2700 hour update
Hey everybody, I'm here to provide an update at the 2700 mark after my post yesterday where a handful of folks were asking about such (shout out to u/betterAThalo, u/JBark1990, u/UppityWindFish, u/onlyhere4the_tea). I'll try to be reasonably comprehensive but can answer other questions in the comments.
General Overview
I continue to be happy with the progress and am continuing to improve. I've traveled internationally to Spanish speaking countries a few times since beginning this journey and was able to get by without any English. I also find myself having increasing numbers of ad-hoc interactions with Spanish speakers in my day to day life and can understand/eavesdrop on what is going on around me which is cool. The world of content is pretty open to me now but not completely. For example, I am currently watching La Casa de Papel - something that was a comically bad experience earlier on - and with Spanish subtitles on I can follow it. Note: I am somebody who watches everything with subtitles, including in English. Without them here I would miss more but still can follow the plot. Dubbed shows are no problem, but I honestly don't watch much of that. I'm planning to take the DELE C1 next year and am preparing for that - this is purely as a personal challenge. I've taken the practice exams which placed me at the high B2 level which feels about right.
I'll cover each skill further below, but first I'll address a question that comes up in most of my update posts: how do I manage to get 5+ hours of CI a day amidst life, etc? I wear bone conducting headphones that don't shut out the outside world, and as soon as I wake up I put those on and start a podcast while I am making coffee/breakfast. I do the same as I do chores throughout the day, exercise, drive, etc. They are easy to pause with a button push any time I need to have a conversation. I have the kindle app on my phone, so I can easily read whenever I can stare at my phone. I also do the same for watching videos when I am able to be still. That's essentially it - when you add up the amount of time for filling in the cracks in your day like this it can easily total up to a couple of hours. Add to that 30-60 min on either side of the day in bed, lunch break, workout, and it is pretty attainable without "making it a thing". As far as the consistency, it is simply part of my life now. I barely view it as "needing to do something", I just do it. I do have goals though and am a very disciplined, goal-oriented person, so there is intrinsic motivation for me.
The other question that comes up is whether I am passively listening or not. I try to focus on the content as much as I can (remember I am at the point where I am just listening to something that interests me and it is less of trying to actively acquire a skill). Of course I sometimes zone out and back in again. This sometimes prompts people to say something about the quality of this input, to which my response has been that I have the goal of learning the language as fast as possible. Therefore, 30 min of half-zoned-out input is better than 0 minutes. I am not seeking to gain the highest level in the language *with the fewest hours of effort* - note the subtle difference. I am optimizing for wall-clock time, not study time. Thus my tongue-in-cheek response before has been that you are welcome to craft the optimal hour of input that you consume in a sensory deprivation chamber such that when you provide your 1500 hour update you are further than any DS-follower has been, but for me I am going to not question all that and just put on another podcast. It has worked well for me.
Onto each skill. I'll be honest about these, but keep in mind there is also a Dunning-Kruger effect here. The further you get in the language, the more you realize you do not know. Thus, I don't want folks earlier in the journey to be discouraged if I say something is hard - it is - but I also think you would be more than happy to have the progress I had at each point (you can review my post history for speaking samples and other updates to showcase). I know I am.
Reading
I started reading this year, and it has been such a great journey. At first, it was a slog and required the most basic of content. I would get sleepy after 15 min and sometimes literally nap. I was also much slower than my reading pace in English for obvious reasons.
At this point, I'd rate myself at maybe an 8-9th grade level. I can now read most adult books, but works like Marquez are still a real challenge with vocabulary. Vocabulary is my biggest gap, and reading helps a lot with that. I do now use the translation feature pretty liberally because it is so easy in the Kindle app, so it is not a purist approach. Reading itself is a lot less taxing now, and I can read a book for an hour or more without fatigue. I'd say my reading rate is about 150-200 wpm which is less than my English but is reasonably comparable. One challenge I have found is consistently finding books - I did not previously realize that many popular books simply do not have a Spanish translation, and the tastes of Hispanic readers are not the same as Americans.
What else do you want to know about reading? Also, here is a full list + word counts of what I have read:
| Title | Estimated Word Count |
| -------------------------------------------------- | -------------------- |
| Hola Lola - A1 | 17000 |
| Un Hombre Fascinante - A2 | 45000 |
| Muerte en Buenos Aires - A1 | 18000 |
| El Profe de Español - A2 | 12000 |
| Año Nuevo, Vida Nueva | 21000 |
| Spanish Novels: A2 Bundle | 50000 |
| Alice in wonderland A1 | 7000 |
| 13 easy Spanish stories | 18000 |
| El Asedio Del Supermercado | 5000 |
| Dracula A1 | 10000 |
| Hola Lola - A1 | 17000 |
| Año Nuevo, Vida Nueva | 21000 |
| Un Hombre Fascinante - A2 | 45000 |
| El Gato Negro - A2 | 3000 |
| ¿Me voy o me quedo? | 23000 |
| ¿Quién es mi padre? | 3000 |
| Sofia La hipocondríaca | 8000 |
| Journey to the Center of the Earth - A2 | 6000 |
| Sherlock Holmes - A2 | 12000 |
| Moby Dick - A1 | 11000 |
| Edgar Allen Poe stories | 12000 |
| La Otra Mujer | 2000 |
| Short stories in Spanish for Beginners | 34000 |
| Alice in Wonderland - A1 | 7000 |
| El Profe de Español - A2 | 11700 |
| Dracula - A1 | 10000 |
| Spanish Novels: A2 Bundle | 50000 |
| El Español en el Mundo | 21000 |
| El Sabueso de Los Baskerville | 11000 |
| ¿Me voy o me quedo? | 23000 |
| Short Stories in Spanish for Intermediate Learners | 42000 |
| Paco Ardit B1 Bundle | 58000 |
| Spanish Short Stories For Beginners | 45000 |
| Spanish Short Stories for Intermediates - B1 | 23000 |
| James and the Giant Peach | 25000 |
| La Teleraña de Carlota | 47000 |
| Poco Ardit B2 Bundle (Book 1, 2) | 32000 |
| Un Mal Principio (Series of Unfortunate Events 1) | 26000 |
| Poco Ardit B2 Bundle (Book 3-5) | 48000 |
| Paco Ardit B1 Bundle | 58000 |
| Matilda | 52000 |
| El León, la bruja y el ropero | 48000 |
| BFG (Big Friendly Giant) | 50000 |
| The Reptile Room | 36000 |
| El Alqimista | 38000 |
| Harry Potter y el piedra filosofal | 93000 |
| Brave New World | 77000 |
| The Catcher in the Rye | 88000 |
| Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | 38000 |
| Witches | 40000 |
| The Lightning Thief | 90000 |
| The Miserable Mill | 32000 |
| Fantasmas del pasado (B1) | 23000 |
| El amor en el tiempos de cólera | 148000 |
| Harry Potter y el Cámara Secreta | 102000 |
| The Giver | 52000 |
| Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban | 128000 |
| Becoming | 140000 |
| Harry Potter y el cáliz de fuego | 229000 |
| Harry Potter y el orden de la fénix | 308000 |
| Harry Potter y el misterio de principe | 200000 |
| Harry Potter y las reliquias de la muerte | 238000 |
| Crónica de una muerta anunciada | 30500 |
| James and the Giant Peach | 25000 |
| Witches | 40000 |
| Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | 38000 |
| Proyecto Hail Mary | 145000 |
| Cuestión de límites | 75000 |
| Como agua para chocolate | 65000 |
| No me puedes lastimar | 103000 |
| Nacidos para correr | 90000 |
| 11/22/63 | 250000 |
Writing
My experience here is limited to text exchanges with a few friends or iTalki conversations with my teachers, both of which give me the crutch/benefit of having autocorrect. I expect I would make a lot of accent placement errors if I had to write by hand. Actually formulating what to say is no different than speaking.
Speaking
My speaking has improved a lot. I have samples from 800 hours onward in my post history for those interested. I think my accent is fine. I've been complimented on it, and most importantly there does not seem to be any trouble being understood. Nobody is ever going to be fooled that I am a native, and I'm just fine with that. I do know my accent slips the most when I am having to focus on other parts of speaking like a conjugation that isn't coming fluidly or unusual words. This also gives me confidence that as I continue to improve so will my accent as I can focus more on that and less on *what* to say.
I have around 100 hours of iTalki classes at this point and rotate between 8-10 of my favorite professors, basically all of which are either Mexican or Colombian by preference. I appreciate the ones that correct me and find that helpful reinforcement even if not a purist thing. Mostly these are just conversations, and in particular I like the ones that ask deep questions about interesting topics because it makes the conversation engaging. A few of them are DELE specific and we do exercises together.
Conjugations have gotten relatively easy but still take some mental effort. Sometimes I blank entirely on an irregular verb, but sometimes I find myself constructing with ease some of the more complicated subjunctive/conditional combinations. It keeps getting easier but still has a ways to go.
Listening
This has been the biggest improvement lately. I almost exclusively listen to native content, and I have found a big increase since 2k hours in my ability to parse what is being said with rapidity by a native. It's a bit of a misnomer that Spanish is a phonetic language because the way letters are pronounced changes when spoken based on what is surrounding them. I found this made it hard to understand WHAT somebody was saying in the past, but that has become tremendously easier. I would say 8 or 9 out of 10 pieces of content in youtube are completely comprehensible. Leyendas Leyendarias has been my barometer of the hardest content I know for some time, and I would say I can comprehend it 75% without reading a transcript along.
Favorite content lately
Here's a somewhat random/unstructured dump of some of my favorite podcasts or channels.
For podcasts, I have a Spanish station I built with all of my usuals:
- Hoy Hablamos
- Leyendas Leyendarias
- Español a la Mexicana
- Martha Debayle
- Radio Ambulante
- Se Ragalan Dudas
- Cheleando con Mextalki
- El Dollop
- Siempre hay flores
- Cracks
- El hilo
- Black Mango Podcast
- Hoy en EL PAIS
- Dementes
- Guerras de Negocios
- Creepy en Español
- No Hay Tos
YouTube channels:
- Nick Daboom - video games, League of Legends
- Que pasaría si - cool "what if" style videos
- Luisito Comunica - travel
- Dana Lucia - travel
- Araya Vlogs - travel
- Alfredo Vozmediano - cooking
- Victor Abad - Formula 1
- ONE Running - running
- Planeta Juan - travel
- Codigo7700 - plane crashes
- Aylin y anarel - video games
- Memorias de Pez - history
- La capital - food/cooking
- Made with lau - food/cooking
- Guitarra Libre - guitar
- La base podcast - comedy/current events
- Menos Trece - gaming
- CdeCiencia - science
- Quantum Fracture - science
Hope this helps!