I hit 1000 hours of Mandarin listening comprehensible input last week. These are the hours I started tracking in 2025, so this feels like a big milestone! (If I add the "prior experience of listening comprehensible input" hours I estimated from all my prior study years, I add 547 hours, so a total of 1547 hours of Mandarin comprehensible input I've done!)
A quick reference for future me: I now can listen to Dashu Mandarin with partial attention and not much mental effort (so it feels easy to do a lot of), and follow the main topics but miss details often. When paying full attention (which feels almost as easy to do as listening to English I'm paying full attention to) I can follow the main topics and most words (I can notice the odd word I don't know or feel uncertain-of-the-meaning, which is about once every 2 sentences).
I am at 155 hours of Spanish listening comprehensible input. Espanol Con Juan now feels easier, like Espanol Al Vuelo. Spanish Boost's podcast also feels easier. Not just feeling easier, but for both podcasts I now know enough words to translate most things word by word if I wanted, and I notice when a word every 1-2 sentences comes up that I don't know or don't know fully. I think I may switch gears to watching various youtubers like PlanetaJuan, Alex Tienda, Juega German, and some others I've found.
It is mindblowing, frankly, how much quicker I am seeing noticeable improvements in comprehension for Spanish compared to Mandarin. I am truly suprised by how much Spanish I can understand after ONLY 155 hours. I feel like my understanding of Spanish is already close to my level of understanding in Mandarin. I feel like my understanding in Spanish is already close to what it is in French (in terms of listening). And it took me YEARS to get to the listening skills I have in French. Maybe with French I just truly barely did any listening practice, and so it took many years to build up to around ~150ish hours of listening. Or, maybe, I am learning Spanish much faster. It's probably a mix of both. I imagine me already knowing French to a decent degree, is making learning Spanish faster. I don't know how much faster. But dang.
(I do also think I'm in one of those up-points of learning Spanish. How it feels like I comprehend a TON more than I did previously, which means in a few dozen hours I will feel I'm at a low-point where I notice all the things I still don't know and feel like I'm barely comprehending anything. So I'll probably feel less like "wow I am making such amazing progress" in a few weeks).
Subscribing to Spanish Boost Gaming was like the single most effective thing in helping me learn Spanish.
1. Martin is just so entertaining to me.
2. He was entertaining when I barely understood anything, and watching him I learned more, and he's still fun to watch now.
3. If I see his videos in my recommended, I am always tempted. Which means even if I don't watch when I see, I save to watch later, and so I have "built in" Spanish practice/learning time every week even though I'm not planning it or trying hard to make time. (I also like JuegaGerman for similar reasons)
4. There's a common advice of like "make a language part of your life" to help you learn it. And while I like a lot of other Spanish resources, and Spanish Boost Gaming is definitely Not the most thorough or ideal resource (I think maybe its the ideal resource for say Upper Beginners amd Lower Intermediate learners to practice what they know and be exposed to more, with other supplemental materials to learn and reinforce broader vocabulary to move solidly into Intermediate - Martin makes stuff for intermediate learners and its good reinforcement but there's not Enough broad repetition to probably pick up expanded vocabulary as using say textbooks or intermediate learner podcasts that delve into a variety of focused topics). But it IS a resource I could kind of understand from very early on (literally the first few hours I started learning Spanish, partly why I started learning - however I can read French so I'm sure that helped), there's a ton of videos useful from beginner to intermediate, and there's some videos that have some broader vocabulary and faster speed (to the point I can now branch out and watch some regular Spanish lets players for fun). As far as "fun distraction entertainment" stuff I watch goes, I learn a lot from the videos just relaxing and having fun.
5. Mila makes a ton of videos on the Spanish Boost Patreon (she also has a youtube channel Spanish Boost with Mila). And I got into her videos too. (Their whole patreon is lovely).
Like despite having many resources I found and decided on with deliberation, most of what is causing me to gradually learn Spanish is:
Spanish Boost
JuegaGerman
And when I try to be more well rounded, the podcasts: Chill Spanish, Espanol Al Vuelo
I don't know how much I've learned? I only can say I knew very little before 2025, and now I understand enough Spanish to watch JuegaGerman and Alex Tienda on youtube while relaxing (following what they mean is not mentally intensive to me). (I should try reading and see where I'm at).
A side note on my Mandarin progress:
for the past few months I've pretty much ONLY been listening to 镇魂 audiobook (chapter 1-60 so far, understand is frustratingly hit or miss but now that I've read the whole novel's English translation I can figure out which scenes/parts I'm listening to most of the time), Dashu Mandarin Podcast (I've listened to episodes 1-41), 声东击西 podcast (I've listened to 3 episodes, its kind of hit or miss but listening to this has been exciting because I follow the discussion topics sometimes and I've never been able to follow a regular podcast before recent months, this podcast sort of highlights to me how much I've improved since when Dashu Mandarin felt Hard to me a few months ago, because Dashu Mandarin episoded now usually feel Okay to me, and listening to 声东击西 feels like how listening to Dashu Mandarin felt a few months ago).
Also? The past few months of half assing it have really reminded me doing Something (even imperfectly) is better than doing nothing. Makes sense, right? Of course, any language practice and exposure is going to help you improve compared to nothing. But like. I really have just been putting on Dashu Mandarin podcast, most days, in the background as I work or do chores or drive. So at least 50% of the time I'm not paying much attention and my ability to follow their topic goes in and out (as I switch focus to say reading English emails or doing math). When I started listening a lot to Dashu Mandarin a few months ago, even if I paid full attention (like when walking) I could follow topics but didn't understand a decent amount of phrases and words and I had to put in considerable mental effort to follow them (not exhausting amounts, but enough mental effort I'd get tired quickly if I tried doing multiple things).
Just listening by throwing it on, while doing whatever I was doing, I noticed over time I've needed less mental effort to follow topics, and recognized more words when I *was* paying attention, and now I understand enough that I am starting to get picky about which episodes I listen to (some of their interview learners episodes follow the same pattern, and I get bored, so I've been trying to pick episodes where just the hosts talk on a topic, or interview About a specific topic like life in X location).
Anyway. It kind of "proof of concept" makes me realize I could just try listening to AS MUCH Mandarin as possible in a day, as many days as possible, and maybe make a leap in progress. (Probably in the same number of hours, but those hours fit into less days). Alas, I still have mental fatigue issues and migraines from mental fatigue post brain surgery so like. I can't multitask as much as I used to. Just listening to something While doing something else exhausts me way faster. So I am not really feeling up for "listening in the background" like that. It feels twice as fatiguing to do 2 stimulating things like listening And looking at my work computer. So. :/ ... still. I am excited about seeing progress even from listening how I have been. So I hope eventually, if and when I feel like I CAN do more in a day, I could listen in the background/paying partial attention more and maybe fit in learning hours in less days.
I've also been listening to the MoDu audio drama. Of which I understand maybe most words, but only 85% of all scenes? The scenes I understand I understand pretty Well, enough to enjoy most lines. Then there's scenes I can't totally place, and I catch most of the lines but since I'm not sure who's talking or what setting (since its an audio drama) I'm not sure what scene its supposed to be. It's been fun, but slow going. I only listen to this when I'm walking during some lunches, and I can pay full attention to it without any distractions. Since I want to enjoy it and follow along. And its been so so hot, too hot to go outside in the middle of the day.
Watched Two Dads episode 1, could follow all the main ideas and the gist of most details. This is an improvement over a month ago, in terms of comprehending the Taiwan accent. Taiwanese dramas are still noticeably hard for me, compared to Chinese dramas. With podcasters and lets players it's not quite as bad, but I think podcasters and lets players speak quite clearly and loud (not loud background noise compared to their speaking audio) which makes them easier than a show like Two Dads where comedy music is often as loud as speaking. Or Had I Not Seen The Sun, where they talk closer to real life volume. (I really want to watch: Had I Not Seen the Sun, Victim's Game, and finish Detention and Close Your Eyes Before It's Dark).
Watched 神话 ep 1-4, with Mandarin subs. Improvement was mainly in how much easier it felt compared to watching Checkmate a few months ago with Mandarin subs. Significantly easier.
Watched 东宫 ep 1-3 with no subs. Improvement was in how easy the interpersonal dialogue was to follow. The politics heavy stuff, I often wasn't sure what people were arguing for/against doing, but I did recognize a lot of individual words (like taiwangzi wudi shengmu muhou dihuang) easily. Again, noticeably easier than last time I tried to do this a few months ago. More mentally exhausting to watch without subs though, compared to with Mandarin subs.
日谈公园 podcast: noticed an improvement from episode 1 to 2. Episode 1 I caught many phrases but not enough to really know what the main ideas were. Episode 2 I listened to today, and could sometimes tell the main ideas - traveling to Brazil, something about being back in school, a particular trip, trip to Uruguay. Not all the main ideas, maybe 25-50%. It feels like learner podcasts like Dashu Mandarin felt a few hundred hours ago. I'm not sure if improvement was more from adjusting to their voices, or if epiaode 2 was simply more straightforward in it's discussion.
Just a general ease of listening has improved. Not sure if it's from doing close to 4 hours a day in February (so lots of daily Chinese I'm more Ready to hear it), or because I got another 50+ hours of practice and improved simply from the practice (as expected).
Audiobooks: still feel similar to before. I am noticing different words, which makes me think I have fully learned some words and my mind is moving onto newer words to full-learn. Either way, it's not enough to enjoy a new audiobook yet.
General: I notice I'm picking up a lot of abstract words lately, and not-abstract words (like 生母) i'm picking up almost instantly. I'm starting to feel differences between 变化 变成, those kinds of things. I'm noticing 佩服 包括 区别 得 (dei) way more.
Spanish:
I can understand Alex Tienda now.
I can also understand some lets players easier now like JuegaGerman and Auron.
I can finally understand (some) of Espanol Con Juan's podcast while just listening. It's still hit or miss. But this is an improvement over a few months ago, when I could only follow some of his episodes IF looking at the videos and the video had some context (like his video on the death of the Spain leader).
I can understand Chill Spanish podcast now, but it's hard. I had fo learn more words to grasp him, and I guess I finally know enough. (For me, Espanol al Vuelo and Cuentame are so much easier... in part I think, because both of those are structured like someone telling about their life. Whereas Chill Spanish is explaining a topic's vocabulary, so there's a ton of new* words with very little story-explanation to make sense of those new words. So Chill Spanish seems easier for reinforcing words you know and filling in gaps. Whereas Cuentame and Espanol Al Vuelo, to me, feel easier to learn many brand new words easily in the context of someone sharing a personal story/information.)
Peppa Pig Espanol - way easier now than it was a few months ago (so idk 50ish hours ago). Obviously the visuals help. But now I also feel like I know almost every word they're saying. I can't actually... Peppa Pig uses around 5000 unique words and I imagine I only know 1000-2000 words tops. But maybe the French cognates and visuals make the rest of the words easy enough to grasp that mentally I'm not working as hard to follow the cartoon. It feels much easier. This is an interesting benchmark for me: because I remember when Mandarin felt like this (could understand most things without looking, when looking I could also pretty easily understand the rest of the words, nearly immediately in listening), and I remember when Spanish felt HARDER than this (when I was entirely relying on visuals and yo and nouns and adjectives that seemed like cognates to French or English). So I know from this my Spanish has improved.
I am going back through some Spanish Boost Gaming videos that were fun but hard months ago, and checking if I understand more. I think I do understand more words? Knowing tienen now helps a TON. Still a lot of words feel vague, but like I have a better guess of what they mean. (And now I know things like soy, lugar, which are pretty critical).
General: I think I might finally be figuring out what hacer means (hoy, hacer etc). I think it means something like to be (somewhere) so kind of like estas/es "is" except more nuanced? I also think hacer maybe means "to do" so like what is the man doing? The man is doing (is) in the house. What is the weather? The weather is doing (is) raining. I am still not really sure what hacer means. But it's used in situations that in English I would have just expected "is." I think hacer is doing more though... still. Even a vague guess of what hacer means, is more than I used to have. Any tiem I saw hacer I knew it was important but had no idea what it was conveying, just that it was ALWAYS around doing stuff.
Side note:
I was trying to remember French conjugations for some reason yesterday. I am happy to say I did still remember when I gave myself a minute to recall. I feel this (hopefully) means if I was thrown into a situation where I heard French and needed to respond, I could get something understandable out.
It's weird in that... all the French I know comes to me easily when I read French. At worst, if I take 6 months+ away from reading French, it takes an hour or two of reading again for it all to come back. With podcasts, right now, French takes 5 minutes to half an hour to "get back into the flow of understanding" to my usual amount of understanding. For passive understanding, my French is pretty solidly where I left it. And remains, for the most part, there when I take breaks.
But I never use it actively, so my recall of French sucks. Occassionally a friend asks me "what is X in French?" And I take a few minutes, something comes to mind, I spit it out. Or I ask myself "wait what was X in French again? What if I want to say it?" And after a few minutes, my brain gives me something. It's usually right (or at least would be understood as close enough to get the point across). But i don't remember WHY any of it is what it is.
I don't remember why I have is "j'ai". I don't even remember "je" is I unless I make myself think about it and try to recall it. Even though in active recall I sometimes forget the absolute fucking basics like "I" and "you" because I rarely actively speak or write French, when I listen or read it all is so Immediately Understood I don't even think about it. It is almost like reading English to me. I just don't think about it usually, unless I took a long long break. With listening, sometimes it's obviously harder-than-english, and that does make me notice a bit more the differences. But for the words I know well, I just understand them and don't think anything.
It's sort of like where I am with hanzi I know now. I'm going back and studying them more, because I cannot for the life of me recall the components in most hanzi I can read. I just READ them and understand and move on. I don't think about the individual components anymore. I don't write (only type), so I don't ever need to actively recall the components. Hanzi I know, are like English, I just understand. My brain doesn't think about the components just like I don't think about the spelling in English with words I know. The words just Are that and I just Understand them and move on. With hanzi I don't know, my reading slows down and I think conciously about them - and with French listening when I don't know a word (which is more often than reading) I slow down and conciously contemplate what the word is and if I know it in reading or if I can guess it.
Anyway my French is just in such a weird place. I couldn't recall "comment t'appelle tu?" Spontaneously to save my life, despite how basic it is. I need a few moments to remember tu means you informal and how i say "whats your name" in french for informal tu. But if i read or heard it I'd understand immediately and move on. If I read/see "j'ai heureux" I immediately know it means I'm happy and move on, but if I try to conciously recall how to say it then i need to think a minute about how to say i am something in french and then HOPE the word for happy pops up in my head.
I am GLAD my passive understanding is so instant. But it is frustrating I can't output shit, even though it is clearly in my head somewhere as if I give myself a few minutes I can recall some stuff. I can read conjugations but off the top of my head, right now, i couldn't say how the fuck to present tense conjugate for "he x"... il parle? I had to think a minute and think about how u ususally say "he X" for a verb i have said often before. Okay so it's "e" ending for il present tense. I can read it but fuck I cannot remember so much for output. It's fine, as I have absolutely no need to speak French at the moment. But it does really hammer home that for me, I will need to do additional stuff to get "good at outputting" besides just hoping lots of input makes me capable of outputting.
(I'm sure input helps, as i have a bunch of french i understand in my head, which i'm sure means i could respond to someone talking to me by recalling/outputting what i remember based on what they say aloud to refresh me on. So if someone says to me "parlez-vous francais?" Its easier for me to recall responses i can understand that relate to that like "je parle un petit peu" or "vous aves une soeur?" "Qui, j'ai une soeur." But off the top of my head? I can't really start any converdation or jump to a brand new topic... I can't recall the words spontaneously, I need some reminder. I do think that for me, listening-input helps with speaking more than readimg-input, as with listening-input I find myself making sentences in my own head more. When I shadow/echo what audio says, I find it easier to make up sentences and responses in my own head without prompting. I think for me... shadowing/echoing, journaling, and conversation practice, is going to be needed to get better at output in any language.)
My japanese feels like my French but lower level (like A2 maybe? N4?). What I know, I simply understand when reading or listening. I don't think about it after a half hour to hour of re-adjusting to Japanese. (Obviously there's a lot more I DONT know that of course slows me down and makes me think, compared to French). But output wise? I forget everything, including basics like "watashi wa" if I haven't read/listened in a long time. I abaolutely can't recall Japanese off the top of my head when I'm rusty. Even though no matter how rusty, if I listen to or read japanese then within an hour I am back to understanding what I usually do.
In 2025 I explored using more extensive listening to improve my language skills, in particular listening skills but if other areas happened to benefit that's awesome too. I found Dreaming Spanish early in 2025 and wanted to test out how it's idea to mainly extensively listen to comprehensible input (stuff I understood the main idea of) would work for 1. Improving my listening skills in languages I had a reading foundation in (result: listening skills improved as expected and caught up closer to reading skills) 2. If overall language knowledge improved such as picking up new words from context (result: yes just like extensive reading to stuff I understood the main idea of, extensive listening had similar benefits of picking up new words and phrases from context). 3. How the process might go with a language I barely knew anything in.
Here's 2025's study hours! All of the study hours in 2025 were extensive listening.
Chinese hours (547 prior hours of extensive listening): 698
Japanese hours (300-600 prior hours?): 9
French hours (600-1000 prior hours?): 12
Spanish hours (115 prior hours): 104
The prior hours for Chinese are all hours prior to 2025 I extensively listened to Chinese (did not look up words). I did not count my other study time prior to 2025, such as all the reading I've done (over 1 million characters), because to compare my improvement to Dreaming Spanish I decided to only compare the same study activity (extensive listening). So my Chinese study in 2025 was my main "experiment" of if Dreaming Spanish's study approach would be useful for me (and the result is: yes for Listening skills for sure). The prior hours for Japanese and French are complete guesses of how much prior study hours of ANY kind I had in the language. The prior hours for Spanish are the best estimate I had of the actual hours I'd studied Spanish in any way before 2025. Spanish was the language I had nearly know prior knowledge of, so my experiment testing how extensive listening to comprehensible input works at the beginner stage, and if I find it useful and doable (result: for me yes enjoyable and useful especially for learning to LISTEN quicker - I am already enjoying lets plays and learner podcasts and occasionally regular Spabush youtube channels despite only being a 100-200 hours in depending on how I count it, but for reading ASAP cramming a common word vocab list and reading a grammar guide then intensively reading is still Faster to get into reading - that's what I did for French years ago. So I do think... at the beginner stage, what works "best" definitely depends on your most urgent goal activities you want or need to do first.)
Goals for 2026?
1. Keep it simple. Continue doing extensive listening for Chinese as it IS improving my listening skills, and improving vocabulary like reading does. And I still have a long term goal to understand Mandarin Audiobooks and Audiodramas as easily as English ones. So I want to listen at least 365 hours in 2026. Hopefully more.
2. In that line of goals - FINISH rewatching The Untamed no subtitles. LISTEN TO SAYE AUDIOBOOK. LISTEN TO MODU AUDIODRAMA. LISTEN TO MODU AUDIOBOOK. That's a lot of hours right there. I'd like to listen to other stuff too, like learner content which I do think helps me nail down things faster. I'd also like to challenge myself to watch more dramas in Mandarin with no subtitles, or only Mandarin subtitles (if I want to practice reading).
3. My reading goal is to finally finish reading one of my my favorite pingxie fanfic 寒舍.
4. I'd LIKE to try reading one of my print Chinese books this year. But my reading got rusty and slow, and children's fairy tales are a slog now. So maybe I'll only get through some manhua. On the upside, reading more books GENERALLY in any languages is a goal of mine this year. So I will read more.
5. For Spanish, I'd like to keep learning. Not sure what that will look like yet. I'd like to read Poco a Poco this year. And get to an intermediate level where I can read some stuff and watch some stuff, even if I only vaguely understand things. It'd be cool if I could follow YA audiobooks by the end of the year but who knows.
6. Japanese and French are NOT priorities this year. They were not last year either. But if something interests me, I might focus on them a while. For example, I was playing some Japanese audio games recently, and all the words I DO know come flooding back in recognition. And the grammar I DO know well. And when all that floods back, it makes me want to not be so rusty. Then I dive into japanese podcasts and learning stuff I got again. So who knows what this year holds. There's also some French shows I've been recommended, so if any of them capture my attention I might be focusing on French listening for a while.
Biggest surprises of 2025?
1. Happy with how consistently I studied! Simply counting the hours up on my phone counter in a note, which I pasted into this post, kept me studying almost every day for at least a few minutes! And making it super convienient to listen to stuff in the languages like making a Mandarin specific playlist on youtube, downloading the app AntennaPod to open up for all the language practice podcasts in one spot. Also reddits r/dreamingspanish and r/dreaminglanguages were really motivating and friendly overall, and the made this year r/ALGMandarin really helped with motivation.
2. USING MY LIBRARY AND THE APP HOOPLA MORE. So many free books and audiobooks in other languages!
3. Bilibili, Youtube, Tubi, Pluto, so many free shows in other languages! And audiobooks, and audio dramas.
4. Wildly excited how fast my French listening improved despite barely any hours this year, but I suppose if your reading skills are STRONG then listening skill jumps up very fast? That's how its gone for me. I did not expect it.
5. Happily suprised to find that listening to a language a lot, for me at least, makes my active vocabulary a bit bigger. At least, easier to recall words to say in conversation, compared to when I only read a lot.
In conclusion WOOH WHAT A YEAR WE GOT THROUGH IT YALL. ITS OVER. 2025 IS DONE.
I HOPE 2026 IS KIND TO YOU, AND BRINGS JOY. I HOPE YOU HAVE LUCK IN YOUR GOALS AND PURSUING THEM. YOU'RE AWESOME!
Spanish Listening Experiment Update 8/25/2025: 33 hours (115 hours of prior experience, for a total of 148)
I'm going to try to keep this on the shorter side.
Listened to The Wild Project #50 video today:
I would estimate I understood 95% certainly enough to follow all the main ideas, and many details. Now, I have a engineering background from college, so I already know about Quantum Physics, String Theory, Multiple Universes, so I picked a podcast episode on a topic I am familiar with - which surely helped me understand it. Also science topics tend to have MANY more cognates with English and French, compared with everyday basic life words (like trash, path, long, short, small, big, something).
It was funny as Fuck to me when I heard Lex Luthor's name in this episode multiple times, after they mentioned Elon Musk and Starlink and then sidetracked to Lex Luthor and the new Superman movie and the Zack Snyder Superman movies. They also mentioned Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer movie, all of these were parts I did not expect lol. I am hyperfocused on Smallville's Lex Luthor lately, and the new Superman 2025 movie, so it was really a fun coincidence.
The hardest words to understand were some verbs, especially verbs in new forms, and some common word basic nouns (like string theory - teoria de "cuerda") and stuff like some - "alguno" and "nunca" - never). I suspect some of the most common words in many languages are less likely to be cognates.
I turned on Spanish subs for a few minutes, could read quite well, same words were troublesome. I did look up a handful of words in Google Translate. I did not have a problem with the speed of speech, anything I heard I,could guess how to type okay or say into Google Translate Speech Recognition if I wanted to look it up.
I did try to watch Alex Tienda's Corea del Norte videos. He does talk a touch too fast for me to follow unless I pay full attention (versus The Wild Project where I didn't need to watch the screen and could multitask). I could understand many words Alex said when watching with full attention, so I think it's not that his speed of speech is too hard, but more that he is using a lot more daily life palabras (which have less cognates in general with English and French). So I have to actually rely on visual context more to figure out the meaning of many words he's saying.
I tried How to Spanish podcast yesterday and I can handle it now. So I went on a search for a bunch of higher level podcasts and channels. My comprehension has apparently increased a LOT in 33 hours. Fascinating.
If I try to watch the show Elite in a day or two, you'll know what happened. I was trying to see if I could understand it. I may try to test out some audiolibros too.
So far all the podcasts for learners I have tried have seemed understandable (at least for the 5 minutes I tried them out).
I have Spanish Boost Gaming (and Spanish Boost podcast) to thank for all the progress I am making. Martin really does speak slow and clearly enough, and manages to speak in a way that helps a TON with learning new words. I suspect I have been picking up a TON of the most common Spanish words from Martin's videos. And his videos interest ke amd keep my attention in a way no other learner content has.
I just finished Spanish Boost Gaming's Bioshock playlist!
It was great! I truly love Martin's videos. They're all perfect for me - they feel easy, I can watch the video games or just listen to the podcast episodes, they're the kind of stuff and topics I watch in English too.
I feel like this is not the usual progress expected for 33 hours (or even 148 hours). Although Spanish Boost Gaming is supposed to be perfect for 150+ hours so Level 3 on the Dreaming Spanish roadmap. My hypotheses right now for why my progress is the speed it is:
1. Perhaps all the French I know is REALLY helping a ton (likely due to cognates). I can read whatever I want in French (at probably a high school reading level). I learned to read over years, so I probably learned 9000+ words in terms of reading. Although my listening did not get much practice until recently. And Spanish has like 20,000 cognates with English. Google search keeps saying French and Spanish have 75% lexical similarity but I haven't found any actually researched academic texts to confirm that. I did see on reddit, someone mentioned they were B2 in French (which is roughly where I am) and at 281 hours odlf Dreaming Spanish could understand the DS Advanced videos. (If French does give a big benefit? It may mean the DS Roadmap taking 750 hours instead of 1500, or somewhere in between).
2. Perhaps working on listening skills in one language gives Large Benefits to other language's listening skills. This one I am fairly sure happens to people studying multiple languages, as I have seen other people studying multiple languages mention focused listening practice in one language happened to help their listening skill in another language. (The youtuber Days and Words mentioned noticing a similar result of improving one language's listening skills helping another language's listening skills).
Serious question. Especially if you are doing Dreaming Spanish, or using comprehensible input mainly to learn a language (like DS's method):
Should I wait until 600+ comprehensible input hours of Spanish, to start reading Spanish? That is what the Dreaming Spanish Roadmap suggests.
I ask because Spanish is the closest to a language I can really try the method of learning "mostly with comprehensible input" with. I knew very little Spanish prior to this year. So nearly all I'm learning of Spanish is from the comprehensible input videos I watched this year, and Spanush podcasts for learners.
In contrast: for French I learned to read, really well, and focused NOTHING into listening skills. So by 2 years, I could read nearly anything I wanted in French, but my mental idea of French pronunciation was so absolutely fucked up. In my head it sounded like English and Spanish and Italian when I read, so if I listened to French I could not tell if it was French or Spanish (I knew very little Spanish then, and like I said I had NO fucking French listening practice). So I spent a whole summer focusing on differentiating spoken French sounds compared to the languages I was confusing it with, and building a basic foundation of "French mental model of pronunciatiom" that was at least close enough to start noticing if I was hearing SOMETHING French versus not-French. Still took more years to build up French listening skills with practice, and its still worse than my reading skills by a very noticeable chunk. Now, my French listening skills do seem to improve a LOT with very few hours of practice, so the reading did seem to help. But I KNOW my mental sound model of French was FUCKED from not doing enough listening study as a beginner before reading.
So I know exactly why Dreaming Spanish recommends building a SOLID mental sound model of Spanish before reading a lot.
With Mandarin, I learned from my mistakes with French - I studied Mandarin sounds from the start, watched shows often, the first things I read were with audiobooks or show Mandarin subtitles while listening to the show. I still read from basically the first few months in Mandarin, just like with French. So I did start reading before building a solid mental model of Mandarin sounds in my mind. But, with Mandarin, I also heard correct sounds often, daily, which hopefully undid any "fucked up mental models of Mandarin" I formed early on, and helped shape my mental Mandarin sound model into something more accurate over time. But I can't say for sure. Perhaps reading early in Mandarin will result in a permanent sucky accent when I speak, that will never be undone or lessened.
So with Spanish... I get the chance to genuinely WAIT to read, and see if that is helpful to a big enough degree to my eventual speaking skills, to be worth doing.
The thing is. I have 6 Spanish books at home I want to read, that I can read. As in I can understand their main ideas when I read them (in part thanks to French cognates in spelling, in part knowing the English versions of some of the book's plots, and two are graded readers - the nature method books). So waiting like 400 more hours to read sounds so frustratingly long...
And as you can tell - my desire to read in a language is usually the thing that motivates me MOST, considering I always focused on that skill first in my past language learning efforts.
I have a lot of cool updates, regarding the language learning process and feelings after my recent brain surgery to remove a hematoma (blood clot thing).
Mostly just. Oh my fucking god my memory was so sucky with that thing in my head! Now that it's gone, I can tell in retrospect it felt like I was underwater! It felt like everything I didn't write or type down slipped away within minutes. My long term memory also sucked, unless I could find something I wrote to remibd myself. I think I only managed to cope because I was already used to writing a ton of life-notes to keep on top of my adhd, and to keep a 3.0+ back in college to keep a scholarship. So I was used to workung hard to keep my life together even when my brain doesn't cooperate. The adhd management skills definitely kept my life somewhat together with the thing in my brain. ;-;
God i feel better now with it out. It's wild to me how my memory is getting better each day, and my ability to hold onto information longer - just simply remembering to take my medicines at the right time (before my adhd reminder alarm on my phones go off), to remember what I want at the grocery store without needing to write a list (which I have not been able to do for years), to remember what I just recently heard enough to repeat it aloud myself after (which I truly struggled to do before - those kind of things slipped quickly from my memory before).
I've been continuing to try to learn Spanish, like before, as my little side project to test Dreaming Spanish's method of using comprehensible input and following their roadmap. Since I don't know much Spanish, so it's a easier language to test and see clear progress and learning method specific effects. I know a significant amount of French and Mandarin, so while I am also using Dreaming Spanish's study recommendations to improve my French and Mandarin listening, it is working and it's expected to work. Extensive listening to things you understand the main idea of (which is basically Dreaming Spanish's method) will result in improved listening skills, especially if you can read (and I can read in French and Mandarin) because you'll pick up all those words you know from reading in listening if you just listen Enough. So anyway, Spanish is my little side project to test more specific things about the process. Since I truly know very little Spanish.
Well, post surgery, I have been watching Spanish Boost Gaming. Because I already loved Martin's videos beforehand, he is honestly the Spanish learner content I find the funnest. I like some Dreaming Spanish videos: I understand some Beginner ones, occasionally an Intermediate one, and some of the Podcast episodes (which I think are Intermediate). I like Andres, Andrea, and Shelcin's videos the most. But I like Martin from Spanish Boost's lessons even more - I like the podcast topics he picks for his podcast episodes, I love the horror,games he often plays and I enjoy watching various lets plays of those games ANYWAY, so getting to learn while watching a lets player I enjoy is a nice way to justify the kind of goofing off I'd already be doing. So I am HEAVILY watching Martin's gaming videos.
I imagine whenever I speak Spanish, I'll sound a LOT like him.
Well, I watched Martin a lot before the surgery - and I still would manage to follow the main idea and what was going on overall (partly because I knew some of the game premises which helped for guessing the meaning of some words, partly because I do know how to read French so cognate words like "facile" I already know).
And now I am watching him after my surgery that removed the Thing in my head - and everything is SO much clearer. He makes SUCH EASY LESSONS. I am going through his Bioshock lets play, and I understand almost every word. It is just words like hacer, fue, algo, ahora, aci, fuerte, that throw me off and take several times of hearing, but to be fair words like do, was, something, right now, here, strong, are somewhat hard to identify based on visuals to guess - especially compared to nouns I can associate to items on screen like balas, descriptive adjectives like feo and guapo, and clear cognates like stupido and usar and respeto and literalmente. Martin talks so slow and clearly, so easy to hear what he is saying and look it up if I want (because I like looking up words!), so easy to figure out what the things he's saying mean based on the visuals, he stops to explain in simpler words what the game dialogue and cutscenes meant. It's so easy to follow! I haven't needed the English subtitles at all (although he does make and provide them, which I think is awesome as using English subtitles suits certain people well, and is nice to have). I watched his Outlast 2 videos 1 and 2, they were also very easy to understand now! I remember pre-surgery I enjoyed the Outlast 2 videos but found them much harder to follow, and relied much harder on the visuals to understand what was going on. It shocks me how nerfed my brain was. ToT
Spanish Boost Gaming Martin's videos are SO easy, and fun, and I am surprised they are recommended on the Dreaming Spanish Reddit's "What Are You Listening To?" Spreadsheet for Level 3 - 150 hours. I have 24 hours of Spanish as of today, and most were from Spanish Boost Gaming lol! I truly have very little prior knowledge of Spanish, especially compared to some others doing Dreaning Spanish, as I literally ONLY learned the colors (verde, rosa, rojo, negro, blanco, azul) and 1-10 which most americans learn in Elementary School, and I took 1 beginner Spanish class in one semester of Middle School where I remember learning gracias, de nada, por favor, me llamo, hola, adios, and that's it. That's all the Spanish I had in my head from prior experience! Then in college, for 3 months over the summer, I studied Spanish haphazardly mostly to attempt to clearly differentiate spoken and written Spanish from French, because in my head I was interpreting all Spanish as French... and had no clear mental pronunciation of French so it was all a mess. So I read Madrigal's Magical Guide to Spanish (and forgot most of it, but it did point out a LOT of cognate patterns which I'm sure I retained... like national, international, all the tional and al words in English also often existing in Spanish, literalmente, basicamente the -mente being like -ly in English), listened to a few episodes of Language Transfer Spanish (mostly to hear how Spanish sounded and compare that to French audio lessons I was listening to that summer, Language Transfer also pointed out some of those cognate patterns). All in all, that summer I only probably studied Spanish for 30 minutes daily so at MOST only around 45 hours. So combine that with a middle school semester, even if I optimistically focused on Spanish the entire hour every class period, that's 75 class hours. So 45+75=120 hours of prior experience with Spanish, most of which I forgot.
(Also you can see here based on my own very small exposure to Spanish, how Easy it is for many Americans to have a decent foundation in Spanish - at least a prior 50 hours as many of us took at least 1 semester of Soanish or heard something Spanish every year in elementary school, or much more if they took the usual 2+ years of required foreign language classes most high schools require. So a lot of Americans will find it faster than starting from scratch if they dive into something like Dreaming Spanish, since they'll be able to handle intermediate stuff faster than true beginners - my dad took 4 years of Spanish in school, and knew almost every word in Spanish Boost Gaming's videos, whereas I needed the visuals and cognates to figure out some stuff. My dad's background is closer to the average American who took some Spanish classes in school, which is probably more likely the kind of people trying to learn Spanish in adulthood - aka continuing to learn).
Perhaps my French knowledge is helping ke with understanding too? I am frankly surprised Martin's videos are THIS easy. I am on the one hand comparing how easy they feel, to how underwater and confused and "only the general idea" I was picking up around a month ago when I had a big Thing in my brain nerfing me. On the other hand, I am considering how easy his lessons feel now and wondering if Everyone feels they are this easy at 24 hours... or if there's some factor within me that is making his videos more comprehensible at such a beginner stage.
Anyway, I love Martin's videos. I highly recommend them. They're so easy to understand, he teaches really well.
For my own future reference: I have been looking up a handful of words each video in Google Translate, as I get curious, because I did that so much with Mandarin it's pretty much habit now. Also I am impatient and want to know what unknown things mean ASAP even though I will still need to run into them several times to remember them long term. I am repeating after what Martin says often, even though Pablo from Dreaming recommends not to, because it's fun to me. It's fun to see if I can say it, and if I can say it close to how Martin does. So I guess I won't be able to test if waiting 600-1000 hours results in a better accent. Oh well. I'm impatient, and I bet it'll be a better accent than my French pronunciation regardless. I think I say the r's in stuff like pero and perro okay if I repeat after Martin, but not as well when saying them on my own spontaneously. I'd like to think I am good at mimicking others? So when I say something right after he says it, such as into Google Translate, the app recognizes the words I said. As for spontanoeous good pronunciation of words, I probably will wait until at least a few hundred hours to try and start making my own sentences.
A question for anyone else who watches Spanish Boost Gaming or Spanish Boost Martin's youtube videos: does he have the Spain "lisp" th pronunciation of words with "c" in a particular location? Versus the Mexican Spanish "s" sound for pronouncing that "c" part of words (words like "Barcelona"). Dreaming Spanish Andres is from Argentina and definitely has it. Dreaming Spanish Pablo from Spain definitely has it. But Martin? I am not sure. His Spanish accent sounds very clear to me, only the "ll" pronunciation, which I expect to sound like "y" like caballo being pronounced "cabayo," is "sha" in Martin's accent, so "cabasho" when Martin says certain words like horse (caballo) and key (llavo) and she (ella). I am also, like I said, used to "c" sounding like s or z in Spanish, NOT "th." So I am curious which way Martin pronounces those "c" parts of words. I am guessing he does pronounce them like "s" or I would have noticed by now, but I also did not have a brain working at full capacity until this week so! I am not sure!
If you ever see this Martin, you are basically single handedly teaching me Spanish. ToT
I am still debating if I'll post any updates about Spanish learning to reddit, or not. (If anyone is studying Chinese though, I really think ALGMandarin on reddit - in particular it's moderator - has done an amazing job at building a welcoming kind helpful place).
My life has been WILD this August, and I'm off work until it's over so. Well you know me. I always want to learn a lot ToT. Do a lot ToT. AAAAAAAAAAAAAA (i feel pretty good all things considered, mainly just like I am no longer underwater, and more alive, both of which are true about what's changed)
