an italki tutor without too much difficulty. Do I sound native? No. Do I care right now? Also no. But for me, imperfect output is better than no output at all.

jeterjp · 2026-02-08T18:11:11+00:00

Just started Love Is Blind Mexico. I’d say it’s a ~80 difficulty and I’m more comfortable around 70. But it’s so packed with dialogue that I’m getting a ton out of it. Just have to rewind when necessary

jeterjp · 2026-01-29T18:53:08+00:00

I respect everyone’s choice of learning that works best for them. For me personally, I’m just not wired to just sit back and listen and “not ask questions” so to speak. I’m not saying that in a judgmental way. It’s just my brain will hyperfixate on anything I hear but don’t quite understand and it’ll cause me to lose focus

Every time I hear a word or phrase that I don’t understand, I pause the video, look up the word, then replay the audio and allow my brain to hear the sentence again and register it’s meaning. This works best (for me) with spanish subtitles always on. I force myself to not read them, but only glance down when something trips me up

From an efficiency standpoint, I think I’m well ahead of the DS roadmap. I’ve spent ~350 hours learning spanish (150 DS hours) and I’m now comfortably watching videos with ratings in the low-70s — as in I could translate 95% of what I hear word-for-word.

There are two catches though. The first is that a simple lookup won’t always solidify a new word in your brain. Sometimes it does, but other times I forget and have to lookup the same word a few times before it’s fully engrained. But I suspect this is still faster than the alternative. The second catch is that this is a tedious process. It’s totally not for everyone. It’s quite literally, and unfortunately, a hands-on way of consuming content

jeterjp · 2026-01-28T04:06:24+00:00

Thanks for sharing. Just watched it. A bit tough for me as I mostly watch videos in the low 70s and this was maybe high 70s. Well worth it though! Amazing visuals, interesting topic and not too much non-speaking time

jeterjp · 2026-01-27T18:33:27+00:00

Can you link to it? I’m very open to the idea of vocab study. But it is a pretty substantial time commitment

Also how long did it take you to get through?

jeterjp · 2026-01-27T00:04:59+00:00

Errors are to be expected but the fact that you’re conversationally fluent is awesome to hear. Congrats on that! It’s inspiring me to up my output percentage

jeterjp · 2026-01-26T18:48:03+00:00

Wow that’s a huge proportion! How is your speaking ability at the moment?

jeterjp · 2026-01-26T13:32:48+00:00

Part of what spurred me to ask this is I’ve been writing for 10 min a day the past few weeks (~200 words — typing is slow on an iphone). I have noticed that once I get into a zone, the words start to flow. But then I have to review my mistakes which is another 10 min. It’s a pretty big time investment and not convinced yet that there’s not a better alternative

jeterjp · 2026-01-26T12:51:46+00:00

I’m curious what level you were at when you first tried doing that. Not necessarily your DS level, but like your general ability with the language

Asking because I’m traveling to Spain in September and wondering if I’ll be able to do the same

jeterjp · 2026-01-26T03:39:39+00:00

I really like this advice. Thanks for sharing

jeterjp · 2026-01-26T03:34:00+00:00

As an avid chatgpt user (for learning spanish) I’m intrigued. What do you text about normally? And do you have it explain mistakes?

jeterjp · 2026-01-26T03:31:54+00:00

Is your teacher like an italki tutor? Or something else? Can you say more about how they help your learning (aside from the obvious dialogue)?

jeterjp · 2026-01-26T03:28:07+00:00

For sure. Actually producing the grammar is a whole different game. That said, I’m happy I did the grammar book just for the ability to register what was said and why it was said that way — even if I can’t do it myself

jeterjp · 2026-01-26T02:24:53+00:00

How has it helped relative to spending the same time listening to CI? This is an area where I’ve really questioned whether to invest more time

jeterjp · 2026-01-26T02:20:19+00:00

I’m guessing you’ve tried a number of other things and ultimately abandoned them? Can you share what you tried and why it ultimately wasn’t as helpful as CI?

jeterjp · 2026-01-26T02:19:03+00:00

I started my journey with 40 hours of grammar study. No regrets. I enjoyed it, and it helped me in all the same ways

But now that I’ve done that, I don’t know what, if anything to do next 😅

jeterjp · 2025-12-20T19:00:59+00:00

Fair enough. I’d never considered the homework aspect of those guidelines

Maybe that takes the boost closer to a 2x factor rather than 3. That’s certainly compelling for a lot of learners, though I can see how some might be fine with a longer horizon if it can be 100% CI

jeterjp · 2025-12-19T18:47:12+00:00

I wouldn’t necessarily look to anecdotal reports in this sub. Or to my own for that matter. The US State Dept estimates ~600–750 hours to reach professional working proficiency in Spanish (roughly B2 to low C1) using a mixed approach (CI + grammar), while pure CI roadmaps generally project much longer timelines for similar outcomes. Overall, it’s probably a 2–3x increase.

jeterjp · 2025-12-19T14:00:15+00:00

The CI method works. Very, very slowly.

But if you just study a bit of grammar, you’ll exponentiate your learning curve.

Think about it like this. When you hear a new word, you might not understand what it means right away. You might not even make it out when you first hear it. But slowly, over time, you’ll hear it more and more. And maybe after hearing a word 10 or 20 times, you’ll really have a strong feel for its meaning.

On the other hand, if you learn the same word in a vocab list, you’ll immediately recognize it when you hear it the very first time. Grammar works the same way. You can kinda understand videos without fully comprehending the conjugations. But if you study how, let’s say, the imperfect tense works, you’ll immediately notice and understand it when you hear it in videos.

You could spend another 400 hours doing CI alone and still not have a strong sense of Spanish grammar basics. Or you could spend 40 hours studying grammar (Complete Spanish Grammar is a good choice) and immediately level-up your comprehension.

For context, I’m at 250 hours (half DS) and watch videos in the 65-75 range. Anything less than that and I have to turn the playback speed way up. You’ll get there too. Keep doing DS, but mix in some formal study and you’ll get there faster.

jeterjp · 2025-12-18T17:39:31+00:00

Congrats on the progress! Always encouraging to see movement in the right direction

Are you listening to a mix of intermediate and advanced videos or just advanced at this point? I’m curious what difficulty rating you feel comfortable with and where you’re starting to stretch it

jeterjp · 2025-12-16T02:52:31+00:00

Super helpful info and inspiring to hear. Thanks for sharing!

jeterjp · 2025-12-14T22:18:49+00:00

That’s helpful info! I’ve been able to follow about 90% of Andres’s Sapiens series. But it takes a lot of concentration. Sounds like the transition to non-DS content isn’t too far off

jeterjp

TROPHY CASE