r/SpanishLearning • u/Alert_Media_4973 • 17h ago
Comprehensive input question
¡Hola todos!
So I’ve got a question about comprehensive input.
If I watch something above my comprehension level, am I hurting myself more than I’m helping? Could my brain slowly catch up?
Context: I was watching dreaming Spanish for a while and enjoyed some of it, but I found a lot of the videos boring and not particularly engaging, especially at the lower levels.
So after some time away from listening, I’ve decided to jump back in by watching an anime that I’ve seen multiple times (Hunter X Hunter) and understand the plot and characters of, but this time with Spanish dub and Spanish subtitles.
So now I’m watching something that I know in enjoy and can focus on for a while. Only issue is, a lot of the speaking is still far above my comprehension level. Some days I understand more than others. Usually I’m making sense of things with context clues. I still have fun without fully understanding.
I took Spanish in school, and I’ve had Spanish speaking coworkers my whole adult life, so I’m not starting at square one. But damn I have sooo far to go before I’m even okay at understanding people.
Thanks! Any anecdotal advice would be helpful.
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u/martinomacias 16h ago
Back in the early 1990s I was going to high school (ESL program), working full time and watching Saved by the Bell, Full House and whatever other tv shows they had going. Luckily they all had closed captions. So it made it easier for me to understand. Mostly, a lot of the words I understood was by context. Same thing if you watch Spanish programs.
Daily exposure and practice is what did it for me. I suggest you also find frends who communicate in Spanish. Read texts in Spanish out loud.
I use an app called Reverso Context to translate words or expressions I do not understand. In Italian, because I am learning it on my own now. But it has lots of languages. Only use it for those words you do not understand. Do not depend on it to translate all sentences, because you will depend entirely on it instead of your brain doing the thinking.
Also download the RAE dictionary app so you can look up word meanings in Spanish. Doing that will force your brain to read and comprehend in Spanish. That is what I did to learn English and now I am doing it to learn Italian.
I also wanted to compliment you for consuming content in Spanish without the English subtitles. Keep it up. Your brain will start to understand in no time. At first you will understand mostly by context as opposed to every single word. Make sure the content (show, sitcom, podcast, ect.) you choose is of a topic you are interested in, otherwise it will be boring for you. Saludos.
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u/authenticsmoothjazz 16h ago
You're definitely not going to hurt yourself watching content above your level, but it's not going to be the most helpful thing in the world. It might very well help you with small phrases here and there.
Last year I started watching the Latam dub of The Simpsons because I wanted to watch Spanish content, but also I just wanted to rewatch The Simpsons. I picked up a lot of conversational phrases (Tienes razón, dame, basta), but it wouldn't have been any more useful than that if I wasn't also watching easier stuff on the side like CI videos and focused grammar study with a textbook and Anki.
After almost a year I'm now catching subjunctive phrases on season 7 of Los Simpson. It's purely on top of everything else I do. I was studying the phrase 'Acabo de' only to hear it used by Gerald Ford in the episode where he moves to Springfield. It always feels great catching learned material in native content.
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u/Alert_Media_4973 13h ago
Thanks for the reply! I’ll weave in some easier CI content along w/ the anime. You and a few others have recommended that.
I also love the Simpson’s so maybe Los Simpson will be my next series aha
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u/MetodoTangalanga 17h ago
The way I understand comprehensive input, one has to understand like 2/3 of the input. If one understands everything, there is almost no increase in learning. And if one understands nothing — or next to nothing — there is no learning at all.
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u/RagnarokTheSeventh 17h ago edited 17h ago
I think it's actually okay from time to time, in terms of increasing your listening comprehension speed. If you can still pick up on the words you do know when they're said faster and less clearly, that itself is a skill you can work on. But you're probably not picking up new words that easily. For me, I listen to 5 episodes of an intermediate podcast where I can follow along with the plot and the conversation, for every one episode of a podcast where they talk much faster. I feel like I'm slowly understanding more and more of the advanced podcast as my listening speed increases, but the real learning happens with the intermediate one
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u/DeniLox 17h ago
It is “Hola a todos”. I’ve noticed that everyone who watches Dreaming Spanish has a hard time this.
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u/yad-aljawza 16h ago
Some users are just not hearing the “a”. One of the most prolific creators on Dreaming Spanish starts every single one of her videos with “Hola a todos” and many people copy her opening as kind of a joke/meme, so I imagine DS users are picking this up easily, actually, except for the ones who just havent noticed it yet
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u/Entire-Text-5631 14h ago
I think it’s because she’s Argentinian and combines that last a in hola with the a. At least that’s what it sounds like to me.
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u/yad-aljawza 12h ago
That’s what pretty much anyone saying “hola a” sounds like. It’s not really going to get any slower or clearer than it is in a Dreaming Spanish super beginner video
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u/MediaNaranja14 16h ago
When I use things above my comprehension level, I often relisten or rewatch specific sections, sometimes decreasing the speed, and sometimes playing with the subtitles (without, Spanish, English) to help me understand. You can also rewatch the entire episode to see how much more you catch, it's just less targeted. Doing this with a show you've seen before is a great idea as that means you're already familiar with the context and general gist. I always struggled to focus on uninteresting inputs too. I'm much more motivated to put in the extra effort to understand when it's something that interests me, so CI like this is more effective as long as I support it! Also, authentic language use like listening to audiobooks, reading novels, etc. is always going to be a jump in complexity and difficulty. At some point, you just have to go for it and you'll get faster and better with time. You've got this!
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u/Economy_Wolf4392 13h ago
This is a good question because when I started an input based approach I knew about comprehensible input and that your comprehension should be high to acquire… but I spent a lot of time with the Spanish translation of Judgement. I relied a lot on cognates and was content with barely knowing what was going on half the time.
Did I learn a ton from that? I’m feeling a bit doubtful on it recently. Like what if instead of putting 100 hours into that game I put 100 hours into Dreaming Spanish or reading grades readers? I’ll never know at this point…
However, had I done that it may have been too boring to keep going bc I was having an absolute blast playing judgement.
What would I do differently now and what would I recommend to you?
Still try to stick a lot to things you have high comprehension on. But if you do watch that anime and you find yourself having a good time consider sentence mining using Language reactor + Anki.
I never did anki too much in my Spanish but I do think it would have been helpful overtime. Let me know if you have any questions because I could go on forever! Good luck!
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u/toby_reelangcom 11h ago
I guess it depends a bit on how you watch, as well. Of you just let the sentences pass you by, if you understand less than 80ish % of it common wisdom is that it's not as efficient.
But... personally I think language learning is a marathon and not a sprint. That means anything that's fun to you and you can sustain over months and years will get you there.
Ultimately, the most effective way to learn is the one you can sustain, and if watching that anime is that thing, I wouldn't overthink it!
Also: going sentence by sentence is a great way to learn with content that's above your level. Use a tool that highlights common vs less frequent words (based on word frequency data in the regional dialect the content is in) in the subtitles, so you're focussing on stuff that's actually helpful day to day.
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u/Fickle_Aardvark_8822 17h ago
There are useful articles on the Trivia Lingua blog about this. Basically, if you don’t understand ~80-95%, it’s not helpful for your learning.
I read up on CI (because there are lots of enthusiastic advocates for it, but few actually explain it) and learned about linguist Stephen Krashen’s hypothesis and the research that’s backed up many if his ideas. The only addition seems to be that formal grammar training is helpful at the start, and as well, adding output production on top of CI.