![]() ![]() Listening has translated the best to improving my speaking skills. Inspired by this post, this post and a 10k page reading challenge, I started watching tons of Netflix and reading novels. Going into phase 2, I was especially frustrated by my listening comprehension. Phase 2: Lots of input, some output (~7 months)Ĭontinued with 4-6 hours of conversation practice per weekĬontinued with Anki daily, fewer new words per day than in Phase 1Ĭontinued with reading news, watching Youtube, and listening to podcasts Newspapers / Magazines: El País, MIT Technology Review, National Geographic, NYT, WapoĪnki for vocabulary, ~50 new words per day Youtube: Visual Politik, Luisito Comunica, Noticias Telemundo, BBC News Mundo, Platxi, DW Español, Vice en español, Alanxelmundo, Superholly, Tom Segura en español Podcasts: How to Spanish, El Washington Post, Radio Ambulante, Historias perdidas, TED en español, Asi como suena, Escuela de nada ![]() Phase 1: Baselang + supplemental material (~5 months)Ĭompleted Baselang Real World program (Levels 0 through 10, including 130 electives) in ~4 months My spelling is generally good as I pay close attention to accentuation and check spelling with cloze deletion cards in Anki, but I probably don't write (or speak) very naturally. Writing: This is the skill I practice the least, so I'm not sure how to rate this. On a really good day, I'll make fewer than 10 grammatical errors in a one hour conversation, with more near the end when I'm getting tired. It involves time travel and is confusing in any language! I also talked about how science fiction has affected my view of society and the world. The last time I spoke to a new tutor, we talked about science fiction, and I explained the premise of the series The Travelers (which I watched with Spanish dubs). Speaking: B1? I feel pretty comfortable having a conversation about almost anything, though I certainly make mistakes and feel limited in what I can express. My reading speed is slow but no longer painful at ~25 pages per hour. I definitely have the most trouble with slang, colloquialisms, idioms, cultural references, and "localisms" or words that have a different meaning in certain countries. I read on Kindle and mark every word I don't know (even if the meaning is obvious from context), and averaged under 2 unknown words per page for the last three books I read ( Reina roja, La buena suerte, and Como polvo en el viento), all of which are novels originally written in Spanish within the past 10 years. Reading: High B2? Definitely my strongest skill. I have a harder time with native television series, movies and podcasts with multiple speakers talking over each other. For example, minus a handful of words, I understand word for word this video and this video. Listening: B2? I can understand news and dubbed television with >95% comprehension. I told myself I would stick to it for at least a year. I don’t have particularly motivating reasons to learn Spanish other than I had lots of free time during the pandemic and wanted a challenge. Going in: Native English speaker with no prior Spanish knowledge unless you count words like hola and gracias. Below is an outline of what I did (Baselang, conversation practice, 350+ hours of Netflix, 6000+ pages of reading novels, Kwiziq, other misc stuff), where I'm at, what I didn't expect, and what I'd do differently. TL DR: I've spent about 1600 hours over the past year studying Spanish and have reached a self-assessed B1/B2 level. ![]()
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