300 Hours

Progress and Goal Tracking

Just over 3 months on and I’ve hit the next milestone. I think compared the last milestone the progress has been just as dramatic. 50 hours compared to 150 hours I progressed from beginner input focussing mostly on incredibly basic nouns/sentence structure, to very low intermediate level content. This last 150 hours I have really pushed into the intermediate level. I am now able to understand more free flowing and less scripted speech, albeit still aimed at leaners.

I do have that feeling that most people report at this level that the more you know, the more you realise you don’t know as you get exposed to more parts of the language.

I have expanded my goal tracker to include a section showing how far I am off the next milestone, and based on my current pace, the estimated date I’d achieve this:

This has been really helpful in keeping the pace so that the estimated date stays the same.

That being said it is much easier now to hit my target. It is now part of my daily routine and I look forward to certain people posting videos.

Comprehension

As mentioned the jump in my comprehension has been huge in the last 150 hours. The best way to explain is to say that the people I am listening to no longer sound like that they are talking down to me. The beginner phase is lots of content that would usually be aimed at a child learning a language, which can be really exhausting to listen to. But now the types of things I am consuming are people talking about history, travel, cooking, etc. in a more natural way. I think it is still quite early intermediate level content, but now actually things I want to watch, and not things I feel like I have to watch to progress.

A massive amount of the last 150 hours has been Spanish Boost to the point I’ve paid for their Patreon to access the extra videos. Looking back on my comprehension of the earlier videos I think it might’ve sat around 50%-60%, but I persevered because it was a lot more engaging than the beginner content I was watching. Now my comprehension is ~90% for more of the intermediate content and maybe ~60% for the advanced stuff which I have mostly stayed away from. Although I have really enjoyed the Spanish Boost stuff and feel like most of my progression has happened by following them, I have made an effort to vary the sources of content over the past 100 hours.

I have listened to less podcasts but still usually listen to a couple hours a week. They include ¡Cuéntame!, Spanish Boost podcast, and a bit of the DS podcast although I think that’s a bit out of the optimal range.

A big achievement is going back and watching the intro to DS videos without subtitles. They were the first DS videos I watched that got me into it, and it is so cool that 300 hours later I can actually understand it all. When I first watched them I had no clue what he was saying, relying completely on the subtitles.

Although it’s out of my skill level at the moment, have been finding and watching much more advanced content from Spain and Mexico (🇪🇸Diegodoal, 🇲🇽La Capital, 🇲🇽Peluche Torres, 🇲🇽Calixto Serna) on youtube which is a good incentive to keep pushing. My comprehension for these at the moment are at in a range between 30%-70% depending on the topic and guide. I’ve been saving these so I’ll try again at 600 hours.

Speaking and Reading

Pretty much the same as the first 150 hours, I’ve not really done much. Have been reading more Spanish online (Mexico subreddit, comments in YT videos, etc.) which I am sometimes surprised with how well I can understand.

Although I haven’t, I feel like if I went on holiday now to a Spanish speaking country I’d have no problem communicating and doing the basics required (ordering food, asking for directions, chatting to taxi drivers, etc.), which is something I have tried to achieve in the past but have come nowhere near close

The Next 300 Hours

The aim for the next 300 hours is just more of the same. My goal is to reach 600 hours by next May, which will mean keeping my daily goal between 90-120 minutes which is very doable.