Whilst I arrived at the 300h mark a few days back, it's taken until now to write this update.

First off, and to start with a positive, I exceeded my 3 hours a day goal consistently in July. However, I did find myself putting on content and finding my attention span was wandering.

As I detailed in this post, I have already outlined the first 50h of level 3. TL;DR - focused on the classic of filtering intermediate by "old", and working through a lot of Pablo in the park and travelling beyond that.

Stats

Overall * DreamingSpanish: 90h (total: 190h) * Outside CI: 60h (total: 110h) * Within outside CI, crosstalk: 5h * Anki: 10 minutes (ha)

Breakdown - broad thoughts this time, with some specifics on podcasts

Despite saying I planned to focus more on Anki... that didn't happen. Not for any particular, conscious, reason - I just found I didn't feel any particular draw. I may actually focus on it more for 300 - 450h.

As you can see, outside CI was a much greater proportion of my recorded time. Specifically, podcasts. In part, this was as a nice break from having to spend the daily hours focus solely on DS; but it was also as I've been more focused on getting back into fitness and the gym, and travelling with work. Some of these podcasts were sub-optimal for levels of comprehension. I've particularly enjoyed Spanish Language Coach's Spanish for False Beginners and Intermediate Spanish. I like the banter between him and his partner in the former, and it's obviously more comprehensible.

Shout out also to Un Dia En Espanol (Monolingual). I've listened to it and Spanish for False Beginners through a few times and found both very comprehensible and quite enjoyable, though Un Dia is a lot simpler.

I've tested out "easier" native YT content such as Coreano Vlogs and found it a lot more comprehensible, but still find my comprehension low enough that I have to really consciously concentrate vs DS intermediate videos, and it's hard to get more than perhaps half an hour at a time in. Nice to be able to experience some content for natives though, albeit it's a small proportion of my time as it's less comprehensible still.

I've also taken my Destinos watching up to episode 33. I still maintain it's the best Spanish-for-leaners content I've seen (at least compared to Extra and Buena Gente), if only for production values. That said, the story is slow and the repetition can feel tedious more than useful.

CrossTalk

I have enjoyed doing crosstalk, primarily arranged through Tandem and one consistent Italki tutor (recommended here). I've got on well with a couple of people in particular, and had a good few conversations with them.

The issue I'm often running into with established conversation partners is that their level of English is way above my level of Spanish. They're usually experienced at outputting and looking to refine how comfortable they are, while I'm obviously still not outputting at all. Even though they embrace the idea of crosstalk, it invariably leads to suggesting I start outputting, "say X, say Y" etc which can be a bit awkward.

The conversation partner I was using with much lower English speaking skill was ideal, but between a large time difference and busy schedules, it's been harder to coordinate.

Going forwards, I may again dip into the admin of Tandem to find new speaking partners and will continue with these; with more regular Italki slots vs the odd couple every few weeks.

I don't find it quite as efficient as envisioned though. While I'm concentrating more and time goes quicker, given we're both learning each other's native language I invariably spend a bit of time letting them speak English - so it isn't the full time counting as input. Fine in itself, but that can make it feel a lot less efficient than consuming DS content.

Thoughts

• Intermediate content in DS has opened up a lot more. Recently, I've freely watched with good comprehension content from speakers such as Andrea who are rated as harder within intermediate. There are still some videos with groups of speakers where my comprehension is lower, or e.g. Montse and Ricardo playing games - I've watched and enjoyed the content, but accepting my comprehension was gist given the speed of speech / talking over each other etc.

• It's also great to be able to reach into and use podcasts, and that in itself is motivating to be able to start exploring topics I'm interested in anyway via podcasts and YouTube to hopefully build domain-specific vocab and be able to integrate Spanish into some of my hobbies. That said, an uphill battle still for that.

• 300h feels like a strange milestone. 600h feels a long way off, and while I can see the progress I've made since 150h, it feels very slow. There are definitely bad days. Overall, I'm not sure I can continue running headlong at the language for 3 hour days, as I'm zoning out more and making my time less efficient to try and hit hours; and even though the extra input is useful, I think it'll make it feel more of a slog than it needs to be. Podcasts will probably remain a 50/50 split with DS content as they're great for filling otherwise dead time, or to mix up having to be tethered to watching videos.

• I feel somewhat "meh" about my progress, but I think that's because I'm probably at the first stage where the "marathon, not a sprint" really sinks in. There's no way I'm hitting another 300h of input inside of three months, and I'm less motivated to do 3 sets of 100 hour months to reach it, so we're probably talking November time to hit it. Hopefully the trough will end and I'll hit another motivation peak, and will do an update - more for myself than anything at "level 4.5" (450h).