Thought I’d do an update on a recent trip to Spain, with about 370 hours of input logged (both DS and outside CI - as per updates in my post history).

Big caveat to note here: I visited friends who are English native speakers, and the groups of Spanish friends we had arranged to see didn’t materialise this time around. So interactions with native Spanish speakers almost exclusively interactions with service staff (at restaurants, bars, supermarkets, hotels etc).

• Preceding the trip

I focused on Castilian Spanish exclusively. For around 50 hours of input. Work was busy and I’ve been going hard on the gym / diet and fitness outside of this, so I didn’t go full throttle before the trip.

• During the trip

To start with the positives:

• I’d previously had effectively zero exposure to Spanish when visiting Spain. The effect of the input was noticeable to being more comfortable communicating fairly basic needs (shopping, questions related to menus, ordering etc). No free form conversations to test it but still, night and day from before.

• While the above is a reflection on how low my level was, I was also pleasantly surprised at how the input carried over to (very basic) reading, given I’ve not started that at all. Or picking up snippets of conversation around me.

• Remembering words came easier to me than some in the group with much better levels of Spanish. I also noticed when (basic) things sounded off - eg adding an “I” rather than conjugating for the I form, which made it sound like the speaker was emphasising the I part of it etc. I was also right on a few words that those whose Spanish I’d previously considered functional were getting confused.

The negatives

• Not helped by visiting a region of Spain with quite a distinctive accent, I sometimes found myself processing what was being said with enough of a lag that the person speaking had thrown in the English before I could respond.

• Words did come to mind to be able to produce the language, though sometimes they didn’t come at all when needed. Not exactly surprising, and my passive ability isn’t high enough to expect more than the most basic active ability; but it did make me want to focus more on speaking than solely input. Again, the big one for me is controversial: I really don’t feel as though I’m picking up grammar. I’m sure it goes in very slowly, but I think I’m going to adopt a Refold style a little bit of conscious study alongside input. Just because I don’t really feel I know what I’m missing or getting.

• Another controversial one - lots of input from different country’s dialects meant some of my word usage was a bit all over the place. More input is an easy answer to this, but I found I was using the Mexican word for a food that doesn’t exist in Spain, to blank looks. More input would mean I hear words in more country’s dialects but given it’s Spain I’ll be visiting and probably Spanish content I’ll mostly be watching, I’m not sure the “the dialect you choose doesn’t matter - watch everything” really holds.

In summary

Pleasing in some ways, disappointing in others.

I’d like to start reading earlier than advised and doing some explicit grammar study, because I feel like my overall picture of the language is too hazy. I’m not finding input compelling enough overall at the level I’m at to just watch and ignore this, so I’ll experiment and see if bootstrapping my understanding with some grammar study helps my comprehension of (to me) more interesting content.

If I have a strong bias towards European Spanish, I’m not sure the “watch any content” necessarily holds true, though I guess the exception is content I find compelling that’s not in Castilian? Again, another one where it feels less efficient for my understanding now to watch all dialects, but likely better for me in the long run - the problem being I’m not sure I’ll make it to that point with my current pace of progression.