We are so glad you made such a progress! Thank you for making us part of it! By the way: we said hello to you in our podcast. Thank you again for the mention.
Hey Mextalki, thanks so much for the shout out, it really means a lot since I've watched you guys since the beginning of my journey! Every time there is a new episode, I'm always one of the first to watch and haven't missed an episode to this date. Hopefully, when my Spanish gets a bit better, we could have chat about language learning and chill sometime.
Great Job! Your Spanish sounds really good! I'm a newbie at 175 hours. I was doing it the old way with books and grammar, and my son was doing Dreaming Spanish. I told him "That's not how you learn Spanish". He convinced me to give it a try, and I am now a believer. It seems like you are learning without studying. Words just pop into your head that you don't remember hearing, but you did!
That is a very impressive goal that you have hit but also your vocabulary and grammar and your pronunciation sound really good! You should be really proud of yourself! I started my dreaming Spanish Journey on the paid app about 3 months ago I believe. I have already picked up a good bit of vocabulary and I'm feeling more confident. I might be at 147 or 183 hours and looking forward to hitting my milestones!
As someone starting out on the same method, but for Japanese instead, these kinds of progress videos are really reassuring. I’m only 3 hours in, so obviously way less than what I’d need to start noticing real results, but until I start noticing those results it’s real hard not to have worries and doubts. But success stories, even in languages other than my target, are really useful for my motivation. Thank you very much!
Thanks for making this video. It gives me encouragement. I am at 1,100 hours of Dreaming Spanish CI. I understand 80 to 90% of what I hear in Spanish. I have not started speaking yet; I am waiting for the language to emerge. I was glad to hear you didn´t start speaking until 1400 hours or so. - Dave
Thanks Dave, I actually watched some of your videos in the past while I was immersing. Its always interesting seeing each person's experience and yeah I waited to speak since I didn't have any real reason to speak early.
Yeah, that's part of the reason I made this update. When I first started, I really wished I could see what is actually achievable by x amount of input hours. Glad you enjoyed the video.
@@realJoeSema I first heard “averiguar” from a Colombian girl when I was in the USA and she and I were students. I asked her if she wanted to be my guide in Colombia because I was planning a trip there. She said we will have to averiguar sobre este… btw, Colombia is nice and safer than people think ❤
@JuanMoreno-wo5yb depends how much time you put in per day: 30 min/day: ~11 years 1 hour/day: ~5.5 years 2 hours/day: ~2.7 years 3 hours/day: ~1.9 years 4 hours/day: ~1.4 years
@@someguy9204 I would guess that spending 30 min a day memorising 10 words a day would be better. After 1 yr you would know 3650 words and probably understand the language fairly well
Thanks for the video. At 929 hours and wondering what content to start at 1000. Definitely going to check out the podcasts you mentioned. Already started trying to listen to Relatos de la Noche.
Thank you for your video! I've been learning Spanish for a year with books mostly. My listening and speaking skills are very basic. I'm very Interested in watching your other videos. Muchas gracias y que tengas un buen dia!
This is so incredibly impressive to me I have to say. Your accent is very good(to my native english ears), this is a phenomenal feat and I’m excited to one day be where you are. I personally would indeed say you are fluent. You said you can only talk about government at a superficial level? Yea well a lot of Americans also can only talk about those things at a superficial level. I bet you’d be able to talk about American government in Spanish very well. For anyone doubting this method or working why he may not know or understand every single thing, take a few days and become aware of how often you get confused by people who speak ur language just cause they say things in a different way or in a tone you don’t understand. You’re still fluent in ur own language tho😂. I hope to one day find a video on why we are so critical of Spanish accent but we don’t do this when people learn English as a second language 🤷🏽♂️
cool man! I dont personally use dreaming spanish but i do watch a lot of shows and listen to podcasts and music. My favorite show 100% is 31 minutos ITS THE FUNNIEST SHOW EVER. Great job on your learning!
Enhorabuena por tu constancia y dedicación. Hablas muy bien el español y, como tú dices, con un poco más de input comprensible se irán corrigiendo los pequeños fallos.
Tiene una mente técnica ya explica todo en números y menciona la palabra ciencia a menudo. Gracias por compartir su viaje ya que nos da oportunidades de descubrir nuevos métodos de aprendizaje. No se si ya escuchó Radio Ambulante es un podcasts que me recuerda a la series This American life de NPR. Estoy en un proceso de aprender Francés y estoy (averiguando) e investigando canales de RUclips para ver cómo la gente aprende lenguas de distintas distintas maneras. Así es como encontré su canal. Gracias por todos esos consejos que explicó.
Im literally just watching the introduction of Dreaming Spanish. Im somewhere between intermediate and advanced so I’m trying to see if it will get me completely advanced faster. Thanks for sharing your experience with us
Yo hablo español desde los 10 años. Todavía se pone difícil hablar para mi. Sos demasiado difícil con vos mismo. Hablas muy bien y no tendrás problemas si te vas a un different país. Buena suerte!
I just joined DS and I've been consistently putting in 1 hour daily. completely focused while doing it. But now I've calculated 2000 hours if I never skip a single day each year. Clearly, I need to increase the number of hours per day.
@@AlFrazelle Thank you for this insight. So this means that as I progress, the activity will become more of simply changing my normal media consumption in my nature language and switch it to the second language. If that is the case, and I believe that it is, it means that I will easily be able to increase my daily media consumption in the 2nd language because I would say that I currently watch media in my native language approximately 5 hours per day. Thanks again... your insight is very motivating.
@@chandie5298 No problem! I would say so yes. I´m only intermediate myself but the more I learn, the more resources are available to me. And yes, if you consume 5 hours of media content a day, I´m sure that soon enough you could consume even half of that in Spanish :)
I've got over 700,000 words read. I input stuff into Lingq and read there so they can track what I've read. Unfortunately, I can read well but I can't listen to native talk without subtitles. So I think you did it right.
Hola Joe, es increible lo que has conseguido con el input comprensible. Quiero usar este método para aprender otros idiomas como el francés, alemán y chino; pero tengo una duda, tomaste notas o hacías flashcards con el contenido que consumias? O era solo escuchar?
Muchas gracias @fabian1019. Sí, el método funciona muy bien para cualquier idioma y personalmente no tomé tarjetas ni ningún tipo de notas. Sólo necesitas escuchar y adquirirás el idioma así como así.
@@realJoeSema I will be interested to see and hear your progress. I think you said: nuestra idioma and it would be nuestro idioma. I try to catch my mistakes but it is for some weird reason easier to catch them from others. 😮 I hope you don’t mind the correction. I love the corrections myself. ❤
Thanks Luke! I really liked your update videos and thoughts on language learning, would love to bounce ideas off each other in a video together. It would be cool since we're on the same journey.
Repetition is key for learning language. I've noticed that writing helps a lot with speaking. I chat with people online a lot and it's really improved my Spanish. Cuántos años tomaste para llegar a los dos milles horas de entrada? Llevo dos años y medio aprendiendo español, no cuento las horas que he estudado el idioma pero creo que tengo nivel intermedo de español. Creo que tu español es bueno, me parece que es avansado.
How do you track your CI? I use dreaming spanish which is nice that they track hours - but I also listen to podcasts at my level and youtube vidoes neither that I track. Do you manually just add everything up at end of day? Also, how comprehensible is your input? Sometimes on Dreaming Spanish I understand 80% or more on intermediate. Maybe 50% or better on advanced. On RUclips watching native content I may only get 25-50% depending on accents and topics. Sometimes way less like 20% - although in these cases I just bail. Does CI always need to be 80-90% understood?
I used the DS calculator till I think around 1000 hours, then I made a google spreadsheet that counts everything. I can make a video showing my setup since I have statistics on it as well. For adding up my input, there are really only a couple of sources: RUclips => I have a playlist named "Spanish Input" and add videos there, then add up the hours later Spotify => I do the same as RUclips Netflix => I just watch the Series and estimate hours when I finish the entire series Yeah I would say veer on the side of watching easier material since you will get more vocab and pick up the language better. I can tell when something is too hard because either I'm getting lost too often, or it tires me out really quick. I would say stick to the easier stuff for a bit longer and retry the harder stuff later on and see if it is more comprehensible.
Do you have any advice for content in the first few hundred hours that I can listen to in the background as opposed to watching a video? It seems most of the early stuff is video plus audio.
Honestly in the beginning its pretty difficult to listen to non-visual content, as least that was my experience. I would say you could maybe starting listening to really easy podcasts at 150hrs but you would be better off watching videos since you'll advance a lot faster.
Well done Joe. The Dreaming Spanish method of comprehensible input works. There is no doubt. I listen to 7 hours each day. Some will think that's crazy but if one has the motivation and time then it's quite easy to do. It depends on how much free time there is but for me I have the time at the moment. It can be daunting to a lot of people when they see how many hours one needs to acquire it but if they have the motivation and are dedicated to it, they'll succeed for sure. No te des por vencido!!
I think anyone selling something on the Internet is going to give the best case scenario for how long it takes to become "fluent". But I'm surprised there's a lot of RUclips videos like yours from people giving honest testaments on where their level is. 2000 hours is a LOT. How much do you do per weekday and how much per weekend day? (IE day off). I never would have tried to learn a language through only listening. The way you describe trying to read Spanish after all this listening really blew my mind. It reminded me of an old coworker of mine from Mexico who of course spoke native Spanish but he could barely read it (he could read English fine). I still find that hard to relate to but I guess he's not a big reader (I like to read). Have you tried audio books? I like your Spanish pronunciation. It makes sense that someone who learns by listening would sound better than if they learned by reading although who knows. Some people just might have more talent for accents.
I agree, most will say you can become "fluent" at X goal, but its more like very basic fluency. I wanted to document my journey and give first hand experience on what you should expect, as I really would've liked something like this when I first started. In the beginning it feels like a dive in deep water and you don't really know what to expect. I work 40hrs / week, just a normal office job but I work from home, so I don't have to spend time commuting and stuff like that. Yeah I think my pronunciation could be better, and I actually feel that over time is improving without really practicing much. One thing I really believe is that self identity play a big part in language acquisition, since if you believe that you can achieve a native like accent and identify yourself a part of the community that your language is spoken, you'll yield better results. I'm thinking to make a video discussing it more in detail.
@@realJoeSema I agree about the identity thing. I studied tons of Japanese and even moved to Japan but was still having fluency pronunciation problems. I finally realized part of it was just my cultural / language identity. I couldn't truly picture myself as Japanese. This is a big step that some people do easily and others not so easily but paying attention helped me with Japanese at least. I kind of wonder how many language identities I have room in my head for though haha.
Nice video! I'm at around 1700 something myself. I will say that as language learners, I've noticed that we all have this expectation of being able to speak about wild subjects 😂. You mentioned science and I've heard this before a lot. Bro, I can't (and most people i know can't) speak in depth about science in English. Honestly if that's what you want to do, you can just keep acquiring vocab on that subject. Meaning, I'm sure you already have the surrounding verbs and grammar down or are familiar. Like if you learn Meteor in Spanish, you can probably say "the meteor fell down to earth and exoloded". Let me try...espera "El meteorito cayó del espacio y explotó en la superficie". All i did was look up "Meteorite" lol. Idk if it's correct but it feels like it is. Anyway, you get me. You're doing great! Gotta give yourself more credit ;)
Yeah that's very true, I would have to at least brush up on Science stuff in english before doing a full talk on it, or knowing specifics on a certain topic. Cool, I just learned a new word meteorito haha
@@realJoeSema exactly. Like, man, I'd wager that most people from the US don't know the difference between a meteor and a comet...lol. Some don't even know the difference between their, there, and they're haha. Anyway, we're doing great.
I just saw this and immediately clicked as I’m using Dreaming Spanish and like many others wonder how long it’s gonna take to be able to speak naturally. This was very encouraging, how long did it take you to get to 2000 hrs? You sound great. Thank you for making this video 🤩
@@realJoeSema wow you must have been listening a lot every day lol thank you for your quick response. Do you recommend any easy listening via Netflix or podcasts or should I wait to reach at least 1500 hrs?
@@Dibdib35 Yeah there are a lot of easy podcasts free on spotify and youtube that I started with around 300 hours of input. You can find them by just searching simple spanish podcasts, but some that come to mind are How To Spanish Podcast & Mextalki. With Netflix, I honestly started really enjoying native shows closer to 1.5k hours. Before that I was watching kids shows like Avatar the Last Airbender on Netflix around 600 - 800 hours. But even that was hard for me so I would say just wait it out and you'll enjoy those shows more the later on.
Thanks for comfirming my suspicions that I will not learn fast enough using only comprehensible input. I will use it as a supplement, but certainly not my solo and probably not my main method.
I mean, if your goal is true native fluency, learning fast is fundamentally incompatible with that. The odd anecdotal exception aside, people who learn in any way other than mostly or entirely comprehensible input wind up with lower overall ability, even if their initial progress is much faster.
@@JWinch I mean, when there are enough anecdotal, testimonial success stories, you don’t really need all that to have a pretty good idea of whether something works or not. You don’t need to peer review something that clearly, materially works. You might need it to confirm specifics RELATED to it, but the method as a whole? The study created itself, and the sample size is growing day by day. Furthermore, there IS a solid metric. How much someone is able to understand when listening to the language. And we know that those who go with mostly or entirely input-based methods and stick with them long enough reach 99+% comprehension, meaning they’re able to intuitively understand more than 99% of all words they hear in their target language, which is necessary for fluency. Meanwhile, those who study by way of books and whatnot usually have a somewhat limited ability to use the language naturally. Only certain topics, for instance, or they have to consciously think about what they’re saying as they say it a lot. Even professional government workers who learn languages for the purposes of espionage or diplomacy purposes tend to have limited usage of the languages they learn (ask my grandfather, a cold war spy, who as far as I can tell was better than average at retaining languages he learned).
2000 hours of input is impressive! How long have you been using Dreaming Spanish? Ah, in the Spanish part you say since 2022. So have you been doing 2.5 to 3 hours of listening every day of the week. Estoy incluso más impresionado!
Muy bien! I'm past 750 hours (just posted a Halfway mark post on the r/DreamingSpanish subreddit), and I can certainly think in Spanish about familiar topics and "mumble to myself" a bit in Spanish. The grammar gets me sometimes, too, mostly because I'm used to school/college from 20-30 years ago. I know about the basic present tense verb usage and the ~lo, ~endo/ando endings, and some past tense. Old habits die hard, but I've been trying to minimize looking up grammar. I'll still do it on occasion, like Googling, in Spanish, "hablaré y voy a hablar" (I suppose that would 'simulate' when, after a child naturally learns a language, they then learn more about it in school). Even a simple vocabulary review (i.e., looking at B1 level vocabulary, or B2 level) seems to help, since I'm like "Ah! I've heard that before!". Also with attempting to write a sentence, I might need to search for a new word, then I'll make it comprehensible for myself. I've also seen a video someone made doing 3,000 hours of German. I'm curious how yours will compare at 3,000 hours of Spanish.
Yeah, I think when it comes to grammar, having more of an intuitive sense of what sounds right and what doesn't is much better than having to manually think about since you won't really have time to do so in a conversation. With more input it should be pretty clear what to say and how to say it. Looking forward to 3k hours as well, hoping it will feel much easier and the language will flow without having to think too much.
@@realJoeSema Yep, I think I'm starting to see that, especially after 720 hours, which felt like that threshold into Intermediate-Advanced (feels like I just stepped into B2 level territory).
I've not come across a video like this, and thank you for posting. Is it correct that you really didn't dive into comprehensible input until late 2022? Before then, had you taken any Spanish classes, either formal or informal? I think your progress is amazing, and obviously you've put in the hard work, so kudos for hanging with it. And have you taken a language proficiency test as you progressed? If so I'm curious if you've tabulated your progress in terms of hours with CI. It seems like the progress is noticeable in increments of 100-200 hours, which is very encouraging. Lastly, I'm curious if you always tried to find CI where you were mostly familiar with what is being said. I've read that understanding 80% of the conversation is ideal, but for new learners, this is difficult to find. Thanks again Joe, this video is super helpful and encouraging!
I started taking Comprehensible Input with Spanish more seriously in Jan 2023 and I didn't take any classes or anything before. No informal or formal classes either. I actually have a spreadsheet with graphs and a kind of diary for every couple hundred hours on how I felt and what I could do at that point. I'd be happy to post a quick video about them so that you guys can use it as well and track your progress. For the most part, the more you understand the CI content the better since you will learn more new vocab faster. That being said, its not that easy in the beginning since everything is kinda boring and really simple. In the beginning you kind of need to pace yourself and push through until you break into more interesting content.
I learned German through mostly reading and listening and I didn't take an official test but I felt like I kind of went from A1 to a strong B2 without ever being B1 or even A2 maybe. It seemed like things were a mess in my head until suddenly they started coming together all at once. Totally subjective and this was a long time ago. I did look at a grammar book from time to time for 5 to 10 minutes (regularly) but never took classes or completed a textbook per se.
@@realJoeSema I'd love to see more about how you tracked your progress! But I appreciate doing these are a lot of work. Watching your video today has motivated me to start tracking my own progress, which I'm sure would not have occurred to me to do for a very long time.
@@paulwalther5237 Wow cool. I kind of felt the same. I learned Korean, Spanish and French mainly through reading and basically just jumped from beginner to high intermediate in each after a few months (several hours a day). With Spanish I only have 400 hours of listening, but can understand native content without probs (I never listened to "learner content"). For Korean I have even less listening time than Spanish, but I can also understand audiobooks well enough to just enjoy them. I love reading. I heard some Korean learners take years to read a novel and I can't imagine that. I started as a beginner and it was the best thing I ever did. lol
I actually have a video on how I do it: ruclips.net/video/eXmaBOs4u_w/видео.html But yeah If I notice that I'm getting burnt out quickly, that probably means that the content is just a bit too difficult and I would listen to something easier for a while.
@@realJoeSema Thank you for the comment! Im currently at 150 hrs! After watching your video I got that passion re-ignited in me ❤🔥❤🔥 Cant wait to touch base with you when i have them hrs racked up!
I would liken this to being dropped off in a foreign land or being tossed in a foreign prison where nobody speaks English and only through comprehensible input do you start picking up the language. But at 2,000 hours you should be at at least B2, and that is reading writing listening and speaking. If you're not in a rush I guess this is okay to do but you're still deficient on things, speech not really being one of them. You sounded fabulous.
@@rickyrogerzz yeah I spent around 2 - 3 hours / day, but that changed depending if I was visiting family or busy with other stuff. There are also days that I spend 5+ hours like if I have nothing to do on a weekend, but it really depends. I will say it gets easier as you get more input to get more input.
You have to remember that when you reach 1500 hours, or 2000, o lo qué sea... those hours are not really real. If you have 1000 hours, it is probably more around 700-800... maybe 900 hours. This is because it is impossible to be concentrated 100 % of the time. Keep that in mind. :) Y todo va a ser bien.
I'm just over 1000 hours, my target is to measure 2000 hours of input and 1 million words of reading, then just stop measuring but continue to work on it.
Your Spanish sounds great! I noticed you said a lot of "me decidi...; me encontre..." I don't think you need to add the "me" pronoun like this when using the past tense (except maybe when using the verb "Ir"). This didn't prevent me from understanding what you were saying at all, but just thought I'd point it out. Again, great video and congrats on your nice sounding Spanish! Question: when having a conversation with a native (e.g. a 1hr italki lesson), do you count the whole 1hr towards speaking time or just part of it?
That's what I noticed, too. Spanish seems to be one of the languages where you can drop the pronoun - and I thought Polish was one of the only ones that did that. That's my next language to learn. Funny thing is, I started noticing the pronouns being dropped in Spanish after learning that Polish does the same. So, I guess that was comprehensible grammar for me.
When he said something like “me encontré dreaming spanish” that was correct, its from the verb encontrarse. Using past tenses doesnt mean you shouldn’t use pronouns, it just depends what you’re saying. Remember that ‘me’ also just means ‘to me’ so if you said something like “me pensaba’ thats just you saying ‘I was thinking to myself’.
@@JenniferSpanish you can certainly drop the personal pronoun ie yo tú nosotros etc, because the verb conjugation is personal, but reflexive/object pronouns ie me te nos are different.
I watched mainly Dreaming Spanish in the beginning but later I moved on to Native Content like Netflix shows, podcasts etc. But yeah, I didn't do any deliberate studying or flashcards, just listening to a lot of Spanish. I remember trying Duolingo for like a week before finding out about Comprehensible Input and I didn't really get anywhere with that.
With respect to advanced vocabulary, you are very likely short-changing yourself rather badly by not doing a LOT more reading. If you think about where we get advanced vocabulary in our native languages it is not in ordinary conversation - except rarely if talking to an expert in some specialized field such as medicine - but rather we get most of it from the reading that we do in school, with a bit of reinforcement from the corresponding lectures, where we hear the new vocabulary actually used in conversation. So, if you don't do that sort of reading in your target language then you can be fluent enough for ordinary purposes, but pretty much only with the vocabulary of a grade school student. Obviously that is very limiting when talking to well-educated adults. Otherwise, your fluency and pronunciation sounded quite good, with only a few small mistakes here and there that did nothing to make you less than perfectly comprehensible. So, congratulations, but now do get some serious books and do start doing some serious amounts of reading. Finally, note that several million words would be a very good start, but compared to the average college graduate it is only a start. I say that not to discourage you, but just to give you some perspective on what it takes to be educated to an advanced level. However, clearly you are capable of considerable persistence, so I have no doubt that you can go as far as you want. Again, congratulations, and keep up the good work.
As far as I understand, the bottomline of the "dreaming Spanish" method is to just watch RUclips videos for years and if at any time you look in the dictionary or take a grammar lesson then you're wasting your time. Can you imagine this??? They say you will learn faster by watching videos and doing nothing else. It's a massive scam. I'm surprised so many people are talking about it.
The point is natural language acquisition. When you learn through traditional ways (which has only been around for a couple hundred years) you’re basically building a language interpreting machine. There’s a quote from the university professor than pioneered the ALG method that best illustrates this. “When I speak in Thai I think in Thai, when I speak English I think in thought.” He spent a long time learning Thai through the traditional method and he was a native English speaker.
@@hopelessviolin4690 Enough of this rubbish. Being able to think in a language is just a high level of fluency. It doesn't require any "secret" methods. People have achieved it for thousands of years with traditional methods, i.e. learning grammar and vocabulary. If you don't learn grammar and vocabulary you will never achieve it.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
We are so glad you made such a progress! Thank you for making us part of it!
By the way: we said hello to you in our podcast. Thank you again for the mention.
Hey Mextalki, thanks so much for the shout out, it really means a lot since I've watched you guys since the beginning of my journey! Every time there is a new episode, I'm always one of the first to watch and haven't missed an episode to this date. Hopefully, when my Spanish gets a bit better, we could have chat about language learning and chill sometime.
Great Job! Your Spanish sounds really good! I'm a newbie at 175 hours. I was doing it the old way with books and grammar, and my son was doing Dreaming Spanish. I told him "That's not how you learn Spanish". He convinced me to give it a try, and I am now a believer. It seems like you are learning without studying. Words just pop into your head that you don't remember hearing, but you did!
That is a very impressive goal that you have hit but also your vocabulary and grammar and your pronunciation sound really good! You should be really proud of yourself! I started my dreaming Spanish Journey on the paid app about 3 months ago I believe. I have already picked up a good bit of vocabulary and I'm feeling more confident. I might be at 147 or 183 hours and looking forward to hitting my milestones!
Thanks!
As someone starting out on the same method, but for Japanese instead, these kinds of progress videos are really reassuring. I’m only 3 hours in, so obviously way less than what I’d need to start noticing real results, but until I start noticing those results it’s real hard not to have worries and doubts. But success stories, even in languages other than my target, are really useful for my motivation. Thank you very much!
Glad I could help!
Thanks for making this video. It gives me encouragement. I am at 1,100 hours of Dreaming Spanish CI. I understand 80 to 90% of what I hear in Spanish. I have not started speaking yet; I am waiting for the language to emerge. I was glad to hear you didn´t start speaking until 1400 hours or so. - Dave
Thanks Dave, I actually watched some of your videos in the past while I was immersing. Its always interesting seeing each person's experience and yeah I waited to speak since I didn't have any real reason to speak early.
Your Spanish sounds great! I’m around 1700 hours right now, and I can identify with a lot of what you said.
Thanks!
Just what I needed to watch, in order to reinforce input works....real world experience. Thanks for sharing
Yeah, that's part of the reason I made this update. When I first started, I really wished I could see what is actually achievable by x amount of input hours. Glad you enjoyed the video.
Congratulations! I'm at around 740 hours and it's very encouraging to hear about your success.
Happy to see that this is encouraging people!
ah man...I want to be like you when I grow up!!! We are at about 650 ish hours so we have a ways to go. Your accent is spot on. Nice job!!
Thanks!
@@realJoeSema
2000 hours is how long in days, weeks, etc?!? Asking for a dumb friend… 😂
@@realJoeSema
I first heard “averiguar” from a Colombian girl when I was in the USA and she and I were students. I asked her if she wanted to be my guide in Colombia because I was planning a trip there. She said we will have to averiguar sobre este… btw, Colombia is nice and safer than people think ❤
@JuanMoreno-wo5yb
depends how much time you put in per day:
30 min/day: ~11 years
1 hour/day: ~5.5 years
2 hours/day: ~2.7 years
3 hours/day: ~1.9 years
4 hours/day: ~1.4 years
@@someguy9204 I would guess that spending 30 min a day memorising 10 words a day would be better. After 1 yr you would know 3650 words and probably understand the language fairly well
Thanks for the video. At 929 hours and wondering what content to start at 1000. Definitely going to check out the podcasts you mentioned. Already started trying to listen to Relatos de la Noche.
Great progress on your language leaning. I saw your post on Reddit and came to listen.
Thanks!
Thank you for your video! I've been learning Spanish for a year with books mostly. My listening and speaking skills are very basic. I'm very Interested in watching your other videos. Muchas gracias y que tengas un buen dia!
Glad to help!
This is so incredibly impressive to me I have to say.
Your accent is very good(to my native english ears), this is a phenomenal feat and I’m excited to one day be where you are. I personally would indeed say you are fluent. You said you can only talk about government at a superficial level? Yea well a lot of Americans also can only talk about those things at a superficial level. I bet you’d be able to talk about American government in Spanish very well.
For anyone doubting this method or working why he may not know or understand every single thing, take a few days and become aware of how often you get confused by people who speak ur language just cause they say things in a different way or in a tone you don’t understand. You’re still fluent in ur own language tho😂.
I hope to one day find a video on why we are so critical of Spanish accent but we don’t do this when people learn English as a second language 🤷🏽♂️
thank you for this video! so encouraging and im going to listen more to dreaming spanish
Thanks! Glad that this is encouraging people!
Thank you for this! I started DS recently and enjoying it so far!
cool man! I dont personally use dreaming spanish but i do watch a lot of shows and listen to podcasts and music. My favorite show 100% is 31 minutos ITS THE FUNNIEST SHOW EVER. Great job on your learning!
Enhorabuena por tu constancia y dedicación. Hablas muy bien el español y, como tú dices, con un poco más de input comprensible se irán corrigiendo los pequeños fallos.
Muchas gracias!
thanks for sharing!!!
Tiene una mente técnica ya explica todo en números y menciona la palabra ciencia a menudo. Gracias por compartir su viaje ya que nos da oportunidades de descubrir nuevos métodos de aprendizaje. No se si ya escuchó Radio Ambulante es un podcasts que me recuerda a la series This American life de NPR. Estoy en un proceso de aprender Francés y estoy (averiguando) e investigando canales de RUclips para ver cómo la gente aprende lenguas de distintas distintas maneras. Así es como encontré su canal. Gracias por todos esos consejos que explicó.
Muchas gracias!
Im literally just watching the introduction of Dreaming Spanish. Im somewhere between intermediate and advanced so I’m trying to see if it will get me completely advanced faster. Thanks for sharing your experience with us
No problem, yeah once you break through the intermediate stage, the content becomes really fun and a lot more interesting. Best of luck!
Amazing! Great job!
Thanks!
Amazing progress man, I hope to get to where you are at someday
Yo hablo español desde los 10 años. Todavía se pone difícil hablar para mi. Sos demasiado difícil con vos mismo. Hablas muy bien y no tendrás problemas si te vas a un different país. Buena suerte!
I just joined DS and I've been consistently putting in 1 hour daily. completely focused while doing it.
But now I've calculated 2000 hours if I never skip a single day each year.
Clearly, I need to increase the number of hours per day.
The better you get at understanding, the less you'll need to concentrate and the more you'll be able to listen to podcasts on the go etc.
@@AlFrazelle Thank you for this insight.
So this means that as I progress, the activity will become more of simply changing my normal media consumption in my nature language and switch it to the second language.
If that is the case, and I believe that it is, it means that I will easily be able to increase my daily media consumption in the 2nd language because I would say that I currently watch media in my native language approximately 5 hours per day.
Thanks again... your insight is very motivating.
@@chandie5298 No problem! I would say so yes. I´m only intermediate myself but the more I learn, the more resources are available to me. And yes, if you consume 5 hours of media content a day, I´m sure that soon enough you could consume even half of that in Spanish :)
@@chandie5298 Yes. Sometimes i listen for 4-5 hours of podcast at work.
I've got over 700,000 words read. I input stuff into Lingq and read there so they can track what I've read. Unfortunately, I can read well but I can't listen to native talk without subtitles. So I think you did it right.
Hola Joe, es increible lo que has conseguido con el input comprensible. Quiero usar este método para aprender otros idiomas como el francés, alemán y chino; pero tengo una duda, tomaste notas o hacías flashcards con el contenido que consumias? O era solo escuchar?
Muchas gracias @fabian1019. Sí, el método funciona muy bien para cualquier idioma y personalmente no tomé tarjetas ni ningún tipo de notas. Sólo necesitas escuchar y adquirirás el idioma así como así.
dude you sound super good. i agree with pretty much everything you said. i’m sitting at like 1750
Thanks! I guess outputting a bit later helped but definitely looking forward to 2.5k and 3k hours
@@realJoeSema
I will be interested to see and hear your progress. I think you said: nuestra idioma and it would be nuestro idioma. I try to catch my mistakes but it is for some weird reason easier to catch them from others. 😮 I hope you don’t mind the correction. I love the corrections myself. ❤
great work, you sound great. Keen to see the rest of your journey
Thanks Luke! I really liked your update videos and thoughts on language learning, would love to bounce ideas off each other in a video together. It would be cool since we're on the same journey.
@@realJoeSema Yeah lets do it. I'll send you an email.
Repetition is key for learning language. I've noticed that writing helps a lot with speaking. I chat with people online a lot and it's really improved my Spanish.
Cuántos años tomaste para llegar a los dos milles horas de entrada? Llevo dos años y medio aprendiendo español, no cuento las horas que he estudado el idioma pero creo que tengo nivel intermedo de español.
Creo que tu español es bueno, me parece que es avansado.
Gracias amigo! Tengo más o menos un año y medio desde que empecé. Es como tres horas cada día de Input Comprensible.
Great video, I loved hearing you speak. I look forward to your next one. I am at 830 hrs.
Thanks! Same I'm looking forward to 2.5k hours
How do you track your CI?
I use dreaming spanish which is nice that they track hours - but I also listen to podcasts at my level and youtube vidoes neither that I track. Do you manually just add everything up at end of day?
Also, how comprehensible is your input?
Sometimes on Dreaming Spanish I understand 80% or more on intermediate. Maybe 50% or better on advanced. On RUclips watching native content I may only get 25-50% depending on accents and topics. Sometimes way less like 20% - although in these cases I just bail. Does CI always need to be 80-90% understood?
I used the DS calculator till I think around 1000 hours, then I made a google spreadsheet that counts everything. I can make a video showing my setup since I have statistics on it as well.
For adding up my input, there are really only a couple of sources:
RUclips => I have a playlist named "Spanish Input" and add videos there, then add up the hours later
Spotify => I do the same as RUclips
Netflix => I just watch the Series and estimate hours when I finish the entire series
Yeah I would say veer on the side of watching easier material since you will get more vocab and pick up the language better. I can tell when something is too hard because either I'm getting lost too often, or it tires me out really quick. I would say stick to the easier stuff for a bit longer and retry the harder stuff later on and see if it is more comprehensible.
Good shit my dude
Thanks bro!
Do you have any advice for content in the first few hundred hours that I can listen to in the background as opposed to watching a video? It seems most of the early stuff is video plus audio.
Honestly in the beginning its pretty difficult to listen to non-visual content, as least that was my experience. I would say you could maybe starting listening to really easy podcasts at 150hrs but you would be better off watching videos since you'll advance a lot faster.
Did you ever use anki or write down/ study vocabularies? Thanks much!
Nope, I never used anki, nor wrote down anything. Just listened to a bunch of Spanish content.
You sound great and can really say what you want to express. Buen trabajo
Thanks!
En Mexico they say: “Bien hecho.” ❤
Well done Joe. The Dreaming Spanish method of comprehensible input works. There is no doubt.
I listen to 7 hours each day. Some will think that's crazy but if one has the motivation and time then it's quite easy to do. It depends on how much free time there is but for me I have the time at the moment. It can be daunting to a lot of people when they see how many hours one needs to acquire it but if they have the motivation and are dedicated to it, they'll succeed for sure.
No te des por vencido!!
....por vencido.
@@gordonchong3580 Thanks for that. I didn't check my spelling before I posted it.
I think anyone selling something on the Internet is going to give the best case scenario for how long it takes to become "fluent". But I'm surprised there's a lot of RUclips videos like yours from people giving honest testaments on where their level is. 2000 hours is a LOT. How much do you do per weekday and how much per weekend day? (IE day off). I never would have tried to learn a language through only listening. The way you describe trying to read Spanish after all this listening really blew my mind. It reminded me of an old coworker of mine from Mexico who of course spoke native Spanish but he could barely read it (he could read English fine). I still find that hard to relate to but I guess he's not a big reader (I like to read). Have you tried audio books? I like your Spanish pronunciation. It makes sense that someone who learns by listening would sound better than if they learned by reading although who knows. Some people just might have more talent for accents.
I agree, most will say you can become "fluent" at X goal, but its more like very basic fluency. I wanted to document my journey and give first hand experience on what you should expect, as I really would've liked something like this when I first started. In the beginning it feels like a dive in deep water and you don't really know what to expect.
I work 40hrs / week, just a normal office job but I work from home, so I don't have to spend time commuting and stuff like that.
Yeah I think my pronunciation could be better, and I actually feel that over time is improving without really practicing much.
One thing I really believe is that self identity play a big part in language acquisition, since if you believe that you can achieve a native like accent and identify yourself a part of the community that your language is spoken, you'll yield better results. I'm thinking to make a video discussing it more in detail.
@@realJoeSema I agree about the identity thing. I studied tons of Japanese and even moved to Japan but was still having fluency pronunciation problems. I finally realized part of it was just my cultural / language identity. I couldn't truly picture myself as Japanese. This is a big step that some people do easily and others not so easily but paying attention helped me with Japanese at least. I kind of wonder how many language identities I have room in my head for though haha.
Nice video! I'm at around 1700 something myself.
I will say that as language learners, I've noticed that we all have this expectation of being able to speak about wild subjects 😂. You mentioned science and I've heard this before a lot. Bro, I can't (and most people i know can't) speak in depth about science in English.
Honestly if that's what you want to do, you can just keep acquiring vocab on that subject. Meaning, I'm sure you already have the surrounding verbs and grammar down or are familiar. Like if you learn Meteor in Spanish, you can probably say "the meteor fell down to earth and exoloded". Let me try...espera
"El meteorito cayó del espacio y explotó en la superficie".
All i did was look up "Meteorite" lol. Idk if it's correct but it feels like it is. Anyway, you get me. You're doing great! Gotta give yourself more credit ;)
Yeah that's very true, I would have to at least brush up on Science stuff in english before doing a full talk on it, or knowing specifics on a certain topic.
Cool, I just learned a new word meteorito haha
@@realJoeSema exactly. Like, man, I'd wager that most people from the US don't know the difference between a meteor and a comet...lol. Some don't even know the difference between their, there, and they're haha.
Anyway, we're doing great.
I just saw this and immediately clicked as I’m using Dreaming Spanish and like many others wonder how long it’s gonna take to be able to speak naturally. This was very encouraging, how long did it take you to get to 2000 hrs? You sound great. Thank you for making this video 🤩
I'm glad that this helped! Yeah I started seriously in Jan 2023 so about 1.5 years
@@realJoeSema wow you must have been listening a lot every day lol thank you for your quick response. Do you recommend any easy listening via Netflix or podcasts or should I wait to reach at least 1500 hrs?
@@Dibdib35 Yeah there are a lot of easy podcasts free on spotify and youtube that I started with around 300 hours of input. You can find them by just searching simple spanish podcasts, but some that come to mind are How To Spanish Podcast & Mextalki.
With Netflix, I honestly started really enjoying native shows closer to 1.5k hours. Before that I was watching kids shows like Avatar the Last Airbender on Netflix around 600 - 800 hours. But even that was hard for me so I would say just wait it out and you'll enjoy those shows more the later on.
Thank you so much I really appreciate your response. Blessings from Northern Ireland
Thanks for comfirming my suspicions that I will not learn fast enough using only comprehensible input. I will use it as a supplement, but certainly not my solo and probably not my main method.
I mean, if your goal is true native fluency, learning fast is fundamentally incompatible with that. The odd anecdotal exception aside, people who learn in any way other than mostly or entirely comprehensible input wind up with lower overall ability, even if their initial progress is much faster.
@@frostymac2459 Says what body of peer-reviewed research? Or is this just Bro science on the Internet again?
@@JWinch I mean, when there are enough anecdotal, testimonial success stories, you don’t really need all that to have a pretty good idea of whether something works or not. You don’t need to peer review something that clearly, materially works. You might need it to confirm specifics RELATED to it, but the method as a whole? The study created itself, and the sample size is growing day by day.
Furthermore, there IS a solid metric. How much someone is able to understand when listening to the language. And we know that those who go with mostly or entirely input-based methods and stick with them long enough reach 99+% comprehension, meaning they’re able to intuitively understand more than 99% of all words they hear in their target language, which is necessary for fluency. Meanwhile, those who study by way of books and whatnot usually have a somewhat limited ability to use the language naturally. Only certain topics, for instance, or they have to consciously think about what they’re saying as they say it a lot. Even professional government workers who learn languages for the purposes of espionage or diplomacy purposes tend to have limited usage of the languages they learn (ask my grandfather, a cold war spy, who as far as I can tell was better than average at retaining languages he learned).
Great job gives me hope, I’m at 81 input hours right now.
2000 hours of input is impressive! How long have you been using Dreaming Spanish? Ah, in the Spanish part you say since 2022. So have you been doing 2.5 to 3 hours of listening every day of the week. Estoy incluso más impresionado!
This video is really a motivation. I tried to watch La primera vez at level 4, but I quit because it's demasiado difícil...
Thanks! Yeah the shows I mentioned, I started at around 1500 hours, and to be fair, they have a lot of slang so you'll have to wait on them for now.
Muy bien! I'm past 750 hours (just posted a Halfway mark post on the r/DreamingSpanish subreddit), and I can certainly think in Spanish about familiar topics and "mumble to myself" a bit in Spanish. The grammar gets me sometimes, too, mostly because I'm used to school/college from 20-30 years ago. I know about the basic present tense verb usage and the ~lo, ~endo/ando endings, and some past tense. Old habits die hard, but I've been trying to minimize looking up grammar. I'll still do it on occasion, like Googling, in Spanish, "hablaré y voy a hablar" (I suppose that would 'simulate' when, after a child naturally learns a language, they then learn more about it in school). Even a simple vocabulary review (i.e., looking at B1 level vocabulary, or B2 level) seems to help, since I'm like "Ah! I've heard that before!". Also with attempting to write a sentence, I might need to search for a new word, then I'll make it comprehensible for myself.
I've also seen a video someone made doing 3,000 hours of German. I'm curious how yours will compare at 3,000 hours of Spanish.
Yeah, I think when it comes to grammar, having more of an intuitive sense of what sounds right and what doesn't is much better than having to manually think about since you won't really have time to do so in a conversation. With more input it should be pretty clear what to say and how to say it.
Looking forward to 3k hours as well, hoping it will feel much easier and the language will flow without having to think too much.
@@realJoeSema Yep, I think I'm starting to see that, especially after 720 hours, which felt like that threshold into Intermediate-Advanced (feels like I just stepped into B2 level territory).
Can you put a link for this video? As a German I'm very interested how he or she sounds after 3000 hours of CI..
@@andimusicjunkie3990 Sure. ruclips.net/video/fgx090oikks/видео.html
I've not come across a video like this, and thank you for posting. Is it correct that you really didn't dive into comprehensible input until late 2022? Before then, had you taken any Spanish classes, either formal or informal? I think your progress is amazing, and obviously you've put in the hard work, so kudos for hanging with it.
And have you taken a language proficiency test as you progressed? If so I'm curious if you've tabulated your progress in terms of hours with CI. It seems like the progress is noticeable in increments of 100-200 hours, which is very encouraging.
Lastly, I'm curious if you always tried to find CI where you were mostly familiar with what is being said. I've read that understanding 80% of the conversation is ideal, but for new learners, this is difficult to find.
Thanks again Joe, this video is super helpful and encouraging!
I started taking Comprehensible Input with Spanish more seriously in Jan 2023 and I didn't take any classes or anything before. No informal or formal classes either.
I actually have a spreadsheet with graphs and a kind of diary for every couple hundred hours on how I felt and what I could do at that point. I'd be happy to post a quick video about them so that you guys can use it as well and track your progress.
For the most part, the more you understand the CI content the better since you will learn more new vocab faster. That being said, its not that easy in the beginning since everything is kinda boring and really simple. In the beginning you kind of need to pace yourself and push through until you break into more interesting content.
I learned German through mostly reading and listening and I didn't take an official test but I felt like I kind of went from A1 to a strong B2 without ever being B1 or even A2 maybe. It seemed like things were a mess in my head until suddenly they started coming together all at once. Totally subjective and this was a long time ago. I did look at a grammar book from time to time for 5 to 10 minutes (regularly) but never took classes or completed a textbook per se.
@@realJoeSema I'd love to see more about how you tracked your progress! But I appreciate doing these are a lot of work. Watching your video today has motivated me to start tracking my own progress, which I'm sure would not have occurred to me to do for a very long time.
@@daviddaytona I appreciate the kinds words, I'll look into putting together a video on how I track my input.
@@paulwalther5237 Wow cool. I kind of felt the same. I learned Korean, Spanish and French mainly through reading and basically just jumped from beginner to high intermediate in each after a few months (several hours a day). With Spanish I only have 400 hours of listening, but can understand native content without probs (I never listened to "learner content"). For Korean I have even less listening time than Spanish, but I can also understand audiobooks well enough to just enjoy them. I love reading. I heard some Korean learners take years to read a novel and I can't imagine that. I started as a beginner and it was the best thing I ever did. lol
dude i get burnt at 2 hrs how did you get more then that in per day ?
I actually have a video on how I do it: ruclips.net/video/eXmaBOs4u_w/видео.html
But yeah If I notice that I'm getting burnt out quickly, that probably means that the content is just a bit too difficult and I would listen to something easier for a while.
@@realJoeSema Thank you for the comment! Im currently at 150 hrs! After watching your video I got that passion re-ignited in me ❤🔥❤🔥 Cant wait to touch base with you when i have them hrs racked up!
I would liken this to being dropped off in a foreign land or being tossed in a foreign prison where nobody speaks English and only through comprehensible input do you start picking up the language.
But at 2,000 hours you should be at at least B2, and that is reading writing listening and speaking. If you're not in a rush I guess this is okay to do but you're still deficient on things, speech not really being one of them. You sounded fabulous.
how long had you been watching dreaming spanish for to get to this point?
I used Dreaming Spanish solely until around 600 hours or so, then I mainly started watching youtube / podcasts / easier shows.
@@realJoeSema cool. So, to get an idea of time commitment, a couple of years, or... How much time did you spend per day watching it?
@@rickyrogerzz yeah I spent around 2 - 3 hours / day, but that changed depending if I was visiting family or busy with other stuff. There are also days that I spend 5+ hours like if I have nothing to do on a weekend, but it really depends. I will say it gets easier as you get more input to get more input.
@@realJoeSema that makes sense and is a really good point. 2-3 hour days of super beginner seems like it could get old fast.
I’m at 64 hours and I don’t understand anything I don’t know if it’s because I’m doing it wrong or I might just need more time for it to click in
Yeah in the beginning it feels like that but I can assure you as you get more input, you'll start understanding more.
You have to remember that when you reach 1500 hours, or 2000, o lo qué sea... those hours are not really real. If you have 1000 hours, it is probably more around 700-800... maybe 900 hours. This is because it is impossible to be concentrated 100 % of the time. Keep that in mind. :) Y todo va a ser bien.
Very good point! Thank you for pointing that out. Part of me knew that subconsciously but to actually read it from someone really cements that.
I'm just over 1000 hours, my target is to measure 2000 hours of input and 1 million words of reading, then just stop measuring but continue to work on it.
Your Spanish sounds great!
I noticed you said a lot of "me decidi...; me encontre..." I don't think you need to add the "me" pronoun like this when using the past tense (except maybe when using the verb "Ir"). This didn't prevent me from understanding what you were saying at all, but just thought I'd point it out. Again, great video and congrats on your nice sounding Spanish!
Question: when having a conversation with a native (e.g. a 1hr italki lesson), do you count the whole 1hr towards speaking time or just part of it?
Thanks! Yeah I'm hoping with more input I'll all of these kinds of stuff will round out, but yeah definitely have a while to go.
That's what I noticed, too. Spanish seems to be one of the languages where you can drop the pronoun - and I thought Polish was one of the only ones that did that. That's my next language to learn. Funny thing is, I started noticing the pronouns being dropped in Spanish after learning that Polish does the same. So, I guess that was comprehensible grammar for me.
When he said something like “me encontré dreaming spanish” that was correct, its from the verb encontrarse. Using past tenses doesnt mean you shouldn’t use pronouns, it just depends what you’re saying. Remember that ‘me’ also just means ‘to me’ so if you said something like “me pensaba’ thats just you saying ‘I was thinking to myself’.
@@JenniferSpanish you can certainly drop the personal pronoun ie yo tú nosotros etc, because the verb conjugation is personal, but reflexive/object pronouns ie me te nos are different.
🌟💐🔥🌹🔥💐🌟
Question so u just watch dreaming Spanish videos and nothing else to use to study? And u was able to speak in Spanish?
I watched mainly Dreaming Spanish in the beginning but later I moved on to Native Content like Netflix shows, podcasts etc.
But yeah, I didn't do any deliberate studying or flashcards, just listening to a lot of Spanish. I remember trying Duolingo for like a week before finding out about Comprehensible Input and I didn't really get anywhere with that.
I have over 400 hours.
expertos.... QUÉ?
guapo
With respect to advanced vocabulary, you are very likely short-changing yourself rather badly by not doing a LOT more reading.
If you think about where we get advanced vocabulary in our native languages it is not in ordinary conversation - except rarely if talking to an expert in some specialized field such as medicine - but rather we get most of it from the reading that we do in school, with a bit of reinforcement from the corresponding lectures, where we hear the new vocabulary actually used in conversation. So, if you don't do that sort of reading in your target language then you can be fluent enough for ordinary purposes, but pretty much only with the vocabulary of a grade school student. Obviously that is very limiting when talking to well-educated adults.
Otherwise, your fluency and pronunciation sounded quite good, with only a few small mistakes here and there that did nothing to make you less than perfectly comprehensible. So, congratulations, but now do get some serious books and do start doing some serious amounts of reading.
Finally, note that several million words would be a very good start, but compared to the average college graduate it is only a start. I say that not to discourage you, but just to give you some perspective on what it takes to be educated to an advanced level. However, clearly you are capable of considerable persistence, so I have no doubt that you can go as far as you want.
Again, congratulations, and keep up the good work.
Learn the alphabet you will read easier.
As far as I understand, the bottomline of the "dreaming Spanish" method is to just watch RUclips videos for years and if at any time you look in the dictionary or take a grammar lesson then you're wasting your time. Can you imagine this??? They say you will learn faster by watching videos and doing nothing else. It's a massive scam. I'm surprised so many people are talking about it.
How would you recommend to learn a language?
@@blainepatten6203 Traditional methods that the world uses. You don't need secrets to learn a language. If a method is secret, it's probably a scam.
Bit the original refold method didn't recommend just input but also grammar priming. Also not using the dictionary seems really stupid to me
The point is natural language acquisition. When you learn through traditional ways (which has only been around for a couple hundred years) you’re basically building a language interpreting machine. There’s a quote from the university professor than pioneered the ALG method that best illustrates this. “When I speak in Thai I think in Thai, when I speak English I think in thought.” He spent a long time learning Thai through the traditional method and he was a native English speaker.
@@hopelessviolin4690 Enough of this rubbish. Being able to think in a language is just a high level of fluency. It doesn't require any "secret" methods. People have achieved it for thousands of years with traditional methods, i.e. learning grammar and vocabulary. If you don't learn grammar and vocabulary you will never achieve it.
New drinking game. Rewatch this video and every time he says like you have to take a drink. Are you like from like California?
I didn’t even notice, why u gotta be a dick lmao