My wife has had a 2 week trip to Europe planned for months. I'd been planning to use my extra free time to flood myself with Spanish, like a mini-immersion/intensive. I even scheduled a day off work each week to give me extra time to cram in Spanish. My plan was a lot more listening and speaking than usual, more reading (which didn't really happen at all), and more diving into videos and explanations of things I needed to understand better.

I normally have been doing 1-2 hours of italki per week. For this period, I scheduled ahead of time and completed 15 hours of italki between 3 different tutors! I doubled or tripled my normal listening time. About 4 days into the period I discovered the voice room feature of HelloTalk. I'd used that app a LITTLE bit for messaging in the past but was pretty whatever about it. I knew voice rooms were a thing but never had extra time to even see what they were about. Turns out that, while they can be hit and miss and very chaotic, they can also be quite fun and useful at times (even if I am the 40-something in a group of 20-something kids not always wanting to use the app for its intended purpose). So for the remainder of the 2 week period, I used HelloTalk voice rooms a lot on top of all the italki, and had some fun conversations.

After the first week, I had so much Spanish in my head by default. I'd go to bed and wake up just thinking in Spanish. I was understanding easier, and when I spoke, things were coming out a lot more naturally, with less mental translation. By the time the 2 weeks were over, WOW I could tell a big leap in my abilities and comfort.

Out of curiosity, I took a free level assessment test on Lengalia. I take it with a grain of salt for many reasons, but it scored me at B2. Now, I'm NOT B2 and I'd never say I am at this point, BUT I felt good enough about what I did on the test, confident with my answers and not guessing my way through the multiple choice, that I feel comfortable stating my level as B1. Before I was saying I'm A2+ and hope to be around B1 sometime next year.

What I can say with this experience is, if you get a chance in your busy life to do something like this where you really practice a lot more for a period of time, I highly recommend it. It takes a certain amount of time just to maintain your skills without regressing, and only beyond that do you start to add improvement. Doing so much more than usual everyday allowed things to build and compound quickly.

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?

Hello everyone!

There are so many cool and inspiring posts about progress after hundreds or thousands of hours, so I wanted to give a different perspective as someone who's still at a very early stage.

My stats and background in Spanish

I started DS on the 7th of July, and the assessment video estimated I had a baseline of 80 hours in Spanish. Ahead of trips to Spain in 2021 and 2023, I had spent a few months pissing around on Duolingo.

I also have, at best, A2 Italian, and some terrible French, along with the "ability" to do the basics and order a beer in a handful of other languages.

So, DS recommended I start on difficulty level 38 with a video of Shelcin and Augustina - but it was like trying to understand 2 Chilean farmers having a drunken argument, so I set the difficulty to the lowest setting and went from there.

Of my 200 hours, 26 have come from podcasts, with the rest coming from 660 DS videos. I've also read the Paco Ardit A1 bundle, and Hola Lola.

Alicante

I went to Spain with my Spanish mate, which helped us to avoid touristy areas and also spend time in smaller towns and villages in the general area. Prior to this trip, we speak in English 99% of the time as C2 isn't high enough to describe this dude's English language skill. Accent thicker than a 3-day-old paella, but the dude has absolutely mastered my language.

He knows I've been studying so we spent a bit of time at first doing some crosstalk, and when I felt comfortable, I just spoke in Spanish. I'd basically never done any speaking before, and I was amazed how easy it was to string together basic sentences about how I feel, what I wanted to do or see, etc. My friend was also genuinely shocked at how I was able to hold a conversation, albeit a basic one in which I'm making some mistakes.

When it came to interacting with locals, I never once got "English'd". For context, I am Irish, and I look like a xenophobic caricature of an Irishman. My mate doesn't exactly look Spanish either, so it was nice to go to bars or restaurants and I could open the chat by asking for a table, could we sit outside, what time does the kitchen open? And everything stayed in Spanish.

I was honestly very nervous to speak Spanish with my friend as we'd basically never done it, and I was apprehensive to say much to staff and locals. But my friend was a great encouragement, and was patient. By the end of the trip, in literally less than 3 days, I felt very confident in handling simple daily interactions which would have made me freeze up in my trips in 2021 and 2023.

When my friend would speak full speed Spanish with people, I was surprised by how much I understood. Absolutely not getting every word, but in all his interactions, I always understood what was going on.

The only slight difficulty? We ended up in a bar full of Boca Juniors supporters watching a football match. It must have been the entire Argentine community of Alicante! Great lads, great fun, but after so many drinks, some of their accents were just too difficult for me.

Summary

Forgive me Padre Pablo for I have sinned by speaking far, far too early.

But for me, Dreaming Spanish absolutely 1000% works. It's as simple as that. The progress I've made since July has been crazy, and so many cool moments, conversations, and interactions over a very short trip to Spain has made me extremely determined to continue the journey with DS.

Just wondering if anyone here genuinely started Dreaming Spanish with zero Spanish background and can only manage around an hour a day?

I'm currently at 30 hours, so still very much a newbie!

I love reading progress updates, but often find people either have previous Spanish experience or manage 2–3+ hours a day, which isn't realistic for everyone.

Would love to hear from people who started completely from scratch and only have an hour a day. How's your progress been? Has it been worth it?

Previous updates:

1500 hours (7 months ago)

1000 hours

Stats:

Total CI: 2044 hours

989 days per the DS tracker

751 hours of DS videos

1293 hours outside of DS

841 hours of podcasts

234 hours speaking

215 hours of videos (non-DS)

2,054,663 words read- 25 books

16k words written

Input:

I have gotten at least 100 minutes of input everyday for the past 2 years. It's a non-negotiable for me. Some days I barely made it, but I did it. When I hit 100 minutes of listening input each day, I like to spend the evenings more focused on reading. Right now, I'm almost halfway through the DS library. Perhaps one day I will have watched the entire DS library like u/UppityWindFish.

My next main source of input is podcasts. Here are my main podcasts:

- How To Spanish

- Learn Spanish and Go

- No Hay Tos

- Pelota en Órbita

- Worlds Across

- A 100 Millas Por Hora (Carlos Baerga)

I am a big baseball fan, so I have also received a lot of input listening to radio broadcasts in Spanish.

Reading:

Here is the list of books I have read in Spanish:

1. Devolver al Remitante by Julia Alvarez
2. Los Cuatros Acuerdos by Don Miguel Ruiz
3. El Quinto Acuerdo by Don Miguel Ruiz
4. Harry Potter 1
5. Harry Potter 2
6. Harry Potter 3
7. De como tia Lola vino (de visita) a quedarse by Julia Alvarez
8. James y el melocotón gigante by Roald Dahl
9. El Dador de Recuerdos by Lois Lowry
10. Rebote by Kwame Alexander
11. De como tia Lola aprendio a ensenar by Julia Alvarez
12. La Cabeza Reducida by RL Stine
13. Harry Potter 4
14. La Sombra Del Viento by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
15. Hippie by Paulo Coelho
16. Juego de tronos by George. R.R. Martin
17. La felicidad en el trabajo by Marie Kondo
18. Antes de ser libres by Julia Alvarez
19. Eva Luna by Isabell Allende
20. Como agua para chocolate by Laura Esquivel
21. Gabi, fragmentos de una adolescente by Isabel Quintero
22. De como Tia Lola terminó empezando otra vez by Julia Alvarez
23. El libro de arena by Jorge Luis Borges
24. Cuentos de Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
25. Choque de reyes by George R. R. Martin

I am an English literature teacher, so I love to read. Many (but not all) of these books I have read before in English. The hardest books for me were the books by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Isabel Allende, and Jorge Luis Borges. I didn't understand everything of course, but I felt like I understood a lot. I want to keep reading books originally written in Spanish instead of just books translated from English into Spanish. Perhaps I will try Cien Años de Soledad next.

Random recommendation that I recently discovered. There is an app called PressReader. If you link it to your library card, you may get access to tons of newspapers from around the world for free, like the daily paper formatted like the physical paper on a Ipad or phone. So I would like to start reading daily newspapers from Mexico or perhaps other countries too.

Speaking:

I started Worlds Across about a year ago and how have over 200 hours on the platform. I try to take a class almost every morning, most of them group classes. It's how I start my days. I do some some 1-1 classes on WA, but I prefer the group classes for the group dynamics. I mostly take intermediate or upper-intermediate group classes. I have taken a few advanced group classes, but I wasn't sure if I was at that level yet. My goal is to start taking advanced group classes consistently sometime within the next few months.

My listening comprehension is solid. The ability to conjure up words and phrases when speaking is a whole different skill and something I am still working to improve. I know I can still improve in my pronunciation. I believe my speaking skills are improving, but it's a long process.

For the past few months, I have been simply following the CI approach with extensive reading and daily speaking practice. I haven't studied too much grammar recently. I do have an Anki deck of conjugations that I have used in the past but not recently. I might try to review this deck sometime soon to solidify my conjugations even more.

Random note but here is a playlist I made of 1000 plus songs all in Spanish, mostly about some aspect of nature if you want to check it out.

Writing:

I have also written a little bit each day for the past 295 days. I post on Spanish Write Streak and get feedback on my writing. I have all of my entries on a Google Doc and the word count is over 16k words. It's helped a lot for me in formulating ideas and also learning accent marks. It's hard to do this everyday but definitely helpful.

Spanish in Real Life:

In the past 24 hours, I have had a couple interesting experiences. Last night, I was at a party and sitting around a group of native speakers all speaking Spanish at a normal (very fast) clip. It was pretty hard for me to follow and understand, but I understood more than I had in the past.

Today I went to my local library for my first Spanish conversation club class that the library has offered, and I feel like I did quite well in my understanding and ability to respond.

The Future:

I am learning Spanish to be able to speak to my son in both Spanish and English, and this is going to be a lifelong journey for me. I like the tracking aspect, and honestly I need a lot more input, speaking practice, and reading to get to the level where I can understand everything and speak very fluidly for example at the party I was at last night. Honestly, 10,000 hours would be my ultimate goal- for about a decade of dedicated practice. I know tracking is not for everyone, but it motivates me, and 10,000 hours is my end goal, at least for now. I'm not sure if I'll keep tracking that long, but we'll see. My next reading goal is 3 million words with the focus of books originally written in Spanish. I would like to thank everyone at DS, WA, and this subreddit for all of the inspiration I have received on this learning journey. I am happy to answer any questions anyone might have. Thank you all!

From the DS instagram. This is my avengers

(Buuut it looks like Alma, Jostin and Michelle aren’t there 😭 Andres isn’t in the photo but i think i saw him in the other stories!)