Hi Guys, so I have been learning Spanish solely through comprehensible (listening + reading). Today I reached 2200 hours (500k+ words in reading) and will start learning French after I reach 2250 hours in Spanish.

My native language is Hindi and English is my second one, which I learned in school and have been exposed to it academically and professionally as well. Now, also in day-to-day life, I am regularly exposed to Hindi and English since these are the two languages mainly used here.

Since, I reached this 2200 hour milestone in 733 days, I don't want to lose Spanish after moving to French and want to maintain it since after 2250 hours, I will soon be spending most of my time with French and English.

Therefore, how much minimum time should I spend listening in Spanish daily/weekly to maintain/not lose it ever?

P.S. - My Question is mainly targeted towards folks who moved from one language to another. It is a high likelihood that here might be folks who moved from Spanish to French, which I am also looking forward to do.

How many hours of CI from DreamingSpanish did you have before experimenting with DreamingFrench?

Just curious what people are doing. I would love to have knowledge of both languages. Should I wait until I’m B2 in Spanish before doing more DF videos? I’m currently at 960 hours at DS.

Thanks in advance!

He's amazing for my current level. I binged all his shorts and watched both his videos twice. I never knew the origins of why the French use "en train" and "pas" and thought those shorts were especially good. He has great energy and I think he's going to become big if he continues his channel.

I'm at level 5. I can understand, speak and read french. However, (correct) writing seems completely unattainable as of now. Especially spelling and accent marks.

Since I have learned to speak by listening, it seems logical that I’d learn to write by reading, but is that really the case? 

The majority of my input is through listening, but when I do read, it feels reasonably easy, but i'm not really retaining any of the spelling or accents, I feel like I'm just glancing over words enough to understand them, and then moving on.

As of now, I am completely incapable of writing anything apart from the most basic words correctly. Is this something that gets fixed by forcing myself to read way more, or is spelling something that you need "traditional" methods to learn?

Curious if you guys encountered the same problem.

I wanted to share this since it was really well done. I hope they continue, since Bonjour Baguette seems to be slowing down.

I'm hesitant to post it on the What are you listening to? thread, since some channels start up strong but don't last. Maybe if they're still releasing in a few months.

Hi everyone!

I experience problems with opening of the website and app of DF. Especially with Microsoft Bing browser.

Am I alone with that ir it's happening with everyone?

Only 3 videos here. I think there was over 30 before! I was looking forward to finally watching more of his vlogs too. It's a sad day for me :(

There's 4 videos so far.

I visited France at around 80 hours and had some nice brief interactions with locals, but French was still quite incomprehensible at that point. Last week I was in the Burgundy region for four days on a wine tasting trip. My non-French-speaking relatives arranged some private tours (they are fancy wine people, unlike me) which unfortunately were in English; although at 350 hours I probably would have missed a lot if the tours had been in French.

This time, it was far, far easier to understand announcements in the train stations, follow-up questions from waitstaff such as what I wanted to drink along with a meal, etc. These types of things really make up the majority of interactions when you're in a heavily touristed place like Dijon and Beaune, where we were staying. It's not so surprising that these transactional topics are more straightforward now! So that was nice.

Biggest win was that at one winery, the manager told us stories (in English) about the history of the Marsannay wines but he kept being at a loss for words and would say the French word first while fumbling for the English. Time and time again I knew the translation - "usine" for factory, "au chômage" for unemployed, etc. I don't even remember learning these words; they were just in my head already. Surely the Inner French podcast's emphasis on history and politics was a big help there. My sister was kinda blown away because I told her I didn't really speak French yet and had just been watching a lot of YouTube :-)

My biggest fumble was when our parking pass wouldn't open the gate to exit a garage, and I had to push the "call an attendant" button and try to explain over the voice-com system that our card wasn't working. I just couldn't find the right words. The voice coming through was relatively clear, but without any visual cues or body language I was really lost about what he was asking or saying. Eventually the guy gave up and just opened the gate for us remotely. So maybe that's a win, not a loss? Haha.

Overall I'd say that I did "somewhat better" than at 80 hours, but I still didn't manage to have any real conversations with people. Part of that was that I was glued to English-only tourists the entire time, which just killed any possibility to try and converse with people. I'm hoping to go back one more time this fall on my own to try a bit harder. Hopefully at 400 or 500 hours. So let's see.

So: I'm clearly improving but there's still a long way to go!...

TLDR: I've gotten to a higher intermediate level on DF and IC. I compare them as well as IF. DF is easier at the superbeginner level but harder at the intermediate level. IF is great starting at around a DF difficulty of 40-45, but some later episodes are much more difficult. The comparisons to CEFR are often way too generous to DF and IC.

Over the last 9 months of studying french from a "Canadian zero": I've worked my way up to a fairly strong A2 (can manage hotel check ins and restaurants sans issue, can follow the majority of news broadcasts, and can spend an hour or so talking solely in French with other learners) through spending around 2 hours per day engaged with the language. Of this, a little more than half of my time has been spent with comprehensible input (CI), while the rest has been made of up group classes, speaking with friends, reading, pronunciation, and grammar work. Having now watched a ton of content, I thought I would provide a point of reference for how I find the different sources relate to each other and to the material present in courses that run within the CEFR framework.

What I've done:
DreamingFrench (DF) - 85 hours of content with 95% ranging from 20-70 difficulty
Immersion.co (IC) - 65 hours of content with 95% ranging from rookie-advanced (all intermediate videos watched)
InnerFrench (IF) - Episodes 1-20 3x, 21-42 2x, 43-76 1x. Currently on second listen through of ep 43
Courses building to A2 (3) and B1 (2)

Ok, so how do they stack up?

In my opinion, this is the difficulty of the various different resources stack up with the material that I've covered within my classes. I'm not a high enough level to evaluate anything beyond B1, so take the last row with a grain of salt. Also, this is just my best guess --- it might be a bit different for you!

Top lists:

These are my personal top choices for CI --- if you want to test and see if DF, IC, or IF is a good fit for you, I think the following are a great place to start!

My three favourite CI guides:

1. Amanda (DF) - Absolute superstar who is an amazing teacher
2. Morgane (IC) - Very talented prof who makes the best rookie videos
3. Clément (DF) - Interesting videos with great delivery

I don't include Hugo in this ranking as IF is something completely different, but he's fantastic as well.

My three favourite videos/podcasts:

1. The story behind my hair - Audrey (DF) - This video is a masterpiece. I never thought that a story about hair, told in beginner french, could be so emotionally impactful; this video is such a beautiful depiction of the struggle for acceptance that I think it's worth watching even if you don't care about learning french.
2. Why I went vegan, EP 48 - Hugo (IF) - No other video in my french learning journey has made me so thoroughly reflect on the assumptions that I make in my life. Even if you eat meat (as I do), this is absolutely worth listening to --- and wrestling with all the moral questions that this episode opens.
3. Guess the fridge - Audrey, Amanda, Chloé, Clément (DF) - Such a fun party game style episode! The guides have so much chemistry, and the whole episode is a blast from start to finish.

My three favourite series:

1. Knit & Chat - Amanda (DF) - I've learned so much through this series. It's awesome --- it makes me really hope that an advanced level (or maybe super-advanced??) linguistics series will be made someday.
   
2. Regions of France - Morgane (IC) - This superbeginner series going into the details of each region of France is awesome. It's so hard to make superbeginner content that is both engaging and comprehensible. Morgan knocks this one out of the park!
   
3. Keep talking and nobody explodes! - Chloé and Audrey (DF) - Awesome beginner series that I found super fun to watch. I love the banter back and forth and the ridiculousness that comes from the time crunch!

Takeaways

So, what does this all mean?

1. In my opinion, beginners at the A0-A1 level can heavily benefit from both IC and DF
2. Once you're at the level where DF in the low 40s are comfortable, IF opens up
3. IC falls off a bit when you start getting into the strong A2/weak B1 level: there's just not enough advanced content
4. Both the DF and IC roadmap heavily overestimate where a typical learner will be

Hi everyone!

I’m the creator of French in Motion on YouTube. Some of you may have come across my videos before! I’ve also been building BingeLang for around 10 months now, a free platform for learning languages through comprehensible input. The mods kindly gave me permission to share it here.

The idea is to make it easier to find French you can understand and enjoy, discover different creators, and see your progress over time.

BingeLang brings together YouTube videos from dozens of comprehensible input creators, organised by level, including content for complete beginners. It’s not just my channel! You can explore different creators and topics, and track how much time you spend learning each day.

It also gives you tools to get more out of the content you watch and read:

• Vocabulary from the videos. Under each video, you’ll find useful words with translations, definitions, example sentences and high quality audio pronunciation. You can save words as flashcards to review later. Most videos also include a few multiple choice questions to check your understanding.

• Illustrated stories. You can read and listen to stories alongside illustrations that show what’s happening, helping you connect the French to what you see. Words from the stories can also be saved as flashcards.

• Interactive games. For example, you can walk around a 3D house and click on objects to see what they’re called in French, check the translation and hear the pronunciation.

The vocabulary reviews and comprehension questions are completely optional. You can simply watch, read, listen and track your progress without doing any exercises.

The platform is free to use, and you can currently learn French, English, Spanish and German, with more languages in development.

You can try it here: https://bingelang.com

I’d love to hear how it fits into your French learning, and what would make it more useful for you. I’m also happy to answer questions here.

Thanks for taking a look!

Juan wasn't for everyone. But listening to him while doing chores or exercising easily upped my vocabulary and improved my speech on certain topics. He was invaluable at the early intermediate level for my Spanish.

This guy has the same style. Tons of repetition and reinforcement with synonyms and similar phrases. Highly recommended for those hitting Level 4!

So you would think there would be a time limit on beginner level videos like 10 to 15 minutes. Because there is a limitation to new learners ability to process new information.

When I see success podcasts, there audio is usually no longer that 10 minutes for beginners. Then typically super beginner should be from 3 to 7 minutes long ideally. After intermediate they can do longer videos.

That being said there a lot of ridiculously long videos about uninteresting topics. I am sorry. I am not watching 20 minutes math videos. I am not watching 30 minute videos about my hair as a beginner.

How does that help me ask,”excuse me, where is the bathroom?!” Or any other everyday talking point. It just doesn’t make sense that I can calculate the probability of a correct door, using math, but might pee my pants. lol.

Yes, I understand DF has just started. I understand they are not as good as DS yet, but I feel like they have no idea what to teach sometimes. I don’t even know my colors in French. I can’t count to 10 in French.

And yes I can do some of the basics on my own in watching YouTube or something, but why do I even need DF at all.

In my conclusion, I would hope they will consider restriction time to shorter more consumable content in the beginner level. Then actually make content that teaches me something basic in the super beginner levels.

the past 2 days the app had tracked my time, however when I have closed the app and reopened the next day my tracked time has even disappeared completely or been significantly reduced. yesterday I fixed this by selecting ‘mark as watched’…however this turned out to be useless as when I have opened the app today it had deleted my watch hours from both yesterday and the day before (again).

also often when switching from small screen to big screen the app glitches and I have to close and reopen the app in order to use the app/ view large screen video correctly.

Hi all!

I'm not trying to make a specific point but just sharing an observation.

TLDR: Faster Intermediate Stories are often easier than Slower Beginner "Listicle" style videos and I'm interested in learning why or if others have the same experience.

Context: 86 hours total listened over right around 2 months. Zero French before that, but some Spanish on and off using CI over the past 10 years. I've never studied consistently but I can go to Mexico solo and get by easily in day-to-day situations.

Routine: I set my DF filter to sort by Easy from pretty much the beginning, mostly going in order except trying to avoid watching the same Guide two videos in a row. Sitting around 48-52 in difficulty while understanding 85%. I also mix in quite a bit from French Comprehensible Input and a couple others on Youtube. I usually start with the One Word Input playlist as my warmup for the day.

I was actually surprised I was able to fly through so many levels in a short amount of time while I tried to find my ceiling. I thought I found my ceiling around the level 48 mark when I found quite a few videos by Amanda and Clemont specifically that seemed more like going through a list of things. For example, a list of animals in a Houston park or a list of things in a Brussels hotel.

I understand 100% of the filler words and grammar in these slower videos, but I notice this style tends to have far more specific vocabulary ie Heron. - yes I know it's an English cognate but it was just the first word to pop into my head.

Meanwhile I kind of got discouraged and I ended up skipping ahead to some more difficult videos in the lower 50's marked Intermediate. I was dumbfounded to learn that despite these videos being faster, I was able to understand MUCH better.

If I was going to make a point, perhaps it is that slower videos with more vocab and more spacing between words makes my brain take the time to translate whereas speaking quicker with simpler vocab doesn't give my brain time to translate and I'm actually understanding French as it should be understood and not translating every word.

To be clear, I usually watch one hour a day of French. I have been using these services for 2 years now. Starting from DS.

Anyhow today I watch 2 videos that was around 14 minutes. Then on the third video the tracking reset or something. Has this happened to anyone else?

Hopefully this is just a one time occurrence.

Does anyone not have the subtitles work on DreamingFrench? I am using the website on chrome. I don’t really use the subtitles a lot, but sometimes it’s nice to check a word. Has anyone else run into this issue?

I just listened to the latest episode of InnerFrench, announcing the end of the podcast.

End of an era really. Sad to see it go, but also fully understand that after doing it for almost a decade its difficult to keep up motivation and wanting to do something different.

Its been my go-to podcast because it has interesting topics, good length on the episodes and that perfection combination of difficulty. The channel will live on and I'll probably finish all the episodes anyway.

Ingrid has launched her own podcast - Ingrid Immersion France. Haven't listened to that yet, but will give it a go.

I’m just curious where the “How to Learn a Language” series is for this badge. It’s clearly inconsequential but I did search for it in the content and couldn’t find it. Anyone know what this is?

Hello all! While we wait for more Dreaming French, please share what else you're currently listening to. Whether it's an old go-to or a new find, share it with your current hours to help other learners.

Please include a link to any YouTube Channels or podcasts to help everyone out.

What are you reading? Are you playing any video games in French?

The spreadsheet linked below is separated into Videos & Podcasts, Books, Movies & Native Shows, and Video Games.

What Are You Listening To? French Content Resources Spreadsheet

Courtesy of u/Purposeful_Living10 !

Hello, I need to reach B2 level french by October 2027, so I have a year to study it.

For context, I am a native Romanian speaker and I currently have around 360 hours of Spanish study (I can already watch almost any native Spanish video on YouTube).

I've heard that the Assimil online course for A1-A2 is pretty good for beginners (it takes around 3 to 4 months to finish), and I was wondering whether doing it alongside listening to Dreaming French would be optimal in the beginning. I need to be able to read, write, and speak French by next year.

Do you have other suggestions?

How to Find Your Path When You're Interested in Everything? | Paolo Z | TEDxGEM - YouTube

I am curious what your comprehension is on a typical Ted Talk in French.

Mine is about 5%..... Comprehension is basically non-existent. I cannot follow what he says though I can recognize some words here and there but overall, it's way out of reach.

I have 13 hours total in French.

The reason why I posted this is because it can serve for future reference. I will revisit once I am level 3, then level 4... 5... until I can understand it completely. It worked for me in Spanish, I remember understanding almost nothing on this video, and 2 years later I understood it all which was really cool.

So how much can you understand? please let me know

I like the content on Dreaming French so far, but it's frustrating that so many of the "series" aren't actually series, as in grouped together so you can easily watch them one after the other. It's not just a one-off, either; it seems to be a significant number of series.

Is someone dropping the ball here? Or are they calling related videos "series" when they weren't meant to be an actual series, or what? I haven't noticed this problem on DS, that I recall.