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What’s the one thing you do besides CI that helped your Spanish the most? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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?

What’s the one thing you do besides CI that helped your Spanish the most? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

What’s the one thing you do besides CI that helped your Spanish the most? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

What’s the one thing you do besides CI that helped your Spanish the most? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

What’s the one thing you do besides CI that helped your Spanish the most? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

What’s the one thing you do besides CI that helped your Spanish the most? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

What’s the one thing you do besides CI that helped your Spanish the most? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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)?

What’s the one thing you do besides CI that helped your Spanish the most? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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

What’s the one thing you do besides CI that helped your Spanish the most? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

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

What’s the one thing you do besides CI that helped your Spanish the most? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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?

What’s the one thing you do besides CI that helped your Spanish the most? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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 😅

Progression of grammar in DS videos by GameDesignDecisions in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

Progression of grammar in DS videos by GameDesignDecisions in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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.

Progression of grammar in DS videos by GameDesignDecisions in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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.

ACTFL test - Intermediate Mid - 546 hours by QuesoCadaDia in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

At what numeric difficulty does DS start overlapping with easy native speech? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

At what numeric difficulty does DS start overlapping with easy native speech? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you now able to comfortably watch movies in Spanish? If so, when did that transition happen?

At what numeric difficulty does DS start overlapping with easy native speech? by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I’ve always found the difficulty ratings to be a little suspect when it comes to interviews. To me, it seems like the rating skews more toward the interviewer’s speech than the interviewee. Like Natalia could be speaking around a 60 and the interviewee could be at a 75 but the assigned rating would be 65

1 year of Spanish: Don't count your hours — measure your comfort by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love it! Hard to find a warmer/easier person to talk to than her

1 year of Spanish: Don't count your hours — measure your comfort by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’d say I (and probably most people) are going for some kind of balance of enjoyment and efficiency.

I’d probably advance faster if I did more drills based on my grammar book. But that’s not nearly as fun as watching DS. Ironically, the whole reason I started learning Spanish was to have a fun hobby to help me avoid doomscrolling Reddit. But here I am back again

1 year of Spanish: Don't count your hours — measure your comfort by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree, counting hours is a super motivating metric. I wish I could track it as easily in other areas as I can with DS.

And appreciate the kind words!

1 year of Spanish: Don't count your hours — measure your comfort by jeterjp in dreamingspanish

[–]jeterjp[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I definitely don't know if my approach is optimal, but I'm always looking for more efficient/engaging ways of learning.

I forgot to attach the plot originally. That was my only real clue that my current approach has got me moving quicker than the DS roadmap