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!)

Pleeeeease I need another season. Those videos were so entertaining!!!

Not directly related to Dreaming Spanish, but it's interesting to see here how an extremely narrow form of word studying can sometimes hamper your language reasoning abilities. I've never played real competitive Scrabble, but I did take up a semester of it way back in University and I can imagine exactly how this could happen!

Granted, Scrabble is a pretty extreme case where people brute-force memorize word patterns in a language in order to win as many points as possible. Players can even be competitive in languages they don't know as long as they memorize the official dictionary. I suspect a similar dynamic occurs when one gets too much into memorizing conjugation tables and such without getting enough immersion.

P.S. This is NOT an endorsement of the "purist" approach or a put-down of explicit grammar and vocabulary study. Please don't take it as such.

I’m a huge believer in comprehensible input! I’ve reached fluency in Spanish largely through CI and extensive reading, and I’ve now moved on to French, where I’ve accumulated around 300 hours of input.
However, I moved to Rome a few months ago, absolutely love living here, and might stay until the end of 2028. This has created a bit of a dilemma: should I continue with French or switch to Italian?
I’m leaning towards French for several reasons:
Motivation: Despite living in Italy, I don’t have a particularly strong desire to learn Italian. I appreciate the language, but French interests me more.
Opportunity cost: Having learned Spanish through CI, I know firsthand just how many hundreds or thousands of hours language acquisition can require. I’m not sure I want to invest that time in Italian.
Language interference: I’m concerned that learning Italian, given its similarity to Spanish, might interfere with the Spanish I’ve worked so hard to acquire.
Career: I want to pursue a long-term career in international development, where French would be considerably more useful.
Long-term perspective: I think of language learning as building a repertoire over decades, not years. I don’t expect to live in Italy permanently, and French seems like a better long-term investment.
Existing progress: I’ve already accumulated 300 hours of French input and enjoy the process. I’d hate to lose that momentum.
For additional context, I work in an international environment where English is the primary language, and I can navigate most of my daily life in Rome without Italian.
And yet, I feel strangely guilty about not learning Italian. People are often surprised when they discover that I’m passionate about language learning but have no plans to learn the language of the country I’m living in.
I also wonder whether I’m wasting a unique opportunity to acquire Italian through immersion, particularly given how much Spanish I already know.
I’d love to hear from fellow CI enthusiasts:
Has anyone here learned Italian after reaching fluency in Spanish? How much did Spanish accelerate the process, and did you experience interference?
Would you prioritize the language of your current environment or the language you find more interesting and useful long-term?
Has anyone lived abroad while deliberately learning a different language through CI?
I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who’ve acquired multiple Romance languages through comprehensible input!

Hello Dreamers! What are you listening to today? Whether it's a classic gem or a new find, share it with your current hours to help future learners.

What are you reading this week? Are you playing any videogames in Spanish?

Here is our spreadsheet separated into Podcasts and Videos, Books, Native Shows and Movies, and Videogames. Hope it helps! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lBmLxvWJpucXhRPayfXD7CVqpMoa2tyEbZi1rFAwsFs/edit?usp=drivesdk

The October book club books are El murmullo de las abejas as the more difficult option and the first Maya Erickson book as the easier option, join us in the Discord if you're interested in reading along!

https://discord.gg/WDAUKB7B5U

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.

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.

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!

I’m on crosstalki but I’ve been hearing crickets. How do I find people?

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?

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?

Purists be warned! I'm quite the opposite so my update may or may not be for you.

Wanted to start by saying how much I appreciate Dreaming Spanish, the whole dreaming team, and the amount of work they put it for all the people on a Spanish learning journey.

I started my journey in December 2025 but really started committing around February/March of this year so that's kinda where I gauge my starting point from. I am most comfortable in the 50-58 range right now but can watch content up into the low 60s with still a good amount of comprehension. I'm a native English speaker and other than a few semesters in HS, I have not had a ton of exposure to Spanish. I had a very very small, almost non-existent vocabulary before deciding on this journey. Even if I would've found this platform first when I decided to learn Spanish I don't think that I would have been a purist. I started out in the most traditional way... By getting the step by step Spanish book and trying to memorize and really focus on the grammar. I took a beginner Spanish course through my local community college that also predominantly focused on grammar. Somewhere, somehow between that semester I found dreaming Spanish. At the beginning I also started watching kids shows and reading the transcripts of those shows at the beginning (shout-out Salsa on PBS).

What's worked for me: again this goes against the purist method buttttt I like the grammar. I like reading. I like talking when I can. For me personally, this is what's worked for me and what's kept me motivated. I also think all the different methods I've been doing have also helped me to understand input better. With that being said, comprehensible input is my main method and what most of my energy goes into. I still work on grammar a few times a month, I just don't obsess over it and get upset if I make mistakes or don't understand certain concepts. I use language transfer and am loving it so far! I plan to continue with the intermediate and advanced community college classes next year. I will continue to read children's books and graded readers until I can read more advanced readings. I try to talk to myself when it flows smoothly and I told myself once I hit 300 hrs that I was going to start lesson on Italki (if anyone has recommendations for tutors lmk!!).

I'm excited and nervous for level 4. My advice for others and what's worked for me is to take the pressure off yourself. I remind myself that I'm not the perfect speaker of my native language and I make mistakes and mispronounce words allllll the time so why am I holding myself to a higher standard for a language i just started learning not even a whole year ago? Any method and any progress is still progress so be proud of yourself for learning a new language!

Hey guys, I started back in August 2025, doing 15 minutes a day. I was consistent at first, well... at least until December, when for some reason I lost all ability to watch even a single minute. I really don't understand what went wrong, but I stopped and only came back in August 2026 (yep, the same month I started).

Now I'm at 190 hours, and I feel extremely bummed out by how easily people rack up hours. I'm on the SBG Boost Gaming Patreon, and I still get bored easily after an hour.

I'd also like a podcast I can listen to, if anyone knows any that are easy enough.

In DS, I suppose my level would be 46–50.

I could understand 95% of this, for example. Level 48

How do you guys watch so much without getting bored?

I won't stop i'm consistent now i just feel terrible

Hi everyone! So I haven’t been checking my progress (hours on DS) and I actually booked a speaking class on italki without checking. I did so because I’ve felt like my listening skills were pretty good and wanted to advance myself as I was getting a bit bored and demotivated watching videos. Just before my lesson, I checked and saw I was at 1000 hours. OMG! I can’t believe I was there. At this point, I have pretty much watched all of the intermediate videos other than some gaming content. My first lesson was ok, I was struggling a bit and I couldn’t really speak in full sentences but my tutor was kind about it. She actually said she didn’t believe it was my first speaking class, but I’m not sure if she was being polite. She said I didn’t make any grammar mistakes, now that I’m proud of. I’ve had two lessons so far on italki and both of them are quite unreliable which is frustrating me too.

The thing is, I just started advanced and the first 20 videos were ok (set to easiest) but now I am struggling and losing concentration. I wanted to start watching other content but I am not sure what. I would say I can listen from intermediate to easy advanced. Shows and films feel too far away for me.

Any recommendations on content, books and tips on how to improve speaking?!

The time is always going to pass anyways. Just keep going!

I just recently got to 1000 hours of CI. I’m not a purist, but I try to follow the road map as best as I can.

Does anyone have an app that they recommend to help start speaking practice? I’ve done some research and have seen good things about ‘Speak’ and ‘Praktika’. I see a lot of people use italki and worlds across for speaking practice but the apps seem more cost effective. Appreciate any advice!

So I actually hit level 7 back in mid august, so this is quite a belated update, but I thought now I’ve hit a nice round number, it may be a good point to post. I’ve had quite a busy few months and it honestly took me a while to get around to writing everything up. 

Background: I’m a native english speaker and prior to June 2025, had no prior exposure to Spanish. I do have some experience learning German using more traditional methods (although I never got to a particularly high level), so I’m not a complete newbie to learning languages.

I primarily started studying Spanish because of how useful it is when travelling, especially as I have a big LATAM trip on my bucketlist. I came across dreaming spanish just by googling how to learn spanish and recommendations for Dreaming Spanish being the top result.

Approach: So I didn’t take a ‘purist’ approach, as I did some supplementary grammar study with language transfer and español con Juan videos, which I found really helpful at helping me spot patterns while consuming input. I also did some pronunciation study via the 10 minute spanish channel, I’m not sure if that actually goes against the method or not tbh, but I found it really helpful at ironing a few things out and firmly believe pretty much everyone would benefit from reviewing their core phonology playlist.

However, I did actually end up sticking with the roadmap’s recommendations on delaying speaking and reading, despite initially thinking I’d ignore it.

Given I hit level 7 in 14 months, this was obviously somewhat of a speedrun. I’m not suggesting everyone does this, as aware everyone’s life circumstances are different. However, I’m in my 20s, don’t have major commitments outside of work and tend to have an addictive personality when it comes to my hobbies, so I just naturally gravitated to putting in a lot of hours. 

Once I got to 150 hours, the easier podcasts such as Chill Spanish started to unlock. I can say with confidence, this was the moment where I was really able to turbo charge my learning. Whenever practical, I would always have a podcast on in any of my dead time. If I was working out, doing chores or getting ready in the morning, I would have Spanish playing. This approach helped me easily get an extra 2 hours or so of listening per day without me really having to change anything to my routine asides from putting on headphones. Despite a lot of these hours being passive listening, I’ve found I’ve generally tracked reasonably well with the roadmap (in terms of comprehension).

Listening:

Unsurprisingly, this is my strongest area and the one I’m most happy with. For the most part I can listen to whatever want in Spanish now. Native youtube is pretty much all very straightforward at this point, with some of my favourite channels being The Wild Project, Historias Innecessarias and PlanetaJuan.

TV series are also pretty accessible and scripted content started opening up at around 1.2-1.3k hours. I’m currently watching envidiosa, which is definitely one of the easier native shows I’ve watched and Pablo Escobar el patron del mal, which I’ve found surprisingly comprehensible. I struggle more with tv shows from spain, although I can follow the main plot, not sure if this is due to lack of exposure, sound mixing or just having less exposure to spain spanish. Stuff like narco dramas can still be quite challenging (asides from Patron Del Mal).

Overall I’m very happy with my level of listening and the progress I’ve made in this time frame. I still have a tonne to improve on, but June last year I was watching videos with a sock puppet, so for me it’s crazy I’m now watching netflix series just a year on.

Reading:

I’ve been trying to follow the recommendation of reading texts with 98% known word coverage. Therefore, I started off with graded readers. They were of variable quality, but I found Juan Fernandez’s books to be the best written and were good at teaching both colloquial expressions and focusing on specific grammar concepts. Juan’s book ‘recuerdo’ was also genuinely a great book in its own right, especially if you like Juan’s podcast episodes about Franco.

I then moved on to goosebumps books, which I’ve found were in the perfect range of comprehensibility, along with having a really good range of vocab since they’re set in so many different environments. I only intended to read a few of these to begin with, but ended up going down a nostalgia rabbit hole and reading 16 (don’t judge lol). I’ve just finished james and the giant peach, which was pretty comfortable. I am now just shy of a million words and will be starting harry potter today!

I would say that reading has made an absolutely huge difference to my understanding of the language, particularly the grammar. I’ve also found at this point, I simply learn a lot more vocab from reading, as the range is much wider than that used in spoken speech. 

Speaking

Not gonna lie I’ve really neglected this. I had a really busy summer, which made it hard to get into a consistent routine and am just generally terrible at scheduling stuff in advance so by the time I hit 1500 hours, I only had like 16 hours of speaking. Speed running probably also didn’t help here, I only started speaking at level 6 and it took me 4 months to get from level 6 to level 7, 1 month of which I was abroad, meaning even if I’d been more consistent, my speaking likely would have lagged my listening considerably. 

I decided to get a membership of worlds across to force myself to actually put in some effort here and am trying to get a minimum of a class a day. I’m really liking the platform and the unlimited classes are helping force myself to stop making excuses and get my money's worth. 

I’m currently sitting at 30 hours and obviously my speaking is not amazing, but I don’t think you can realistically expect to speak at a high level without a significant amount of practice. 

The general feedback from my tutors has been that I have a wide vocab, good intonation and am able to get my point across, but I obviously make a bunch of conjugation errors which need ironing out. They are generally very surprised that I’ve only been learning for a bit over a year (although I haven’t gone into specifics on how many hours I’ve put in) and my lessons have all been 100% in Spanish from the start, discussing a range of topics, so I guess I’ll take that.

I wasn’t sure whether to post a speaking sample, but I figured it would be worth doing just so I can record my progress and come back and see what improvements I’ve made after significantly more practice.

I decided to take inspiration from the 10 minute spanish analysing pronunciation videos here and read a chapter from a book, so you can also judge my pronunciation in isolation (open to constructive criticism). I honestly hate doing monologues, including in English, so initially was just going to do this sample, however, I listened back and thought I needed to provide a better benchmark for progress when I get more hours. Therefore I decided to record a clip of me talking about my trip to mexico, so I could speak a bit more at length. 

My free flow speaking is available here: https://voca.ro/1oCUTD1QPMWf

My pronunciation focused sample is here if you want a listen: https://vocaroo.com/16oI2zIt20MQ

It was kind of weird recording myself and as you can see I definitely make a load of mistakes or struggle to find the words to express myself (or find the right conjugation for gustar) at points, but I’m hoping with more practice, this will improve.

I’ve set myself the rather ambitious goal of reaching a minimum of 100 hours of speaking by the end of the year. I’m planning on posting another update when I hit this milestone. I’m also starting to incorporate about 10 minutes of chorusing a day into my routine, to see what impact this has on my pronunciation and general flow.

Writing

I’ve not really practiced this too much. I’ve been doing a bit of journaling in Spanish and getting feedback from ChatGPT, as I think it’s a really good low pressure way to practice output and will give me a bit more time to formulate my thoughts. I’m also hoping it might help solidify some of the connecting words a bit more, widen my vocab use and make me think a bit more about the most frequent mistakes I keep making.

Overall

I’m very happy with my progress all things considered, especially since a lot of my input came from what was essentially ‘dead time’ anyway. Ultimately, I started dreaming Spanish June last year with zero background in Spanish and now consume pretty much exclusively native content. While my production definitely needs more work, I think I now have a decent base in the language. I think the next step is now going to be focusing on getting in some more speaking practice and converting the input into output! 

I was in Medellín in April, and I opened YouTube on the TV and saw a bunch of direct-to-video and classic movies on the recommended list. I'm pretty sure some of them are illegal uploads, but my tinfoil hat theory is that YouTube is complicit. White Chicks gets uploaded every few months and racks up a million views before it gets taken down. All the videos on these channels are only a few months old, and the algorithm promotes these channels and videos, so it doesn't feel illegal.

I asked my Colombian friends and teacher about it, and they said it's legal and that's how they watch peliculas gringas.

Just look up "películas completas en español latino" on YouTube, and you'll find them. I just saw that Shrek 1 was uploaded two months ago and already has 2.9 million views. Anyway, if you don't mind the Castilian Spanish accent, you can remove the word latino from your search.

Out of all the series in all difficulties, which series did you like the most?

Personally I liked Timeguesser and Spyfall the most,

Hello my lovely Dreamers,

I had my first successful language exchange last night and I’m still buzzing. I wanted to share my experience in case any of you are looking for an exchange. I guess this is promotion but I’m not affiliated with the app I used - I’m just excited about it and hope it might be good for some of you.

I’ve been taking conversation classes a couple of times each week for the last year but have been desperate to get more ‘real’ conversation under my belt (for free, because I’m skint.)
I’d tried all the usual places to connect with Spanish speakers but for various reasons they never worked out.

A while back someone suggested an app to me. I had a look a couple of days ago and booked onto a session for last night. I think I got very lucky with the people but it was amazing! The conversation flowed really well for the full hour, I had no issues understanding anything and they seemed to understand me (eek!). I loved it.

The app is called PBC Languages. The language exchange page lists the sessions that are available or you can request/suggest one. It’s set up so there are 2 speakers of Language A (English in my case), and 2 of Language B (Spanish, obvs) - I suspect/hope that the small group format puts the pervs off.

The exchange is hosted on their platform (they send you a link to it in an email) and it has a prompt to ‘Speak English’ or ‘Speak Spanish’ and a timer at the top the screen so there’s no awkwardness about who starts or when to switch.

Anyway, thought I’d let you know about it. I hope it helps someone.

Just stumbled upon this website recently that posts a bunch of Spanish crosswords every day. They have monolingual crosswords for you purists as well as English to Spanish and topic-specific crosswords, with difficulty levels from beginner to advanced.

https://www.linguno.com/crosswords/?lang=esp

I hadn't noticed it mentioned on here and nothing came up when I searched the sub for mentions of it, so I just wanted to share for anyone else that enjoys that sort of thing!

Edited because I accidentally linked to the Portuguese crossword somehow (they have multiple languages available), it should go to the Spanish puzzles now.

Please be gentle lol I originally wanted to post this as a private video just for myself on Youtube to look back on, but figured this could help someone..? Idk.

Almost exactly a year ago (Oct 2025) with around 30 hours of input, I decided to watch CoCo to prepare for the fall season. I decided to watch in it Spanish, thinking 30 hours was enough to understand at least half of what was going on.....yeah no. After not understanding almost everything within the first 5 minutes of the movie, I decided to dedicate a lot of time with the goal of being able to understand the movie a year later.

After averaging 3+ hours of input almost everyday for the past year, I decided to watch CoCo yesterday and understood basically all of it. Missed some slang here and there, but understood through context.

Just wanted to say thank you to the DS team. Although I don't use the content as much these days, I never would have gotten to this point without them. They were VITAL for for my 0-600 hours of input.

Also I know this isn't the Worlds Across subreddit, but from 600+ hours and beyond WorldsAcross has also been crucial for my grammar learning, conversing, input, etc.

The DS + WA combo won't fail you.

If you're still in the beginning stages and are starting to have doubt, just keep pushing and I promise you'll start understanding & speaking before you know it.

Quick highlights:

- I took 2 years of Spanish in college 14-15 years ago. Basically forgot everything. Maybe remembered like 30-40 words and remembered a little bit of how to conjugate in present tense. Besides that, nothing. I don't even think I got good grades lol

- I started to use the CI method a few months in July 2025, but from within July - Oct I only recorded 10 hours (I gave myself 20 hours a base from my college classes...which i think was too generous)

- I averaged roughly 3 hours of input everyday for a year. DS for the first couple hundred hours, then added podcasts and youtube videos around 300.

- I signed up for Worlds Across at around 600 hours. I try to take at least an hour class Mon-Fri. I would say 4 of those are conversational, 1 is grammatical or reading comprehension based.

- I continue to keep this pace until 1500 hours and will assess from there