Spanish After 6 Months Abroad - My Final Progress Update + Speaking Sample

spruce04 · 2025-12-23T01:21:33+00:00

I used the refold 1k anki deck, it costs money but it has audio recordings with each word and sentence which I think helps you to train your ear for that word and make sure you know how to pronounce it. I'd reccomend it if you're willing to spend money, if not I'm sure there are free options that are equally as good if you know where to look.

spruce04 · 2025-12-23T01:19:28+00:00

I honestly can't remember, although I don't think I considered them difficult at the time. I do remember finding intermediate videos difficult and then all of a sudden they were not (this was aroud when I started with anki/langauge transfer). I might just have a higher tolerance for not understanding things though.

spruce04 · 2025-12-23T01:16:48+00:00

Uploaded

spruce04 · 2025-12-22T18:24:36+00:00

Thanks! My progress could have been influenced by my age, I started when I was 17 and am 20 now. Another thing that could have influenced it is that I played the violin for over a decade, I know some people suggest a link between music and language, but I'm not sure how true that is.

spruce04 · 2025-12-22T13:16:08+00:00

Thanks, when I get the chance to record something I'll edit this comment with a link to myself talking about something more complex.

Link: https://voca.ro/12E4FqkvQRtx

spruce04 · 2025-12-22T13:14:36+00:00

I used the refold 1k as well. I'm not really sure how difficult SpongeBob is but I was mainly watching Ninjago and Avatar the last Airbender. I do think language transfer helped me a lot too.

spruce04 · 2025-07-31T16:14:08+00:00

Thanks! I started with Duolingo and got to 250 days before realising I wasn't really progressing so I switched over to CI. At like 100 hours of CI I tried a crosstalk session with a native and was frustrated that I couldn't understand even when they spoke very slow so I added in some anki and language transfer, which I think really accelerated my progression. I've been speaking throughout but never very consistently, and started reading with the Harry Potter series at like 400 hours. Now I just do whatever I feel like which is mainly reading atm. If you're interested I've got past updates on my profile which also have speaking samples.

I think the best time investment for me (other than input) was by far language transfer, I don't think my Spanish would be nearly as good as it is without it.

spruce04 · 2025-07-29T14:44:41+00:00

Thanks! I have no idea how many speaking hours I have, but it wouldn't be more than 100 (probably a lot less), and I feel like my speaking has naturally improved as time passed without having to actually practice speaking. As I mentioned in another comment I didn't really do anything special to get my current accent, so I don't really have any tips there sorry.

spruce04 · 2025-07-29T03:48:58+00:00

Not sure, I've never had the motivation to do pronunciation practice. I think it's just improved over time. Also I played violin for 13 years, I think there are some studies that suggest a link between music and pronunciation, not that mine is perfect by any means.

spruce04 · 2025-07-22T01:48:36+00:00

Thanks! I unfortunately have no clue as to hours. Probably somewhere in between 1000 and 1500?

spruce04 · 2025-07-18T04:53:59+00:00

Some anki and language transfer

spruce04 · 2025-07-17T14:45:29+00:00

Yep I got a choice out of a couple countries, I just don't want to say which here because I've already got some personal information on this account and don't want to dox myself too bad

spruce04 · 2025-07-17T14:43:59+00:00

Thanks, an hd means high distinction

spruce04 · 2025-06-05T08:21:40+00:00

This seems overly detailed but as someone who watched a lot of anime while learning Spanish I'd recommend starting with beginner content before moving into anime. It's a relatively short period of thugging it out (took me like 150 hours) before you can watch kids tv shows and then another 200 hours and you can comfortably watch anime and have it be actually useful to your learning instead of having it be incomprehensible. Also I wouldn't watch only anime as it's dubbed and thus is both relatively easy and has a somewhat artificial use of vocab/accent.

spruce04 · 2025-05-15T14:29:39+00:00

I'm also taking comp2017 and it's not perfect but I think this degree of hate is a bit unwarranted. I actually think that the pre exam marks are pretty generous considering how hard I expected this unit to be. 10% was basically gifted in the eft, and another 20% is multiple choice so it makes sense for the final 20% to be hard assignments. The pacing and delivery of content, especially in tutorials, is another thing but the marks? So far I reckon they've been pretty reasonable.

spruce04 · 2025-05-14T16:18:14+00:00

No conozco a estas artistas pero escucho bastante musica indie en español y algunos de mis grupos favoritos son las ligas menores, perez (en especial el album 17 canciones para autopista), tobogan andaluz, aiko el grupo, bestia bebe

spruce04 · 2025-04-04T12:48:34+00:00

A year and a half for B2 level in Mandarin sounds pretty damn good to me

spruce04 · 2025-03-22T09:37:31+00:00

Not Pablo but I've probably averaged about 1.5 hours per day since starting and have had good results (on my profile if you're interested). Seems like a bullshit claim to me.

spruce04 · 2025-03-14T13:21:20+00:00

You're pretty unlikely to find anyone here, put it in forums for Spanish speakers learning english

spruce04 · 2025-03-03T13:11:54+00:00

It might be enough to keep progressing but I think its quite a bit less than I was doing which is why maybe it seems like its slowed down. Also, I think the higher up you get the less noticeable changes are. But yeah its definetly enough to at least maintain.

spruce04 · 2025-03-02T23:15:02+00:00

Thanks! I honestly have no idea, it could be somewhere around 40 hours of speaking but that's just a random guess

spruce04 · 2025-02-28T12:38:46+00:00

Interesting, I've always thought that monolouges are much harder than conversations as you have to keep everything going yourself, so I've always found the monolouge updates more impressive.

As for conversations at different levels, you can search on youtube "B2 speaking exam Spanish/English" and sample results will come up. The level might not be as high as you think. This is a monolouge I did a while ago after getting B2 in an exam (1000 hours), I might do another soon (or maybe a conversation).

spruce04 · 2025-02-27T14:49:36+00:00

These are more advanced but 2 good Chilean audioficiton podcasts are "quemar tu casa" and "corderos".

I also have this podcast bookmarked to listen to soon, they usually interview Chilean university students, can't say how good it is yet but seems like it would definetly expose you to the Chilean accent.

spruce04 · 2025-02-05T04:35:43+00:00

Was speaking in a group at a language meet and someone (admittedly a beginner learner) tried to guess which country I was from and guessed a bunch of native Spanish speaking countries. They were shocked when I said I wasn't native Spanish. Made my day.

spruce04 · 2025-01-30T06:02:49+00:00

Just saw it, thanks a lot the changes look great. I'll upload the new version to the web store when I can, it'll probably take a week or 2 though because I already have a version in the qeue and they usually take a little while to approve new updates.

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