Partly for others starting this journey, and partly for me to look back on in future - thought it would be worth me doing an update to mark hitting 50 hours (Level 2) in Dreaming Spanish.

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The stats:

• I completed the majority of the Superbeginner videos (both free and premium) - which took me to 22 hours of CI, with 185 videos
• At that point, I started on Beginner and have completed the last 28 hours of the 50 hours of CI solely in DS; primarily Beginner, with some Superbeginner (as new videos are added). My total videos watched now stands at 388 videos.

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Background:

• I started with zero Spanish. I've never studied the language, formally or otherwise.
• I'm a monolingual English speaker with limited experience (and even less success) in learning languages. I put around 350 hours into attempting to learn Arabic across 2021-22 (both MSA and Levantine), primarily through classroom-style study, and self-directed with more traditional resources. Spoiler alert: it wasn't all that successful. I took Latin up to GCSE and AS Level (spot the grammar school kid), German up to GCSE and - thanks to effectively having no choice in the UK - did some French up to the age of 13. While Latin has obviously carry-over benefits to Spanish, my skill was always in the comparative study of texts, not actual use of translating the language. So I'd argue it's of negligible benefit.

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Method:

• My focus is on Dreaming Spanish and the roadmap as Pablo's laid out. CI is my overwhelming focus. However, as I've noted elsewhere in this sub, I have also taken a more Refold-style approach in places, with a focus on some explicit vocab and grammar study.
• For completeness, alongside the 50 hours of CI in DS I've done:

1. Anki - using the Refold ES1K deck: 9h 15mins
2. Language Transfer: 2h 15mins

• I started both of the above once I started on Beginner videos (so at the 22 hour point)
• I attempted to copy YouTuber Days of French N Swedish (DFS) approach in his learning of Spanish (which he's recently started), of trying to brute force the ES1K deck. Whereas Lamont (DFS) managed to go through all 1,000 words in the course of one day (of about 10/11 hours), I managed about three and a half hours and couldn't take any more! I instead split 400 words across two days and was destroyed by the reviews. I've now run through about 700 words, taking on a slightly less Refold approach of "again" responses for cards I don't get once or twice and then passing them, so I'm not spending hours reviewing them.
• My focus is to speed up my comprehension for increasing comprehension of more interesting (i.e. Beginner and Intermediate) DS videos. I have the word in Spanish alongside a sample sentence as a clue, with the (native Mexican) speaker reading out the word. I then play the speaker reading out the sentence. Similar to Language Transfer, I'll try and make connections to words / ways to remember the words, but am using it more for extra exposure / reps, rather than trying to memorise every word.
• With Language Transfer, I've been using it more as a reference point for the grammar, and have enjoyed the anchoring / cognate explanation etc with English. I do try and think of phrases etc but I'm trying to avoid recalling them and developing too much of a voice in my head, aren't pausing it and am generally doing it without 100% concentration (while out walking/driving) etc.

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Focus:

• European Spanish is ultimately my greater focus, thanks to visiting once or twice a year and family out there.

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Comprehension:

• At this point, my comprehension of almost any Beginner video I'm going through is good - in terms of the gist. The specifics are also generally good, though it does depend on the speaker and wider context. For example, I find some of Pablo's livestreaming games videos (particularly Minecraft and the Sims videos) more challenging as a result of a lack of context outside of what's being said at points / unclear speech / talking about things unrelated to what's happening in the game itself, though I can still understand the general gist.
• I think Anki has helped my cement some words quicker, and to understand some words with less context / more quickly than relying on working out from context solely. Grammar, less so. I'll probably be doing a more dedicated skim of grammar (c. 15 minutes a day), as suggested by Refold, going forwards; rather than Language Transfer when I've got free time walking etc.
• I was really pleased that I’ve just managed to understand the gist of all of thisEspañol con Juan video, which had very little in the way of context, and was spoken at a much faster pace. There were points I understood completely, and a few thirty second segments where I was just about getting the gist; but really motivating considering this would have been gibberish 50h ago!

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Things I've not done so well:

• Attempting to copy Lamont's Anki experiment. But the extra exposure to frequent vocab has been useful
• I started out thinking I needed to focus on European Spanish specifically, without realising the Latin American content was absolutely necessary for hours of exposure (and that it was too early to care about regional focus). As a result, I avoided a few speakers ("guides") for a long time, to the point that by the time I got to Sofia's videos, I found them especially boring and couldn't finish them at Superbeginner.

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Things (I think) I've done well:

• Trying out different videos I'm interested in, but dropping them until later if I feel my comprehension isn't high enough. I've aimed for actually understanding the gist, rather than "Pablo's playing a video game... he's said 'I like it'" kind of comprehension
• Enjoyed certain series! Particularly the very early videos of Pablo playing Minecraft, despite having never played it, Michelle's series on the Mayans, Alma on Spanish drug cartels, and Andrea and Calcetina.

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Questions going forwards:

• I've asked elsewhere, but how intuitively has grammar come to you without explicit study? I'm on board with acquiring rather than consciously studying it, but have found without some conscious use of Language Transfer I'd be unaware of a number of irregular verbs and conjugations etc. Though I suppose the more context there is, the more I can slowly infer it.
• The roadmap (infographic) indicates Beginner should run from 50h to 150h (Level 3). It doesn't look like there's (anywhere near) 100h of content at Beginner left for me, and I'm already finding a lot of the videos are becoming more dull. When I start to run out of Beginner content / run low on content that genuinely interests me, should I be rewatching? Assuming others have also run out of content, what else did you do to bridge the gap between Beginner and Intermediate and hit those hours?

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I'll write another when I make it to Level 3!