Level 6 in 8 months
TL;DR:
I wanted to give a look at my progress that's slightly different than most, so I've elected to use my input over the various months as my image. In short, the progress has been staggering. I went from being able to piece a few words together with DuoLingo's A2 in May to being able to listen to audiobooks of interest in Spanish. I have had a few short conversations in Spanish for necessity. I do not live in a Spanish country, nor have any Native friends or family. I have primarily utilized DS, anime and audiobooks, but have also used ESJ, the EasySpanish podcast, Chill Spanish Learn, and Cuentame. Over the last ~350-400 hours quite a few audiobooks (HP, Narnia series, and Pedro Urvi's Sendero del Guardabosques) have been especially helpful.
Long version:
A Little About Me:
I lead what I consider to be a very busy life. I work a full time job, am actively taking classes toward another degree, run marathons, am freshly married, and go out regularly with friends. Further, I travel on average every other month or so at least for a few days.
Overall impressions:
This process is kind of magical. Some days I find myself thinking in just snippets of Spanish going about my day, or while laying in bed at night. Especially on days with 6+ hours of input. All of my input is relatively focused. I'm very fortunate to have a job that lends itself to getting input on the job because I have "highly mental work" and "autopilot work". I get input while doing autopilot tasks. I suppose this makes me a "speed runner" but I don't really feel that way as with audiobooks unlocked, I'm just doing my hobby in another language.
The "Consistency"
I consider myself very consistent in general with my efforts in life, but it's interesting to see the ebb and flow when looking at the 8 months side by side. I can see where I got married, where Final Exams happened, vacations, and other major life events in the ebb and flow of my hours. The 8 weeks from late September to early November was a particularly stressful time, as there's a major trip my wedding, and a set of Finals all in that period.
Overall, I'm very happy with my average hours of input over this time. I started with 80 hours of past credit from DuoLingo and other experiences in my personal life, which puts me at an average of ~3.9 hours per day over this period.
For me, the key early on was to break the time up throughout my day, and recognize when I need to change things up and take a break. Nowadays, I can listen to hours and hours of Spanish consecutively without getting fatigued as long as the content is generally enjoyable.
What I Can Do
As noted above, I can watch dubbed and even some native television. It really depends on the content for Native content. I understand literally 100% of what's being said in dubbed anime content I've seen before and well over 90% for new content. It seems overall anime vocabulary in Spanish, like in Japanese is relatively simple.
I can read, but I don't want to. This is an interesting thing, because I'm a very active reader normally, reading more than ~50 novels or adult nonfiction books a year for several years in a row. Reading in Spanish is much more tiring. It is not "difficult" but it definitely is working a somewhat different but overlapping set of mental connections. As a result, I tend towards audiobooks which fit much better into my life in general. I'm really enjoying Pedro Urvi's El Sendero Del Guardabosques series. It's Spain Spanish, and while my primary native interactions will be with LatAm speakers, the content is very readily available thru my local library, and its very enjoyable, so I'm going to keep on listening to it. I am actively reading El Sutile Arte De Que Importa Un Carajo by Mark Manson.
I can converse, but am electing to start in a controlled setting. I have attended a handful of meetups and have done crosstalk once. Just as a way to gauge progress, and listen to less controlled Spanish in a busy setting. It has been beneficial, but I'm not a very extroverted person in general, and I struggle to speak in group settings because I don't like talking over people or being talked over. Further, I've been able to help Spanish speakers on a few occasions in my work with the public. It has been very fulfilling, particularly when I do not know words and have to talk around to a specific subject or meaning. I don't want to oversell this, as my interactions are usually just 2-3 minutes at most. As a result, my plan going forward is to utilize several iTalki sessions over January and February, and rejoin a local meetup group in March or April depending on my confidence level.
What Goals Do I Have For Myself?
- I intend to reach Level 7 by May 4th, 2025, which would mean more or less continuing at my current pace thru the first part of 2025. This will mark my 1 year point since finding DS and the CI/ALG methodology.
- I want to read Don Quixote and Cien Años de Soledad in print in 2025, even if that means December 2025.
- I want to be confident enough conversing that I feel I can mark myself as speaking Spanish for job applications, and work purposes. Something that still holds significant benefit in government fields, especially in urban and southern parts of the US. My hope is this will be true some time in the next few months.
- I want to fully unlock Spanish Twitch content. There are a few streamers I've found who play games I enjoy that I can understand most of the time, but it doesn't feel like super effective CI most of the time, due to the streamer tendency to use various accents, whether that be "gamer voices" or "childlike voices".
EDIT: I can't seem to figure out how to make the image show up in the reddit feed before opening the post. Any advice on that would be great...