600 Hour Update (with Speaking Sample)

Hi everyone. :)

Just a couple of days ago I hit 600 hours of input. I've been doing this process quite slowly, although I really started taking it seriously in October 2024...so about a year now. I started crosstalk regularly in the 200s and started speaking in the mid 500s or so (I'm at 16 hours of speaking as of today).

In this video, I am speaking to my Spanish tutor, Martin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MgQ8JRJ54k You may know him as that weird guy who does gaming videos in Spanish. I feel self-conscious posting this, because listening back I can hear all the mistakes I made. But I also think speaking earlier can be a good thing and wanted to present an example of how one might sound at 600 hours of input.

Listening: At 600 hours, I feel comfortable watching most DS videos and understanding almost all of it. Things get tricky in the high 70s/low 80s and so I tend to avoid those because I don't want my brain to explode from the effort. I did watch a level 80 video with Tomas about keeping the house clean and understood it fine, but it worked my brain muscles.

I can watch some native content, but not all of it. Some people are still very hard for me to understand, and I have a low tolerance for ambiguity so if I'm not understanding 90% at least, I'm leaving and coming back later when I have more hours.

Speaking: I can converse to an extent, in a way that is stilted and awkward at times, with many grammatical errors. You will be able to hear this clearly in the speaking sample posted above.

Reading: I have not begun reading but purchased the first Amanda Black book and will begin reading soon.

Writing: I have not begun writing except for tiny amounts in Discord. I don't feel comfortable writing yet but hopefully my confidence grows as I start reading!

Disclaimer: I took one Spanish class 18 years ago in high school. I am also a B1 level in French and this has helped me feel ahead of the roadmap as I've gone through it. I am not close to a native speaker and so dividing the hours by half would not apply to me, but I won't pretend that the French doesn't help at all.

Overall I am happy with where I am and grateful for how Dreaming Spanish has helped me, and that I can have conversations (even if they contain many mistakes). I'm looking forward to how I sound at 50 hours of speaking, then 100. I can't wait until I actually feel like I can speak Spanish!