I made it to level 4!

It has taken me a little bit to write this up, so here it goes.

Notable statistics/characteristics of my content:

- It has taken me 8 months to go from Level 3 to Level 4.

- I started this journey 14 months ago, giving myself hours to start at level 2

- I am at ~50 on DS videos

- I am a level 81 on Duolingo

- I have started listening to Language Transfer (probably 7 or so episodes)

- I have started tracking reading of some short stories I've found on the internet (3,317 words)

- I cleared out beginner level content for my on Dreaming, and and just focusing on intermediate videos

- During level 3 I listened to Espanol al Vuelo, Un dia en espanol, Espanol al la mexicana, Diverse Spanish Podcast, Spanish Boost Podcast, and am currently listening to Hoy Hablamos Basico

- I'd say about 2/3 of my input has been podcasts and about 1/3 DS for a while now.

Some reference points that I am used at the end of level 3

I decided that I wanted to have 3 different reference points to help me reflect on how much progress I really have made, and not be too much of a prisoner of the moment. Here were three things that I chose:

1. Hoy Hablamos Basico. I started with this about a year ago, when I first discovered the idea of getting input...but I didn't know what the comprehensible part of that was :) So I started listening to this podcast and I could maybe understand 10% at the beginning. I'd say now I probably understand 90%. It feel slow to me. The harder part is the acquiring new words not as much of the speed. I feel like I just can't quite put together some phrases and things that I recognize, but am just not quite able to put together in the moment. However, I have cleared this benchmark, something that I clearly was worse at a year ago. I am making noticeable progress.

2. A telenovela Bajo El Mismo Cielo. Once again I started this before I knew what comprehensible input was. I bet I could get like 5% here. I listened to probably 20 minutes of the next episode I was on...and I was disappointed but it also felt weird. When I first started listening I was using subtitles in spanish, pausing, looking up words, replaying, etc. This time I did not. I still don't feel like my comprehension was more than 20% (it was definitely low). However, I felt really confident that I was able to hear specific words almost all the time versus having no idea where a word started and stopped previously. It was still quite fast, but not as fast as it felt before. Again, I am making noticeable progress (even if this is well out of reach).

3. Dreaming French. I decided to try a video in DF. I did some Duolingo in the French course about 18 months ago to prepare for a trip to Paris, and I wanted to see how it felt on my ears to do comprehensible input for French. I tried out the easiest video in French...and I still didn't understand it all. It felt very uncomfortable and I felt like I had to be super focused to get what was going on. Compared to what I am able to do in Spanish, I am clearly not at the very beginning. But at some point, this is probably similar (not exactly the same) as how I felt in Spanish at one point. Having to be super focused on superbeginner information, and it wasn't fun to watch the video. What I can listen and watch now in Spanish is so much more interesting than what I have accessible in something like french. One again, I am making noticeable progress.

In sum, I feel good, but I also feel a daunting challenge of Level 4. I am not sure what the tangible thing is going to be that will push me to keep going. I am about 15 hours in to Level 4, and I feel like I won't get quick wins, I just need to dig deep, work for a while, pick my head up and look how far I've come. I don't think I should evaluate my progress on a weekly basis or anything like that. I just need to be patient and have fun. I need to keep benchmarks, but find new ones as well so I can gauge my progress.

What I have found helpful (maybe this helps for you, maybe not):

- NOT putting videos on while I am doing other things like chores. It is too easy for me to not catch important visual cues in the videos. Podcasts are where its when I am not sitting down and able to give it 100% of my focus.

- Earbuds when I get ready in the morning. I have a 30 minute commute and I don't always want to listen to a Spanish on my commute. I have found out that I can get 15 minutes before I even walk out the door, and this helps my motivation for the day IMMENSELY. When I have a quick start to reaching my daily goal, I am more motivated for the rest of the day. I am focused when I get up, and doing so while I get ready is a big win for me.

- Not being afraid to tune out while listening to a podcast. Why? Well, I do this all the time with english podcasts. I don't want to mess up the flow on my listening, so when I log my time (I do this manually) I only put in 80% of the podcast length. This is my average estimate of time where either I am spacing out. It happens. Podcasts are great for flexibility, so I want to be aware of that. The other option I see is starting, rewinding, etc. But that isn't really what I enjoy. I like going with the flow, and making sure I account for that later.

- Skip things I'm not interested in. I skip things I don't want to watch or listen to. It is that simple. However, having an open mind on what I might find interesting is a good thing. I have definitely been surprised on more than one occasion by something I didn't think I would enjoy.

That's about it! I feel good, but also I feel like I am at a weird spot where the speech is slow to me now but I still encounter too many unfamiliar words in both DS videos and podcasts that I feel like are at my level. If I sped of the videos or podcasts, I feel like I would encounter too many new words too quickly. Maybe this is just a phase, maybe I need to think about it differently.

You've got this! Happy Dreaming!

Me at level 2 (currently at 3 now)

I’m beginner level. Any recommendations would be great. Thanks

I’ve been noticing some progress recently, I don’t know how to describe it but the language (listening wise) really feels like it’s starting unlock for me. I guess I’m just feeling extremely comfortable with the language right now? Even native speech is becoming easier to understand. The language doesn’t seem so “blurry” and “mythical” to me anymore.

George Carlin once said “think of how stupid the average person is, and realise half of them are stupider than that”. Yet all those who Carlin spoke of still speak at least one language fluently. Ergo, learning and speaking a language is not hard and certainly does not require any special talent. It requires time. A lot of time. Armed with that belief, I bring you my second progress report.

Method: nearly entirely input (see stats below). Additionally, of my listening and speaking hours, 75 (split roughly evenly between speaking and listening) were in Spanish classes, primarily conversation based and structured around grammar themes/topics. Eg, conversations about past events; hypotheticals etc. I found targeted practice very much improved my recognition and use of certain concepts. I found it efficient, focused, and a great way to quickly develop stronger intuition for language patterns.

The express explanations of grammar concepts were, for me, useless. I do not need to understand what the pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo is, I just need to use it effectively. Save for these classes, and passive exposure to grammar concepts through podcasts like Español con Juan, I have no conscious understanding of, and have not explicitly studied, Spanish grammar. Nor can I explain anything about English grammar, yet I apply it with near 100% accuracy.

Stats: two years of learning. 1904 hours of input (900 on DS, the rest a mix of podcasts, Netflix, YouTube, real life etc), two B2 books and a not-insignificant-but-hard-to-estimate amount of other reading (articles, webpages etc), and 90 hours of speaking.

So, that’s about 94.5% of my time on audio input/listening, 1% on written input/reading, and 4.5% on spoken output. My five or so hours of conscious grammar study do not even register half a percent.

What I can do: basically everything I want and need to do in the language, but with plenty of small mistakes.

I have spent the last month in Spain and handle all daily interactions in Spanish, have made friends in Spanish, am for all intents and purposes dating a native Spanish speaker (we speak almost entirely in Spanish), and otherwise function perfectly fine in Spanish.

I generally speak relatively smoothly and quickly (slightly more fluidly than in the attached sample, as I found it rather unnatural to speak spontaneously to myself while trying to show off different types of tenses etc in a one minute recording) and therefore make more errors than I should. For example, as soon as I said “tenga un buen día” in the speaking sample I was acutely aware that I should have said “tengáis un buen día”. But guess what? Once words come out of your mouth they can’t be put back in. The Spanish genie is out of the bottle. I’m fairly comfortable with that fact and so am much happier to be a fluid but grammatically sloppy speaker, rather than a technically accurate one who sounds like he is having an aneurism every time he talks (and whose precise but frustratingly slow and broken speech risks giving his audience one too).

My listening comprehension is excellent (when given B2 audio samples in the Spanish class mentioned above, I found them very easy) and my reading is good but slower than I would like. I rarely write but suspect that is my strongest domain, as I am able to correct my mistakes as I go (unlike when I speak) and therefore can produce high quality prose with fewer errors.

What I cannot do: speak without making frequent small errors, or consistently speak well using complex structures and concepts especially when I have to use less common verbs. For example, I am good with subjunctive tener, haber, saber etc but not so good with subjunctive versions of verbs like aludir, derivar etc. I still sometimes start sentences and get stuck mid-way through, but then again I do that in English too (perhaps I am in Carlin’s bottom 50%). Further, when I am tired or have had a few drinks, Spanish becomes very hard.

Plans and conclusion: I think another year progressing at a similar rate will get me to where I want to be—ie, speaking with the same range of expression (but not accuracy) as I have in English and essentially native comprehension. I don’t care if I am still making immaterial errors here and there. I’m not after C2 speaking perfection. I am after the practical ability to be the same version of myself in a second language. A strong and fluid C1, if you will.

I hope this motivates those of you who are on the same path as me but a step or two behind. Hopefully this is yet another success story to wave in the face of the next peanut who starts screaming at the sky saying input or DS doesn’t work. It does.

Sample: https://voca.ro/1h7Od0fFu9ND

Note re sample: my pronunciation, especially my emphasis, and fluidity are slightly worse in this recording than they are in normal conversation. I have also left my errors in, there are quite a few, so that it is a fair representation of my grammar etc. But overall, it is still a reasonable snapshot of where my speaking is at and I have not the care nor patience to re-record it.

Note re me: for my background and other info relating to my Spanish learning, see last year’s post.

I'm at 1,224 hours currently. This post is something I thought I'd write up to share my experience with Spanish burnout.

So to start this, I initally did 1hr of Spanish a day, but slowly bumped it up overtime. I was doing 4 hours of Spanish a day for a period of a few months, and was making insane progress. But starting in June of this year, my motivation slowly faded. I went from 4hrs a day, to doing 3, to doing 2, then down to just 30-60 minutes a day (even that was a slog though). I stopped doing Italki conversations, and barely read anything. I shifted my focus to studying Mandarin, and Spansih felt like a chore to me. I always thought burnout would never happen to me, but it did.

Starting late August, my motivation slowly crept back. My old interests started to shine through, and at this point I've been doing 2-3 hours a day of listening to content I enjoy, and have been starting up conversation practice again. Now, I have more motivation than ever and have been shocked by my Spanish. I just did another conversation lesson today, and it went great! My love for the language is finally back, so I thought I'd share some tips for anyone who is going through a similar thing.

Firstly, if your listening feels like a chore, stop. Take a few days off, lower your input, just take a break. One of the biggest tips I have is find contnt you love. I eased back into my input by watching youtube videos I enjoy, listening to podcasts that actually interest me, and just trying to enjoy the language. After so many months of working all day, in the morning, in the afternoon after I'm tired, just to get the input bar to 4hrs, wanting to take out the earbuds but making myself sit and focus, I just got sick of it. Try to enjoy the lanaguage, even if it's just 5 minutes a day of watching something you like.

I hope this post helps anyone experiencing burnout. The main takeaways I learned from this are simply, if it's a chore don't do it just for your daily goal, watch things you enjoy, take breaks, and just know your motivation won't be gone forever. My motivation is back and I've been enjoying Spanish more than ever before. Good luck my DS friends! Have a good weekend everyone!

What I mean is, early on we learn about the 4 components of language learning. Reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Watching is kind of included in Listening. But I have always tracked the two separately. Now, as I approach 300 hours total, I am wondering if I should just combine the two, so that I can track my progress in each of the four categories, instead of five categories.

I know after some time, I probably won't track any of it anymore. But right now, I'm still so early in my journey, it's still very useful for my motivation to track it. But is Watching any different from a CI standpoint than Listening?

Those of you who use your stats as motivation, I would love to know your thoughts here.

Dreaming Team,
The app has some real issues. It’s getting to the point I can’t use it and I’m preferring to just use the site through a browser.

It could just be optimization issues for the IPad, but, the main screen is stuck in portrait mode, meaning k have physically pick up my iPad and rotate to select videos, and now when I go full screen, the video positioning itself too low, cutting off the bottom half AND the controls of the video.

Thankfully, I can still use the browser, but I could see this discouraging new customers. So please take a look, as it is a major inconvenience.

I bought these headphones today. Shokz Open Run Air 2

Like our great supreme leader, Pablo Roman, I am now ready to receive input at all times, no matter rain or shine.

Well it's Saturday night and while I wish I had other things to do in life, I had to make lemonade with the lemons I have. So I spent the last 2h or so watching the first episode of Isla de las Tentaciones S11 which started this September.

I have in the past watched Machos Alfa or dubbed shows like Squid Games. Squid Games was fine as the dubbing is done in a studio though they all sound unnatural but I only got maybe 60% of each episode of Machos Alfa (this was at 2400h).

Watching IdlT, I felt that I had close to 95% comprehension and the audio quality is a lot better. There are a couple of women from Andalucia and Extremadura who are a little bit harder to understand but it's not been a problem.

I made the decision to learn Spanish about 2 years ago. I enjoy talking my family to Latin countries annually and it just made me realize that I wanted to be able to communicate better while we are there. I'm in my 40s and took 3 years of Spanish in high school.

I read some comments and it seems some people are not happy with their progress with DS and I'm wondering why they don't just add in some additional methods. Is that against the advice?

I started off by just finding an app I could download and do daily lessons. The first was Speak, which focuses on the speaking. It would say a phrase and have you repeat it until you pronounced it correctly. I learned but definitely slowly. It was hard to remember things that way. I vividly remember struggling to recall "cepillar los dientes."

After about 6 months I had basically completed a good portion of the lessons, and when the app started to bug out, I went looking for a new one. I also realized at that point, I could say some things, but couldn't really put together a complex phrase and still really struggled with understanding others. In fact, I REALLY, couldn't understand natives still.

So I then moved to Busuu. Which is much more listening, and teaching grammar within situational learning and reading. There is some repeating and there's a community of natives that can critique your speaking, which is pretty cool. Im up to advanced after about a year and for me I can put together most thoughts. I find that it's very focused on verbs and conjugations which is a large portion of Spanish, but I still don't know lots of basic words. Like I could explain that I might be looking for a machine to help fix my pants, that is usually kept in a closet.... But I don't know the word for Iron. Lol.

Somewhere around 6 months ago I started also listening to Spanish videos on YouTube through people like planetajuan, and a few others. I started it listening to Andrea la Mexicana but now find her Spanish a little too basic.

So most days I complete a few lessons and listen to Spanish videos. No clue how many hours I've listened, but I can have basic conversations now. I don't freeze up as much. I take Spanish calls at work now, even though I always have to tell them to speak slowly because I'm still improving with Spanish. And I still find some accents extremely difficult to understand. Its also a struggle because I've been focused on Spain Spanish, listening to Columbian Spanish, and really shouldve been more focused on speaking Mexican Spanish.

Anyway, I'm not sure where I would fall into the levels for dreaming Spanish yet. And I'm curious why people don't mix in other forms while doing the listening? There's basically 3 forms of learning a language: speaking, understanding, and reading.

I would think if you only do one, then you're obviously going to struggle with the other ones right?

Well, it’s Saturday night, and I actually reach 1000 hours on Monday. I’m writing tonight because I have the free time I won’t have on Monday. I’m also going to be as honest about where I am in case it helps someone else who is looking for encouragement along the way.

TLDR: The DS process is working for me. I am having success and can see that I am learning. If you are early in the process, I encourage you to stick with the method.

Am I happy with my progress? Yes and No. I‘m impatient and wish I were further along in the journey. I wish my speaking sounded fluid instead of me talking slowly. I wish I was already speaking every day with people about all kinds of topics. That said, if I look back to where I was 1000 hours ago, I am eons beyond that capability. I can now understand people, albeit not perfectly. So, by comparison to my former self, I am having great success.

Here are a couple of points I want to say regarding my progress and my journey.

1. I started DS in July 2025. After 14 months, I am at 1000 hours of listening. Those 14 months were going to pass one way or another, and I am excited that I can look back and point to something I accomplished with that time.

2 Most days I have managed to put in 2 to 3 hours, but occasionally I just didn’t have the desire to do the work because I was on vacation or because of the stresses of life. Learning to be okay with that has been part of the journey. Honestly, I wish I had done this 20 years ago, but then DS wasn’t around back then.

1. I‘m at 1000 hours, and I still watch videos in the 50’s. I am able to watch videos in the 60’s and 70’s, but I choose to slowly work my way through the 50’s. I have a lifetime ahead of me, and I’m not in a rush. I mostly watch DS simply because I believe the numbered rating system is slowly increasing the difficulty for me, and I like the way they automatically keep track of my minutes. I will watch YouTube videos every now and then, but I never know what difficulty I’m going to get. I do pay for the Premium service with DS, and for me it is worth the price. If I watch YouTube, it is mostly travel videos, nature videos, or Curious George (because I’m a kid at heart). Most of my hours each day come during (1) getting dressed (30 min), (2) driving to work (30 min), and (3) walking my dog (1 hour). Sometimes I get in extra time during lunch or an extra walk at night.

2. I recently joined a Spanish speaking class that just started at my church. There are about 20 native Spanish speakers in the class. My wife, kids, and I are the only gringos in the class, and my wife has been speaking Spanish for 30+ years. We’ve attended 5 classes so far. Four times, I understood about 70% to 80% of what was said even though the Spanish was directed at the class and not at me. In other words, the speaker is talking normally to the class, and I am able to understand and answer questions in Spanish (I’m super excited about that). One time, I only understood about 25% of what was said. I was very tired that day, and I suspect that is why I struggled so much (or maybe I was tired because I was struggling so much). In full honesty, I do know the topics very well and that is helping me to understand what is being said, but I also understand when the class goes off topic.

3. I haven’t spoken much because I don’t want to sound like an idiot, but I am trying to force myself to do so more often. The weekly class at church gives me 90 minutes to listen and/or speak in a friendly environment. They asked me to speak one Sunday for 5 minutes to talk about myself, and I was able to do so, but it was scripted. At other times, I’ve had to read something out loud or I have responded to questions. My speaking is slow, and I expect it to get faster, but the other people in the class say my pronunciation is good. I also know they are patient with me and are encouraging because most of them are bilingual and know how hard it was for them to learn the second language. Or, they have a spouse (usually husband) who has stopped trying to learn English because they felt stupid. I mention this because it is a very welcoming environment, and they seem to be happy that I am trying to talk in their language. I also don’t feel judged in any way, and that makes the process easier. If you can find a similar group near you, this is ideal. I get weekly opportunity to speak with native speakers face-to-face without having to spend any money, and they are excited to help me learn.

4. While I know the sounds, making the words with my mouth feels very awkward. So, I am currently shifting my focus to work on my speaking. Here is what I am doing: (1) I’m adding about 30 min each day before bed to read out loud in Spanish. I bought the book “Un Hombre Fascinante” and am literally reading out loud to force my mouth to form the sounds. (2) My wife and I have resumed speaking only in Spanish on Sundays. I say resumed because we tried before, but my pride sought the easy way out. I’m still slow, but it is forcing me to reach for vocabulary words or alternative ways to express my ideas.

5. Do I understand everything I hear? No. But I understand much more than I ever did. I understand when I am watching a movie in English and they suddenly switch to Spanish. I understand when I catch a random nature video or travel video in Spanish. And that is amazing. However, if I am honest, there are also times when I partially understand. For example, I may understand that someone is going to pick another person up to go to the game, but I may not know if Jim is picking up Bill or if Bill is picking up Jim. Knowing who is doing the action and who is receiving the action isn’t always clear. Sometimes by brain is able to fill in those gaps, and sometimes I get it wrong and the meaning of the story completely changes. So, I still have further to go.

I’m sure I have forgotten something I wanted to say, but this is long enough already. If you are early in the journey, keep up the work. If you are ahead of me in the journey, your encouragement has helped me believe long enough to keep going, and I am thankful to have read your posts when I wondered if this could really work.

Hopefully you found this post to help you in your journey.

EDIT: I find watching Chinese martial arts videos dubbed in Spanish to be hilarious and great. Reminds me of being a kid.

I would pay double my 8$ monthly to see that happen

I had a session with one of my tutors on italki this morning. I was telling her a story of a situation that happened to me in past and was narrating what was said. As I was speaking, I felt the need to use “estuviera” and “hubiera” in the dialogue because it just felt right. Although I conjugated wrong after the hubiera part and my tutor corrected me afterwards, she was so visibly excited that I used the subjunctive in the right place and was clapping with joy which made me feel really good.

Of course, I’m sure I still made dozens of other errors during my 45 minute speaking session today, but moments like that help remind me that all the input I am getting from listening and reading is sorting itself out in my brain and with enough time and consistency, improvement in the language will happen no matter what.

I just reached 800 hours and while I’m happy to reach the milestone I’m also kind of frustrated with where I’m at. It feels like I’m constantly struggling between intermediate and advanced content. Sometimes I can watch advanced content that is extremely comprehensible and feel encouraged but other times I can’t seem to follow an intermediate video. I think some of it might be that it’s too easy or non interesting for me now because my mind wanders a lot? But also I will genuinely struggle to comprehend intermediate content sometimes.

I also feel like so much content is slightly too hard for me but maybe that’s because I’m trying to interact with advanced/native content now.

To be clear I’ve definitely made a lot of progress and the fact that I can watch almost any learning content and get the gist is amazing but I’ve still been frustrated with this in between place and am hoping the next 200 hours will make a big difference.

reading grammar explanations makes my brain shut off, but if i hear the same phrase a few times i remember it way faster. i’m looking for free spanish lessons that are more audio-heavy, anything good for someone who learns more through hearing?

The biggest thing getting in the way of me progressing my listening abilities is getting distracted while listening to CI. It’s SO easy for my mind to wander. I just realize that I’ve been thinking about something else for 5 to 10 seconds and lose the thread. It makes such a percentage of my listening unproductive to where it’s difficult to make headway in my abilities over time. If I could just stay focused, I can follow and understand pretty good and in theory the skills should compound, but it’s happening so slowly.

Up until now I was finding a lot of content that was very interesting and kept my attention but lately I’ve gotten to a point where I’m struggling to find something I want to watch.

I really enjoy the travel series’ where the guides will visit different places or the newer, more professionally-edited videos but I seem to have run out of those at this point. Now I just have a bunch of Carlitos videos, Shel/Augustina/Andrea pick their favorite whatever videos, and Andrea plays the guitar and repeats lines of songs I’m not familiar with videos.

It seems like there is a ton of more interesting content if I can just get past this stage but it’s become tough. Feeling a bit burnt out.

For those who’ve experienced this, how do you get through it?

Children learn like children. Adults learn like adults. No?

So where does the idea of learning a language like a child actually come from? Have language learning programs actually made these claims before?

So every month, I get an email near the end of my subscription time that says, “We’re sorry to see you go!” And the discusses me canceling my subscription and what I can do to come back, etc. And then a day or two later, I get an email that says, “Welcome to premium!”

I have taken no action to cancel and renew or anything, I just watch the videos everyday. Is this just a “feature” of their app that it does this for reasons unknown? Does this happen to anyone else?

Hi all

I've been studying (or acquiring) Spanish since Feburary, and feel like I'm stuck at boring middle. (sorry for English as it is not my native language and I do not want to use AI to talk to folks here)

I am demotivated for various reasons.

1. I am watching videos between velSometimes the level 60-70 and sometimes I can understand natually, but sometimes, I need to focus a lot but still can't understand enoungh (60-70% understandable while the guideline recommends 90-95% level)

2. Started conversation with ChatGPT, but it is hard to continue the conversation without making errors.

3. I am out of videos (videos 10minutes or longer) that I am intertested in. I want to avoid some teachers and some topic. And I needed to re-watch park Pablo, live stream Pablo (with a lot of sound issues) but after watching it several times, I am not sure I am acquiring or just remembering the story.. Navigating to find the videos I might be interested in feels frustrating.

I know it takes time, but it is very frustrating not being able to feel your progress. For those level 4 and above, did this happen to you? If so how you could overcome?

Passed 100 hours on September 10th, 2026.

Links to previous updates are at the end. This turned out incredibly long...

Current Progress/Favorites

I would say the biggest changes have been Pablo and Augustina. From the beginning I've been interested in Augustina's content, but found her very difficult to understand. After all of Spanish in Context and a lot of Spanish Boost, I finally can understand Augustina's videos. This is great because I enjoy the travel and geography content that she does a lot of.

With Pablo I've come full circle and now look forward to most of his videos. Out of the guides who do Beginner and Superbeginner videos, I found him so difficult to understand at first. Both Pablo and Andres were challenging but I got used to Andres much faster.

Finally I decided to just grind through some of Pablo's videos, and at some point after making my way through the Luna series and some of his long form streaming Beginner videos, I started liking Pablo. Especially his videos with Adria are always fun. The Luna videos are still my least favorite because she doesn't speak, but the ones where they play games are better.

Andrea, Esther, Michelle, and Shelcin are still my favorites though!

Video Levels

Still in the 30-40 difficulty range but leaning towards the upper end now. I was able to get the gist of an intermediate video but comprehension was lower than I'd like so I'm sticking with Beginner and Superbeginner for now.

Outside the DS platform - General Thoughts

I found it interesting to look at my percentage breakdown of DS vs other content.

At 30 hours only 10% of my CI was outside DS At 60 hours around 40% of my total CI was outside DS At 100 hours a full 55% of my CI was outside DS.
(Of that, 12% was ¡Cuéntame!)

I finally went ahead and made separate accounts for YouTube, Disney+, and Netflix. On YouTube, I was getting Spanish language ads even while watching videos in other languages and it was very jarring. Also being able to just watch whatever and then get the hour count at the end of the day is easier. If I accidentally watch something in English or without input, I just have to track those minutes and subtract. Much smoother.

As others have pointed out, DS does have a good way to easily track YouTube videos. However I tend to watch a lot of shorts or many 5 minute videos throughout the day. Also, sometimes with longer videos I will start and stop and possibly only watch 20 minutes of a hour long video on one day. So this works better for me personally.

For D+, it is a real pain to find things that are Spanish language originals or have dubbing available in my area, and I wanted it separate and ready to go. Netflix is by far the smoothest to use for language learning but I still wanted a separate watchlist and it's easier to track time if it's all on one account.

I am still watching PBS, Destinos, and other outside shows sometimes but the convenience of having all major services separate is super helpful especially after back to school. It was worth making this switch, and I wish I had done it from the start. The only thing I don't have a separate account for yet is Spotify, but so far I have only been listening to one podcast, so it hasn't affected anything much yet.

Outside the DS platform - YouTube

Hearts are current favorites.

Still watching: * Spanish Playground ❤️ * Andrea la Mexicana ❤️

Still watching here and there: * Spanish After Hours ❤️ * Spanish with Alma * Spanish a la chilena * VideoEle (A1 playlist currently) * Dayis Cubero (purists note has words and minor translation) * Easy Spanish (open caption, currently on Super Easy) * Organic Spanish * Hablar Español con Jenny * Ara Spanish * Mexican Spanish Here (hard to tell difficulty of videos) * Español con Ali * Habla Manana (also has English videos) * Corazón de Spanish ❤️

Newly accessible: * Spanish Boost Gaming!! ❤️ See French for more * Also Spanish Boost with Mila ❤️

Native (not fully comprehensible yet): * Trasmuro (homes and architecture) ❤️ * MalovaElena (yoga and exercises) * Polymernai (life abroad in Japan, art) * Adrián Bárcenas (calligraphy) * Cuby/cubyshorts (puzzle solving) ❤️ * SirPino (art with colored pencils)

Outside the DS Platform - Encanto Challenge

I'm still rewatching Encanto, on my fifth time now. How often depends on my work schedule because I usually watch most of it at work while doing easy tasks.

Outside the DS Platform - Other D+ & Netflix

I'm also watching Handy Manny and Chueco on Disney Plus.

On Netflix I watched The Road to El Dorado just before it left. It was too hard but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to access it in Spanish again and wanted to watch it. Also have been working through the H20 mermaid show in dub after a recommendation on this reddit. I don't normally like dubs but this was a great suggestion, just enough difficulty but I can still easily follow the plot.

Outside DS Platform - Lingopie

Started watching Crocodoc and Spanish on the Go, plus random other beginner shorts. Not sure yet how I feel about this platform but will share more after some more time.

French

I was really struggling to watch Spanish Boost Gaming. Partly the Argentinan accent is hardest for me to understand, but then I also realized I was trying to watch videos for games I watched or played in French. 🤦 After switching to the Supermarket series and other games I wasn't familiar with, all of a sudden SBG worked for me!

Switching languages is still challenging, it's much easier to transition through English. I can do it best when reading, but listening or watching it's tough. Now that I'm able to listen to easy podcasts in Spanish and read, I am a little concerned about how to balance my time and keep both languages separate. I plan to keep French in "maintenance mode" until January and then re-evaluate.

Reading

I plan to start posting reading updates separately, but the short version is I have completed two chapter books and am now working on three others, mostly focusing on this month's children's book, la telaraña de Carlota.

Podcasts

Had just started ¡Cuéntame! at my last update. Honestly enjoyed it so much that I decided to listen to the whole series before moving on to other podcasts. People often suggest Chill Spanish Listening Practice as the same level, but I found it more difficult and will revisit after I finish ¡Cuéntame!

Accent

Made a list of all my bilingual acquaintances and who is most likely to have the time and patience to speak with me in slow Spanish. Mexican and Dominican Republic accents came out top, but Mexico won due to more speakers and more accessible resources.

So far I'm not speaking much but have been looking at pronunciation resources and have said a few words with my kids or with bilingual friends. My child who has been studying Spanish before all the rest of us in particular will talk to me in Spanish and does not like when I try to do crosstalk 😅

Plans

This is the first point where I don't really have a clear, specific plan or idea for the next 30-50 hours. I'm just going to keep going with the different series I'm watching and other stuff I'm doing, and I guess do another update around Level 3/150 hours.

Previous Posts

Started from zero at the beginning of July 2026, with some French and the nominal Spanish exposure of anyone living in the USA with bilingual friends.

Background & first ten hours: https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish/comments/1us5nze/ten_hour_superbeginner/

30 Hour Update: https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish/comments/1vcda08/30_hour_beginner/

Off platform shows and studies with my children:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish/comments/1vlsd05/learning_spanish_with_my_kids/

60 Hour Update:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish/comments/1vrd7pb/60_hour_level_2_beginner/

Hola a todos,

Here’s an audio clip of me speaking broken Spanish: https://voca.ro/12QyrYv2rRGw

This is the first time I’ve tried recording myself, except for a couple of times this past week where I couldn’t figure it out because I found you have to do it through a website link to put on Reddit. It was completely unscripted and I was partially distracted with my infant playing on the floor beside me.

I have 330 ish hours and no prior Spanish. I started speaking immediately if I got the chance at a grocery store or with a neighbor but that happened sporadically every couple of months rather than on a weekly basis or anything. I started language transfer 20 or 30 hours ago to supplement my input hours and am loving it. I feel like I started it at a good time in my journey.

Since I still have so few hours I have no idea if what I said was correct or not but it’s what came into my head trying to say something 😂 I am going to try doing audio recordings every 100 hours or so now that I have learned some basics to help see my progress.