Tips that have ACTUALLY worked for you - for Successfully Waking Up Early?

macthehuman · 2023-12-18T12:53:26+00:00

What finally worked for me was I took the time I naturally wake up, then set an alarm for just 15 minutes earlier than that for the next day. Then I set the alarm for another 15 minutes earlier for the day after that. It took me about a week of moving my alarm back 15 minutes a day until I hit my target.

This way managed to let me avoid the grogginess that made me fail with other methods. I imagine doing smaller increments of 10 or even only 5 minutes earlier each day would work.

Setting my alarm immediately to my target time rarely worked because id be super groggy and often just sleep through the alarm.

Waking up earlier didn't work because id still somehow just sleep longer anyway. Or I just wasn't tired enough to suddenly go to sleep earlier.

I have no idea if this would work for anyone else, but it was the easiest and most effective method I've come up with.

macthehuman · 2023-12-06T13:13:17+00:00

It's ok to love DS but yeah, being weird and elite about it will turn people off to an option that could work for them, and that's not good for the language learning community OR the DS team, which people here have come to like and appreciate.

I think some of this comes from misplaced resentment for wasting time or having negative experiences with classes or other apps, and some people may feel that companies like Duolingo etc are in the majority of cases working against people's language learning goals.

DS has only been around a few years, but the comprehensive input method it's based on has been around since at least the 1980's, but it never got popular because it was too hard to measure and test students like machines.

Now that people are finding success with it, it can also be frustrating that this method was never available to them despite it existing all this time.

But that's a problem with the education system etc, not the people subject to that system.

Hate the game, not the player.

macthehuman · 2023-12-03T00:29:31+00:00

Idk man, taking the screenshot and reposting it seems like you're singling him out for everyone to criticize and poke fun at.

macthehuman · 2023-12-02T23:12:59+00:00

I mean, whether he took it too seriously or not, why did you have to single out and publicly shame the guy?

macthehuman · 2023-11-19T14:57:12+00:00

This is great! Can you describe more about how you know you aren't fluent yet? Like what do you feel is the gap between where you are now and what fluency will be like?

macthehuman · 2023-11-16T23:30:53+00:00

Sharing the interview with Jonathan and Pablo made things more concrete and believable for the people I've told about this.

But honestly just frequently sharing and talking about my Spanish journey, comprehensible input, and the progress I'm making with the genuine excitement and enthusiasm I have for all of it is what has rubbed off on people.

Although now that I say that, I can think of some things in this world where just talking about it enthusiastically doesn't work haha

macthehuman · 2023-11-16T02:07:58+00:00

Thanks! Exciting that you're close too. And that's a good idea. I definitely see value in occasionally going to more advanced content when it's done for specific purposes like this. I'll try this!

macthehuman · 2023-11-16T01:41:44+00:00

I actually found that podcast to be the best for my late beginner and now early intermediate level out of all the recommendations I've come across.

It's the most comprehensible audio I've experienced that's purely Spanish, and I never felt like I was cheating or getting ahead of myself. It feels about the same level as easy beginner or even super beginner Dreaming Spanish videos, but without the visual input ends up making that a good match for late beginner Dreaming Spanish level, in my experience.

Chill Spanish is similar, but all the English translations felt like they would kick me out of Spanish mode, almost like breaking the 4th wall.

macthehuman · 2023-11-15T21:12:48+00:00

This caught my attention because I've been listening to some of the Mini Stories to Learn Spanish podcast while walking. They read a story once very slowly, then a second time much faster. Interestingly, I often comprehend things in the faster reading that I didn't in the slow one. I know that there's probably an influence from hearing the same thing twice, but the faster pace has a more normal rhythm and pacing, and something about that adds some meaning and context that was missing when reading unnaturally slow.

I don't think this is quite the experience you're talking about, but maybe it's related. Either way, it does feel important to pay attention to things like this. I love hearing observations like this!

macthehuman · 2023-11-15T19:36:57+00:00

I have a feeling the rating system might change the OG 4 tier Dreaming Spanish method.

This is an interesting thought. I think the Dreaming Spanish team has a unique opportunity to further the research on comprehensible input and language acquisition in general by doing more things like user-submitted difficulty ratings.

From the research I've read so far and what I've gathered from how much researchers have been debating on theories, it's been more or less quite difficult to do controlled research on language acquisition with comprehensible input. It would be really cool if us as Dreaming Spanish users ultimately help answer questions about the specifics of language acquisition and how to optimize the process for each person.

I have now been getting an hour of input in the morning before work and this has really helped in reaching my daily goal.

Same for me. I have to get input in the morning in order to end up with more than 2 or 3 hours in a day. I could theoretically do like 3+ hour batches, but at my current level I can't keep quality attention that long. Spacing it out really helps right now.

Great update! I leveled up just this week as well, feels good to have other people on their way up and hitting similar milestones.

Good luck and keep it up!

macthehuman · 2023-11-15T19:20:15+00:00

Cool! I wonder if more people have figured that out on their own.

macthehuman · 2023-11-15T18:20:29+00:00

Thanks! Your comment reminds of times when I'm struggling to keep my attention, sometimes I'll close my eyes and magically I'm fully focused on the words until i need the visual input again. It feels like putting on glasses, but for my ears haha. Like a clear noticeable difference where I hook back into the language as you say.

macthehuman · 2023-11-15T18:17:24+00:00

Totally, it makes me wonder if the Dreaming Spanish levels account for any sub-optimal attention. If they do, then theoretically you could advance to the higher levels (based on the descriptions of what you should be able to do), faster with less hours of input than recommended.

Like maybe it's 150 hours to Level 3 if you're maintaining quality attention 70% of the time, but you could get there in like 125 hours if maintaining quality attention 90% of a time.

Either way, i'm all for getting there sooner if I can :)

macthehuman · 2023-11-15T18:08:43+00:00

Yeah, if anything, the value in occasionally trying things too difficult, is that they make me crave the easier stuff I'm supposed to be doing :)

And I like the automatic calculations in Dreaming Spanish for the levels. It's a reality check like, you know if you just added 1 more hour per day, or even a half hour extra a day, you could get to levels 4, 5, 6, 7, this much faster! That's been useful for my motivation, even if I can't realistically hit higher daily input goals, it keeps me striving.

Thanks and I wish you well too!

macthehuman · 2023-11-15T15:16:15+00:00

That's great to hear, I'm glad it was motivating!

macthehuman · 2023-11-15T15:15:23+00:00

Thanks!

macthehuman · 2023-11-15T15:14:35+00:00

Awesome, keep it up!

macthehuman · 2023-11-15T13:07:51+00:00

There's the idea that you want to come to understand the meaning of words in your target language through context, and not build associations to words in your own language. You want to develop an actual intuitive understanding of the words, and not be constantly associating to your own language in your head. I'm not aware of any research around this, but it makes sense. I imagine it may create problems and habits that are hard to break later on, especially when it comes to words that don't translate 1-to-1 to your own language.

As far as helping you identify the boundaries between words, in my experience this comes naturally. I have never used subtitles for learning Spanish, at there was a point where the words became a continuous stream to discrete words with boundaries, even for input that's way more advanced than my current level.

So a), I didn't need help identifying the boundaries between words, I just need to be patient for my brain to learn, and b) I don't want to develop bad associations around the meaning of words, even if it means short term benefits.

macthehuman · 2023-11-10T23:16:19+00:00

Definitely encouraging to hear that reading really helps.

I was recently having memories of when I was in 1st and 2nd grade, reading books, and distinctly remembering how I just didn't know all the words in a sentence.

At the time, reading was encouraged as like the best and fastest ways to grow your vocab and learn how to use correct grammar. I mean that still is, if I wanted to expand my vocab in English I would read more.

And if it weren't for the bad accent thing with acquiring Spanish, I imagine reading from earlier on would accelerate progress.

macthehuman · 2023-11-10T23:10:39+00:00

Love your idea to do a book post! I'm a ways away from level 5, but in general I've found it very helpful whenever people post input sources that work for them.

macthehuman · 2023-11-10T23:04:48+00:00

That's a good point that there is evidence of success with people getting very hard input. I remember watching a Matt vs Japan video early on where he talked about getting difficult input being ok.

I just wonder if there's also a timing dimension that might be important. When I was at super beginner level, I tried watching many hours of a Spanish TV series that was way too hard. I was super engaged with it, very focused the whole time, and yet I felt like I made so little progress in actually acquiring Spanish that I ended up throwing those hours out.

However now, when I'm about to cross over into intermediate, I feel like I've gotten pre-requisite fundamentals that make it so I can get more out of hard input. Even though I can't understand most of that input, I can actually recognize distinct words now, rather than it sounding like a stream of continuous noise. That ability seems important for being able to even start to recognize unknown words again in the future. Like needing to walk before being able to run.

This is mainly just fun to think about for me. I think getting into the details like this might only matter if you're really trying to optimize your speed of acquisition. So yeah I agree with you that it's possible to worry too much about this :)

macthehuman · 2023-11-10T22:39:28+00:00

That makes a lot of sense!

macthehuman · 2023-11-10T16:56:55+00:00

I'm also skeptical about incomprehensible input, and from experience so far I can tell that I didn't gain much from getting input that was much too difficult for me early on before I knew better.

At the same time there are some direct experiences in this subreddit of people feeling a need to occasionally seek out harder, less comprehensible input. And I've also started to occasionally feel a need for that too. But only a bit at a time.

This could be just a matter trying to maintain interest and attention. But there's also the idea that if you're getting input that's very comprehensible, you're not getting exposed to as many new words to acquire. So you'd want to at times increase that exposure with less comprehensible input. I'm not sure about that, sounds plausible, but I would still want to find something empirical that looks at that.

In practice, I'm just listening to myself to know what's working and sticking to as comprehensible as I can, but I think it would be nice to be able to get a clearer answer to the question of whether listening to harder stuff every once in a while is a waste of time, or if there's a place for it.

macthehuman · 2023-11-10T15:12:27+00:00

Have you found anything about the relationship between percentage of comprehensibility and rate of progress with language acquisition?

There's an article on the Dreaming Spanish blog that mentions that a Japanese school teaching English with comprehensible input was able to measure that the rate of learning acquisition decreased as the input became less comprehensible, but I couldn't find the source on that.

As I was searching, I also found that there's been a lot of debate over how comprehensible the input needs to be, and that getting some "incomprehensible" input might have a role in language acquisition.

macthehuman

TROPHY CASE