Level 6 reached. 1000 hour update – CI is giving me hope for language learning

TL DR: CI does wonders for my progress and is a ton of fun. The coolest thing is that now I know HOW to learn a language. CI makes me hope that I could learn another language if I ever wanted to.

Hi all, this is my first update here! Thanks all for this fantastic community!

What is my background?

I started my CI journey 1.5 years ago in Jan 23. Today I have hit 1000 hours of CI. Prior Spanish background is an A2 Spanish local class and 2.5 years of 15 minute Duolingo (now on Section 5 of 8). The only language I ever got proficient is English, making Spanish my third language. I never thought I would learn another language in my life, but…here we are!

Where am I now?

I feel like I am mostly aligned with the roadmap and fit the level 6 description. I can really have fun with the language now. I am able to comprehend a lot of native content. During a trip to Spain this year I could basically understand everything the locals said to me. I can make myself clear in a conversation. However, I make a lot of mistakes when speaking. I can read easier books but authentic books for adults are still too hard. There is still a lot to learn. However, I can’t report a plateau and I don't feel like the CI returns are diminishing.

What CI sources did I use?

DS: 277 of my hours are from DS. The bulk of it I watched within the first 500 hours of the journey. Within the first 300 hours DS was absolutely crucial for my progress. I don't think I would have made it past that point without DS. There is just nothing comparable to DS superbeginner/beginner vids. I watched intermediate at 300 hours. At 800 hours advanced videos became comprehensible for me. Now I have discovered so much other interesting content that I only watch the occasional DS video that peaks my interest. I plan to continue watching DS though and stay subscribed as premium member.

Podcasts and audiobooks: 443 hours of my hours are from podcasts and audiobooks. Listening to podcasts was crucial to expand my daily CI, allowing me to go from 30 min to 2h daily. I started listening to podcasts at about 150 hours. Like many others, I started with Cuanteme and Chill Spanish. I progressed to Despertando/Durmiendo, Espanol con Juan and Intermediate Spanish podcast. All of these were super important for my progress. Other podcasts include No Hay To, Languatalk, How to Spanish Podcast, Spanish Obsessed, Charlas Hispanas, Entiende Tu Mente and most recently Marta Debayle la vida explicada, and more.

I only listened to a few audiobooks so far but plan to listen more in the future. Harry Potter (Audible), Atomic Habits and Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow all were enjoyable for me and helped me up my hours tremendously. Harry Potter alone was 124 hours long.

Movies, Series and YouTube: Total of 238 hours. I still focus on dubbed content. Mostly Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Colombia via VPN. I started watching movies and series relatively early in the journey at about 300 hours. As I am a big movie fan in general, switching to Spanish seemed logical to expand my input time without changing my existing daily habit of movie/series watching. I don't select movies and series specifically for learning purposes but rather watch series and movies that I would watch anyway. Many of the movies and series I have seen before which helps a ton. Most dubbed content is accessible for me, however, authentic native shows are still hard. I watched and enjoy a few native shows like Casa De Las Flores, La Cocinera de Castamar, the Fito Paez documentary on Netflix El Amor Despues del Amor (highly recommended for Argentinian speakers), and the fantastic film Ya No Estoy Aqui.

Youtube is a major part of my daily CI routine. I currently enjoy travel youtubers like Ramilla de Aventuras. I also enjoy Luisito Comunica, Spanish Input, Un Mundo Inmenso, Aprendemos Juntos, Couch Polyglot, Curiosa Mente, Explora Planet Juan, José Ramos libros and more. I also do yoga with Anabel Ortero on YT. My YT input time is likely going to increase. I have tons of interesting channels saved up that I haven't gotten to yet.

Reading: Started reading at about 650 hours. I find reading to be highly effective and fun, but I am still working on building the daily reading habit. I find reading solidifies and expands my vocab and activates the "inner Spanish voice in my head". Ultimately, I started reading more and I sometimes find myself thinking random Spanish stuff throughout the day. Books read so far include The Juan Fernandez and Olli Richards graded readers, A Series of Unfortunate Events 1-6, Animorphs 1 and Neverending Story / La history interminable. I definitely want to read more and keep the reading habit more constant (at least 30 min/daily). I haven't counted read words yet but I am aiming for the 3-million-word goal.

Music: Have always been a big music lover I have discovered tons of Latin, Rock, Pop, Indie, Metal, Hiphop and other artists that I was totally unaware of before I started this journey. I listen to music daily and I have made a playlist of more than 12 hours of songs with Spanish lyrics. I feel like listening to music in Spanish helps me a lot, although my lyrics comprehension is overall low. When I listen to songs I love over and over, eventually they click. What helps the most with lyrics comprehension is to read along the lyrics on Tidal/Spotify. I also sing along to songs which is something I find that aids with pronunciation. I don't count music listening to my hours, just having fun here.

Video Games: I played Hogwarts Legacy, Uncharted Legacy of Thieves, Middle Earth Shadow of Morder, Diablo IV, The Last of Us 1, Resident Evil 2 in Spanish. I enjoyed all of them although comprehension was low at times. I count 20% of playing time. I plan to play more video games in the future. My backlog include the Arkham Batman Games, God of War and the Monkey Island series. I find on Steam it is very easy to find games with Spanish audio. Like series and movies, gaming is a pre-existing hobby that can easily be switched to Spanish without it feeling like work.

Talking: I have maybe 30/40 hours of talking. Some of it from a local conversation partner and some from Italki. This year at around 750 hours I spend two weeks in Spain on the Camino de Santiago and talked for hours to fellow hikers. This was super fun and an incredible experience. Words often come naturally to me during conversation but I still need to plan ahead and not try to express too complicated things. I was told my pronunciation is solid. I make tons of mistakes when talking but I get my point across. I want to focus more on speaking in the future, there is a lot of progress here in relatively short time.

Non CI – Duo and Anki: I practice 15-20 min Duo daily. I am now in the B1 section and plan to finish the course maybe next year. Duolingo isn't very effective overall compared to CI but it helped me built a daily habit in the beginning and it still does something for me. Or maybe I am just too hooked on the gamification. I have a very strong habit to drink my morning coffee while I do my Duo. Some of the grammar drills on Duo I find that I notice those structures and verb conjugations later on in the input. Overall while its hard to estimate the usefulness, I don't see any harm in continuing Duo. I also did Anki for several months to drill vocab but I stopped Anki now. Vocab learned on both DS and Anki vocab I tend to forget after a while. Only if see the vocab afterwards in a CI context it makes it stick. I could see myself going the Refold approach for another language.

Classes: I took a local A1 and A2 class mainly because I liked the teacher and the group. Not sure what I got out of it though, the grammar exercise book was just okay. However, I also didn't find it a complete waste of time, but likely the same progress could be made with CI instead of going to classes. I plan on doing another B1 class this fall and maybe a conversation class or book club.

What are my key learnings?

Easy vs. hard content: Mixing easier with harder CI sources works for me. I have a tendency to consume harder but more engaging/interesting content while sacrificing comprehension, which might have slowed my progress overall a bit. For a significant amount my comprehension was 80%-90%, sometimes even less. I do see the value of easy content above the recommended 95% but I just can’t too much if it’s not engaging for me. So basically it comes to down to watching overall more hours of a bit less comprehensible but fun input or dropping my hours because I get bored.

Good audio quality: Investing in a good set of comfortable headphones helps. I am using bone conducting headphones which are not too great for music listening but are super comfortable and great for podcasts, can be worn all day and allow to be aware of the environment.

Community support: CI learning can be a lonely journey and progress is very gradual. This community has been very helpful for me to keep on track. The community sheet from the weekly listening thread plays a major role in discovering non-DS input for me.

Speaking at 1000 hours: While I get the idea, I didn’t follow this recommendation. Since I don’t live in a Spanish speaking country I haven’t spoken too much and I am mostly not worrying about this topic too much. My accent is not too important to me.

Accents / Countries: I don’t see the point in focusing on a specific accent or country. My aim is to have good pronunciation and to speak a neutral Spanish.

Is CI for everyone: The 1500 journey is a tough sell for casual language learners. I feel like a lot of folks in this sub, especially speed runners, are very good at building a CI habit / integrating CI in their life. For me, the 1500 hours is the most realistic and honest language learning goal. I think the potential of CI for language learning is overall huge. It’s exciting to observe how the popularity of CI is growing more and more. DS is pioneering a movement and is giving me hope for language learning.

What comes next?

I don’t plan to change much. Keep going towards level 7. I might get there by next spring or summer. Thanks for reading!