0 Hours: Empecemos

Despite the title, I am writing this after having logged 110 hours of input.

I didn’t write this initially as I wasn’t sure that this was something I wanted to commit to, but after committing to 110 hours I am confident that this is something that I want to see through to completion. For that reason I want to jot down some notes on where I started and probably more importantly why I started.

Where I Started

I think the where for me is the same as for most people. I did some language learning in school. I think it was a bit of French in year 7 and then Spanish from year 8-9 before dropping it at the earliest possible opportunity. Now 8 years on I am picking it up again.

In the past 8 years I have been to Spain twice and before going I did the the usual thing of googling how to say “Hello” and “Can I have a beer please?”, and that is about as far as my language learning went in that time. I have had the occasional thought that learning a new language is something I would want to do, but if I’m being honest with myself I think what I actually wanted is to have already learnt a language and be able to speak it, as the process of studying really didn’t appeal.

Why I Started

Why I wanted to start learning Spanish is maybe a little bit more complicated.

The quick answer is that me and my partner want to visit South America one day and I think it would make the trip 100x better if I could speak the language. But I think the reality is that I’ve always wanted to speak a second language, and I’ve been jealous of people that can. I also have the embarrassment that most British people have going away and having someone speak to you in a second or even third language with better English than you.

How I Started

I had no clue where to start when deciding that I wanted to learn Spanish. The first thing I did was download duolingo and start cranking though the levels, but I quickly got bored and felt that I wasn’t progressing. I then started looking though the different language leaning subreddits and stubbled upon Dreaming Spanish (DS). Specifically I think I watched this video in which Pablo, the creator of DS, explains what the method is and how it works.

Basically you watch or listen to content where you understand the majority of what is being said, and you then infer the rest by the context of what you know or what is happening in the video. You do that enough and you 1) gain excellent comprehension and 2) form a map of how the language works in your head, which then helps your speaking be a lot more automatic and natural.

The method is based on the Input Hypothesis and is detailed more in this article.

Anyway, it seemed compelling, and after reading and watching the testimonials on reddit and YouTube I started straight away.

How It’s Going

I took in about 40 hours of input in early 2024 before my consistency dropped over the summer, and I picked things back up at the beginning of 2025 properly. At 110 hours I am now past the first milestone and fast approaching the next. Right now I am comfortable understanding content aimed at learners, as well as some more advanced videos.

That’s about it for now I reckon. I’ll continue writing these to document the journey and map my progress.