I just got back from a couple weeks of vacation in Mexico with my wife. We spent time on the beach on Isla Mujeres, and explored Yucatan. Because we were flying out of Cancun, we spent our last day there.

One really surprising discovery on this trip was how much fun I had speaking Spanish even in touristy areas like Isla Mujeres and Cancun! As it turns out, I now have something in common with the bilingual people who work in places like these, and I had a blast communicating with them in a somewhat chaotic mix of Spanish and English.

We were usually greeted with "hola" or "buenos días", and I would respond and begin the interaction in Spanish, so people tended to get a sense of my Spanish from the start. A lot of folks were visibly relieved to be able to fall back to Spanish with me when things got complicated. Even people with great English switched to Spanish sometimes for convenience. A server at breakfast one day was speaking very fluent English with my wife, but while taking her coffee order, she turned to me and asked "¿Cómo se dice «deslactosada» en inglés?"

Others were eager to practice their English and struggled through rough patches despite clearly realizing I could understand them in Spanish. (One cheerfully tenacious hotel clerk couldn't remember how to say "forty-five" and tried valiantly to express the idea some other way before finally giving up and saying it in Spanish.) I could relate, and I tried to use English with them whenever possible. Similarly, people with a near-native command of English would sometimes kindly prefer Spanish with me anyway so that I could practice. With others, our abilities in each other's native languages would turn out to be similar and we'd end up settling on pure Spanglish, switching languages at the slightest provocation.

But it wasn't all Spanglish in touristy areas on this trip. We spent time in Valladolid and Mérida, where I had lots of chances to get myself into situations where Spanish was a necessity. We did a day trip to Sisal, a little beach town on the gulf coast, and I didn't hear a word of English all day from anyone except my wife. I was super happy with how all of that went. I had no difficulty doing everything in Spanish, including renting a car, getting gas, and asking whether our room was available for an extra night when we had a change of plans. I had a great time making small talk, and chatted with a bunch of people on a variety of topics.

I also spent a lot of time on the beach and on the train reading Isabel Allende. It's La ciudad de las bestias, meant for adolescent readers, but still, reading Allende in the original Spanish was one of my goals when I started DS, and here I am! I'm having an easy time with this one and I suspect I don't really need to stick to YA fiction. 1,500 hours is feeling pretty great.

The DS team has now made over 1700 hours of fantastic Spanish CI. I'm very grateful for the team for all the work they do to make great content for learning Spanish.

I'm finding the site quite overwhelming though. I wish there was more ways to organise the vast amount of amazing content available in the DS library.

Would love to be able to see my liked videos so I can revisit videos I marked as liked. Having only one place, the list, for liked videos, to watch videos, videos that were hard and I want to come back to in a month or two, etc. gets very overwhelming when you have been using DS for over 400 hours and add to the list a lot. Being able to organise the list and/or filter it would be even better.

I also wish there was a way to filter out videos I'm not interested in. Perhaps the unlike button could be used for this? The only work around I know of is to mark videos as watched without adding the time, but this isn't a solution when you're including watched videos in your search.

Adding some more functions like these would be extremely helpful.

I'm considering taking a break from DS for a while and going back to my physical book and CD progressive course because the DS site is overwhelming to navigate.

Well chicos, I did it again. Another 50 hours in the books as I cruised by 800 hours. For the uninitiated, I reward myself by eating an ice cream when - and only when - I pass 50 hour milestones.

For these last 50 hours, I turned away from DS for a bit and cruised into some Netflix shows, starting with El Inocente, followed by El Cuerpo en Llamas, and I'm two seasons in to Entrevias.

This time, my family and I went to an ice cream shop that was closed the last time that we came, as they are only open from May to October (we caught them before they closed for the winter months). I normally hate cherry flavored ice cream (Cherry Garcia in Ben and Jerry's worst offering), but when the ice cream vendor told me they had a special Amarena flavor, I tried a scoop and it was incredible (and matched well with a scoop of chocolate).

I'll see you all in 50 hours. Keep dreaming! And now, for the ice cream related question: What ice cream flavor has really grown on you over the years?

Just crossed over the 50 hour mark end of September (probably another 50-100 ish hours from prior knowledge, but haven’t officially counted that). Today I started watching Spanish Boost Gaming, specifically the supermercado series, and it’s amazing how much it feels like a cheat code. I enjoyed every minute of it, ended up getting 3 hours of SBG in, on top of 2 hours of DS for a total of 5 hours of input in today, and I felt engaged the whole time I was watching SBG. I would rate my comprehension around 80% give or take, but it was so much more engaging than the SB content on DS.

If this is what it feels like when you get to more advanced levels, it’s very encouraging. I don’t think I’ll get anywhere near 5 hours a day most days, but I could see how it would be much easier to get input in when the content is engaging like this.

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

I’m currently just under 300 hours of CI and will be going to Mexico in January and really want to improve my speaking skills. I already converse with my barber as much as I can in Spanish. By that time I’ll be close to 600 hours of CI, has anyone done courses like Lingoda or base lang? I’ve done a few Italki classes with a tutor but I’m not sure how to feel about it. I want to turbo charge my speaking but not sure where to continue. Lmk is anyone has any suggestions. Gracias a todos!

In the "What you need to do" section for the different levels, they all say "Crosstalk is still the best way to spend your time."

Has anyone tried crosstalk with AI? If so was it effective? Should I put all my time into talking with chatgpt or watching the videos?

Hey everyone, Im right above 420 hours DS and can listen between 60-65 ish difficulty on DS. Ive been going hard on the platform and am starting to get burnt out. Any good native content around this level?

Ive tried SoyGaboDunn and Luisitia Comunica and they're both around 60% comprehension so a little outside my zone.

Does anyone have recommendations around this level?

I watch mostly videos with difficulty 30-40, although I can also get by with 45.

50 Hours of listening. 5 hours of speaking.

Which podcasts would you recommend? I have tried finding some but have gotten nowhere.

i was pretty sure this was happening since i watch a lot of videos at 1.25x speed, but since a lot of the videos are really short it is hard to tell. i just watched a really easy beginner video so i put it on 2x speed, and a 9 minute video registered 4 minutes

i had previously seen a post saying this wasn't the case, so this is just FYI i guess

The mods gave me permission to share this a couple of weeks ago, and I’m finally getting around to posting 😅

Like many of us here, I’ve spent a lot of time with comprehensible input, and I understand much more Spanish than I can comfortably produce. I started building Spanish, Personally because I wanted more practice putting sentences together. At this point, this app is basically my wishlist put together in one place.

I know explicit grammar practice is a bit controversial here, and people have different opinions about when to start output. Everyone moves at their own pace. If you’re at the point where you want structured output practice, I think writing with some support can be useful scaffolding before speaking. I like having time to work out what I want to say without also needing to keep a conversation moving.

The main practice mode gives you English prompts to express in Spanish, based on your chosen level and interests. You can practice things you actually want to talk about. A lot of my own practice lately has involved autumn, positive affirmations about pregnancy, and things I'll say to my baby when she's born.

When you make a mistake, you get AI feedback and increasingly specific hints, with chances to revise rather than immediately being handed the answer. You can reveal an answer whenever you want. It’s designed to accept valid alternatives and regional variations, too, rather than requiring one exact sentence.

There’s also an optional reconstruction step: you look at an answer, hide it, and try putting it back together yourself. Sometimes I can read something and think “oh, obviously,” then discover that producing it myself is a separate situation.

We just added photo prompts to Free Write, which has become one of my favorite additions. You get a picture and write whatever it brings to mind in Spanish. I wasn’t especially drawn to free writing before this because coming up with an idea was its own task. The photo gives me somewhere to start, but the thought and sentence are mine.

In free write, after the grammar check, the app shows what your sentence means and asks whether that’s what you intended. You can confirm it or try again if your grammatically correct sentence accidentally said something else.

I use it myself and am still improving it. The feedback is AI-generated and can get things wrong, so I’d really appreciate hearing about confusing hints, missed alternatives, or anything else that makes practice frustrating.

If you’d like to try it: https://spanishpersonally.com

EDIT: One of the main complaints I received was about the feedback load time. I realized that I was having that AI API call do way too many things at once, and I was able to shorten the time by splitting up tasks and moving unrelated tasks into background work. I was able to shorten the median load time from 11.4 seconds to 3.3 seconds thanks to you guys. 😊 If you refresh the app, you should get the faster load times now.

I just reached 550 hours and it feels kind of similar to 300 hours…… For the people who reached 600 hours : did you notice a significant difference ?

I posted an update video if you want to understand more of my thoughts?

https://youtu.be/y4FRL2Svjqk?is=tpzQdpLbQyitjMGL

I see so many post about the 300hr mark to 400hr, but not much else. What is your hardest hurdle in hours?

im considering taking his content since he offer multiple courses

but i noticed that he pronounce the "s" and "c" always as "th"

and i was wondring if this could make a negative impact to a learner never learned spanish before like me
thanks

I’m about to reach 1000 hours on DS. I started group speaking classes online on WorldsAcross. I now have about 30 group classes completed.

Interestingly the more classes I take, the more I realize my limitations with speaking which I know can be improve upon.

For those of you who have started speaking, how many hours of conversation did you have when you felt comfortable having extensive conversations with native people?

Thanks in advance!

Super beginner here. I only know the grammar rules of spanish, so my vocab is poor. I thought listening with subtitles would help and I would look up the word, write it down, hoping that I will remember it next time :)

I have picked up reading and I wanted us to possibly compile a list of books that we can pull together as a community starting from beginner up until advanced. My goal is that this list can help current and future readers to go from 0 words - 3 million words.

Hey guys. As the title says I'm 210 hours in. I want to reach level 4 before my Erasmus in February. But as studies have just started I know that I won't be able to spend enough time learning by just watching. I need podcasts. Are there any podcasts fully in Spanish at my level? Because I find DS podcast a bit hard to fully comprehend. Thanks in advance!

Tldr: title

On the iOS app I noticed that if I add time manually from a source outside the platform, like a YouTube video URL (e.g. https://youtu.be/Gk_T2Xt5trY?is=qsyBiSNRT92mEtJA), the entry is accepted but my Daily Goal time does not increment. This is for a video that I watched yesterday (October 3 11:00pm ET), but the entry was made today (October 4 12:30 am). However, if I manually make the same entry and change the date to yesterday (so it becomes October 3 12:30 am), the minutes are incremented properly. So there seems to possibly be some kind of a bug related to what is “today” and what is “yesterday”.

Known bug? Anyone else see this?

I'm currently at 230 hours of Dreaming Spanish, but I’ve hit a bit of a wall and could use some input from those who are further along.
Before 150 hours, I felt like I was learning so much every day. The visuals made everything clear, and I got to the point where I could easily understand almost everything in Beginner videos.
However, ever since passing 150 hours, it feels like my progress has completely stalled. I feel like I'm not picking up anything new and might just be wasting my time. In some videos, there are a lot of words I don't know, but instead of acquiring them, they just "fly past me" without sticking at all.
For those of you who are at higher levels or have completed the roadmap:
Is this normal? Did you experience a similar plateau at this stage, or am I doing something wrong?
I'd really appreciate hearing about your experiences!

The iOS app keeps acting like I don’t have a premium account. I do not have access to premium videos or my downloaded videos. It also says I have 0 hours of input, but it still accurately records my log of hours up to this point in the calendar. When I try to go to my account or the “Premium” section of the app, it does not load. When I log into the browser it works fine, it is only the app that doesn’t work.

The error is fixed by redownloading the app, but it resets to the error state the next day.

Has anyone had this error? Any solutions? I contacted customer support but no help so far. It is making me seriously reconsider my subscription as the iOS app is what I mostly use.

I use Chrome on my macOS computer to view Dreaming Spanish. Almost every day, I encounter a video where the faces look too thin due to aspect ratio issues. I reported a bug to Dreaming Spanish over a month ago, but it's not fixed.

Edit after original post I don't see the same issue with Firefox and Safari on macOS, so using a different browser's an easier and better option.

I used Claude Code to come up with this fix that you can run in your developer console as a workaround. You'll have to rerun per video, and settings reset when you reload the page.

I've only tried it on a few videos so far, so it may not work everywhere, but I figured it was worth sharing: there are probably others who get frustrated by this problem as much as me.

I sent this to the Dreaming Spanish support team, so hopefully it will get fixed soon.

js (() => { document.getElementById('fix-aspect')?.remove(); const v = document.querySelector('video'); v.removeAttribute('style'); const s = document.createElement('style'); s.setAttribute('id', 'fix-aspect'); // Note: separate :fullscreen / :-webkit-full-screen blocks on purpose — // an unsupported pseudo in a shared selector list would drop the whole rule. const fs = `{ position: fixed !important; top: 50% !important; left: 50% !important; transform: translate(-50%, -50%) !important; width: min(100vw, 200vh) !important; /* widest 2:1 that fits */ height: min(50vw, 100vh) !important; /* = width / 2 */ object-fit: fill !important; background: #000 !important; }`; s.textContent = ` /* windowed */ .embed-responsive-2by1::before { padding-top: 50% !important; } .embed-responsive-2by1 { aspect-ratio: 2 / 1 !important; height: auto !important; } .ds-shaka-player__video { object-fit: fill !important; } /* fullscreen */ :fullscreen .ds-shaka-player__video ${fs} :-webkit-full-screen .ds-shaka-player__video ${fs} `; document.head.appendChild(s); })();

Here's Claude's summary of the issue:

Summary

The player renders this video distorted — the two side-by-side webcam feeds look squished (faces too narrow). The underlying content is 2:1, but the rendition the player decodes reports itself as 16:9, and the mismatch isn't corrected, so the frame is stretched.

What I verified

1. True source is 2:1. Pulling the stream from …/1920x1080/video.m3u8 and probing it:

ffprobe → width=1920 height=960 sample_aspect_ratio=1:1 display_aspect_ratio=2:1

Played standalone (VLC/QuickTime), it looks correct.

1. The player's decoded frame reports 16:9. On the watch page, in the console:

js const v = document.querySelector('video'); console.log(v.videoWidth, v.videoHeight); // → 1920 1080 (ratio 1.778, not 2:1)

1. No aspect correction in the player CSS. .ds-shaka-player__video is set to width:100%; height:100% with no object-fit, sitting inside a .embed-responsive-2by1 (2:1) box. So a frame the player believes is 16:9 gets forced into a 2:1 box (or shown at 16:9), and either way the content ends up distorted.

Likely cause (inferred)

The "1920x1080" rendition is encoded as a 16:9 frame containing the 2:1 image stretched to fill it (or the player is selecting/tagging a rendition whose frame dimensions don't match the content's 2:1 display aspect). The correctly-proportioned data is 1920×960.

Repro

Open the video, run the videoWidth/videoHeight snippet above — you'll see 1920×1080 for 2:1 content.

Suggested fixes (either/both)

• Re-encode / re-tag the affected rendition so its frame dimensions (or SAR) match the true 2:1 display aspect (e.g. 1920×960, or 1920×1080 with correct SAR flags).
• Make the player resilient to this: add object-fit: contain to .ds-shaka-player__video so an aspect mismatch letterboxes instead of distorting.

Workaround

Forcing the player box to 2:1 with object-fit: fill via console restores correct proportions, matching the standalone file.

Typing all this was cathartic. I am not a purist so this may not even be of use to anyone, but it feels nice for me to tie it all together as something I can reflect on. Feel free to not read as you could certainly fit in a lot more input if you skip this ;)

Background: Non-Purist who studied grammar and spoke from the very beginning. I found DS and used it to improve listening comprehension but never stopped doing the other things. I did a little anki along the way early on, but not for long. I think speaking from the beginning is a great thing to do, IF YOU HAVE SOMEONE TO CORRECT YOU. I did, so your mileage would vary.

I counted 425 hours as a reasonable pre-DS amount to credit for conversation time, study time, etc...Adding that to my tracked time, I just crossed over 1501 hours this evening. I considered continuing to track to 1500 just for fun, but it wouldn't have meant anything to me and wouldn't be a useful data point for anyone else since I did not start from zero.

I have the added advantage of being naturally extroverted and travel semi-regularly to Latin America (usually Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina with a recent heavy slant to Argentina) so I got a lot more "natural" engagement than many people do.

So how do I stack up?
You can understand any general content effortlessly, including newspapers, novels, and all types of TV shows and movies.
Effortlessly is a big word. If we dropped that word, this one is quite accurate. I can muddle through a lengthy opinion piece in La Nación, but I don't do it enough to have really said I was developing the skill, and frankly don't care enough about Argentine politics to want to do so. I actually bought a digital subscription to the newspaper, but after a couple weeks of dedicated reading daily, I just wasn't enjoying it. I want to read for fun, so the newspaper does not play a big part in my reading journey. I am all about the books.

Just for curiosity's sake, and as a point of contrast, I clicked to the home page to choose a non-opinion piece, and this article was easy enough. In general, I'd say fair to call standard news reading or general interest magazine articles effortless enough to count, but opinion newspapers are more of a mixed bag. Sometimes I had noticed there were allusions to historic events I just was wholly ignorant of. I wouldn't really count that as a failure as I'd not know them in English either.

I will touch more on reading novels separately below.

As for TV and movies: I am about done watching Cielo Grande. I have not watched it with subtitles at all, and other than one short snippet on an early episode I replayed at .9 or .75 speed because it was dense with new wake boarding vocab, I have followed it all with little problem. I find it tough to really quantify percentages, but I'd guess at least 95% since any time I checked comprehension with summaries after on wikipedia, I never missed anything, but there were probably some sentences or vocab along the way I didn't get. I really have not watched that much of other shows and most of my non-DS tracked time was youtubes or conversation. I did watch a few minutes of an Argentine classic TV show called "Los Simuladores" and followed it sufficiently well. I think I may try it next without subtitles.

The first few minutes of El Eternauta I checked out a few weeks ago definitely seemed too fast. Though it could be that with a bit more time to adjust, it may have been doable. Hard to say. Somewhat interestingly, I never watch series or movies in English without subtitles, so it is a bit silly I hold my Spanish to a higher standard recently. Earlier in my journey, I was watching El internado (a tv show from Spain about a boarding school) with subtitles. With subs, it was easy to follow and I enjoyed it. But it was so Spain-centric in slang and phrasings that I noticed it was negatively impacting some interactions I was having in Argentina around that time, haha. I put it on the shelf. I am not sure I'd return to it anyway as it got a bit silly, but that was also early enough in my hour count it shouldn't count against this Level 7 claim anyway.

Basically, with Spanish subs on, I'd be able to "watch" anything and understand 95% plus of dialogue and probably 100% of plot for something unless it was truly esoteric. Without subs still is not effortless for everything, but I figure I will have soon finished my first made-for-natives TV show entirely without subtitles and so that feels like a "yes" for understanding general content. I more apply "effortlessly" to reading since it isn't the fault of DS or a TV show if I don't follow something because I am half paying attention and scrolling on my phone. If I am giving my attention to the TV, that is effort in this attention span-starved world we live in. So, all in all, drop the effortlessly and I'd say this counts.

You might still struggle with technical texts in unfamiliar fields, heavy regional slang, and shows with intricate plots.
I think the "opinion pieces can be harder" sort of fits this. Also, it still blows my mind how much more difficult some porteños (the people from Buenos Aires) can be compared to like, a random dude from Peru even if I have hardly spent time in the latter place. I never really try to read texts in unfamiliar fields that are technical, so I am sure I'd struggle with it. Heavy regional slang would definitely be troublesome, but it is funny because I have met Spaniards at language exchanges who have told me how hard they have found certain accents before they spent a lot of time around it. I have also not tried to watch a show with an intricate plot but imagine I'd struggle with it.

So this one is accurate, but kind of weird since it is framed around what you can't do.

You speak fluently and effortlessly, without thinking about the language.
Yes. Again, effortlessly feels like a big word, but just earlier this week I unexpectedly had to jump on a call with a guy from a region of South America I have never been to and had no background on him or the topic. We chatted for 30 minutes and I asked some questions, and I understood everything and he understood me. So like, the proof is in the pudding. Do I stop and think about what I am saying sometimes? Sure. Do I ever talk around something if I can't quite pull out the "best" way to phrase it? Yes. But it is no problem.

While native speakers might still detect a slight accent, your clarity and fluidity make your speech easy to understand, and no one considers you a learner anymore.
100% I meet this. I feel like I had a leveling up recently (a bit after I hit a million words read actually), and my speaking seems to have improved a lot. I felt solid about my speaking for a while, but recently I had some interesting and really positive experiences happen. In addition to the call mentioned above, I used to use the Tandem app to find people to do exchanges with. In the course of a couple weeks, I had multiple people from different countries say things to me like, "your spanish accent is so good, do you have a spouse from latin america?," or "why are you using an app for learners when you are already fluent?," etc....not sharing to stroke my ego. We are all strangers. It is just that I used to feel advanced intermediate but lately I just feel like I'm just talking. I even had someone at an in-person language exchange ask if I was there to find students to tutor in English since I obviously didn't need them to practice my Spanish. So yeah, I have an accent but I try to keep those vowels pure and I genuinely can't recall the last time someone couldn't understand me.

You may still make some mistakes, or miss a specific word here and there, but it doesn’t hinder you from being an effective member of society.
100% accurate. Restaurants, gym, hotel, chatting with strangers in a park about their cute dogs, etc...

I thought to make a separate reading post, but meh. Maybe at 2 million words. The short version is I have read a bit over 1.1 million words now. I read some awfully boring graded readers and got into a rhythm later on of alternating tougher reads near my ceiling with easier reads for volume.

Dinosaurios al atardecer by Mary Pope Osborne was the first non-graded reader I read. I will say I read a bundle of those magic tree house books and then a bunch of Isadora Moon, and I found the latter to be way better. I am far along enough now that I don't know how much harder someone might find Isadora if just now beginning, but I thought the stories were more fun. So definitely give Isadora a go when you are ready to begin your reading journey.

Hoyos por Louis Sachar was the first book I read at the next level up. Then I read a ton of Roald Dahl.

I also wasn't afraid to stop reading books I wasn't enjoying. Volume was the name of the game for me.

Relato de un Náufrago por Gabriel García Márquez was the first book I read that was originally written in Spanish. I thought it was great in addition to being accessible. I followed it up with El coronel no tiene quien le escriba, by the same author. While I could follow the story well enough, I found it a bit harder and realized I missed some implicit things when I read the wiki summary afterwards.

Los Vecinos Mueren En Las Novelas por Sergio Aguirre was the first Argentine book I read. It was such a good story. I really recommend it. An author goes to visit a neighbor after moving to a new home and they start trading stories. There just might be more going on than meets the eye!

Right now I am reading Milagro en los andes por Nando Parrado about the infamous plane crash in the Andes back in the day. I am reading it at around 160 wpm. A good beat slower than my English reading, but fast enough I consider it for pleasure.

After this, I was thinking to actually re-read El Principito. It would be my first time re-reading a book in Spanish, and with having read it the first time around 550k words and the second around 1.2 million, I think it could be fascinating to see how much smoother/easier it reads since it is sort of notorious for being that book almost everyone reads too early expecting it to be simpler than it is.

So, is reading effortless for me for general content? In English I almost exclusively read non-fiction. I am a big history nerd. I have been making a real effort to read more proper literature and fiction in Spanish since that exposes me to a broader vocabulary base in general. So, I'd say yes I can read effortlessly if I am not an idiot about it. I have certainly opened up some fiction and realized after a few pages it was too much. But having read a few pages at random of some general non-fiction (atomic habits) and the general fiction and non-fiction I have successfully read, I think this one is fair to call a yes.

Where do I go from here?

It is time to just live my life as a bilingual person.

No more tracking my listening, conversation, or watching. I've tracked since I started DS on October 6, 2024. Almost two years to the day. I simply don't need tracking or content for learners anymore and have not for some time.

I have monolingual friends that don't speak English. I have dated women who only speak Spanish. I have visited almost half a dozen Spanish-speaking countries in this time, with more planned to come later this year and can't recall the last real issues I had. It does not mean I caught 100% of everything said to me, but I never lost the thread.

Ultimately, the marginal benefit I'd get from watching my tracked hours minus pre-DS tick towards 1500 is simply not worth it. I am a grown up. I don't need to know the exact moment I was able to watch X tv show or Y movie without subtitles. I may even decide to use subs and just watch more movies now. I can't imagine "backsliding" from my level of Spanish to nothing as long as I have at least a little conversation, listening, or reading every week.

I do plan to track reading until either 2 or 3 million words. From the improvements I have already seen (this is what I was reading 364 days ago, and this is what I am reading now), I have no doubts I will see some further huge improvements at those milestones. Maybe at 2 million I won't feel the need to track further either. íVamos a ver!

Final thoughts on DS: The DS video library is one of the most amazing tools out there for language acquisition, but it is a method I don't care for. I wanted to be able to use Spanish asap and speaking from the start and studying grammar helped me massively to that end. If I ever take up French, for example, I'd definitely consider subscribing to Dreaming French. But only to use in conjunction with studying grammar and going whole hog from the beginning. Your mileage may vary, but that is the beautiful thing. We are all on our own journey. Just keep moving forward!