Learning Spanish Through Comprehensible Input
The last time I was in Mexico City, our Airbnb host (a cool guy who built an art museum in his apartment) told me to not come back until I watched El Topo and learned Spanish. So far, I've only done the former1, but this year I've been trying really hard to do the latter.
I've been trying to learn Spanish off-and-on my whole life. When you're American, it just makes sense. It's the second most popular spoken language here, and I have several friends who speak it. But I have a pesky issue with perfectionism. I feel embarrassed if I speak the language and sound stupid, and that sort of holds me back.
Outside of traveling, I also don't have much motivation to learn the language in my day-to-day life. I don't really listen to much Spanish-language music (with the exception of Bomba Estereo or RosalÃa), and I don't watch much Spanish-language movies or shows either. I'm not immersed in it, and besides the few classes I've taken in school, I haven't really tried to study it consistently.
However, this year I decided to stop making excuses and make a real effort this time. In January I made a pretty lofty resolution to be able to get to at least a B1 level of Spanish by the end of the year. I went to work and started researching websites or learning methods I could try out (besides Duolingo) and that was how I discovered Dreaming Spanish.
The site uses "comprehensible input" as their teaching method. According to them, comprehensible input lets you learn a second language the same way you learned your native one by simply immersing yourself in the language and listening to how it naturally sounds. They say focusing on memorization and grammar is boring and slow, and their method is, well, also slow but not nearly as boring. With comprehensible input you don't need to study or read textbooks — all you have to do is watch videos.
According to their chart, they claim you can become proficient in a language if you have 1,600+ hours of comprehension. Now, comprehension includes mostly listening to things in that language, but it also includes reading. If you can do 1,600 of Spanish videos, you'll be able to speak it like a native, according to them.
Well, I decided to give it a try and have been using it since January. My #1 issue with Spanish is that I can't understand anyone. It's just too fast. And don't even get me started on Dominican or Costa Rican Spanish. Although I can speak at an A1-A2 level, sometimes I even struggle with that because I don't understand what's being spoken to me.
However, I've been using DS since January, watching 60-90 minutes of videos a day. Although I'm only Level 2, I'm starting to cautiously watch intermediate videos and understanding about a good 70% of it. My past knowledge of Spanish has probably helped expedite things a bit, but I attribute the majority of my listening comprehension to DS.
However, I'm no purist. I break numerous CI "rules," like turning the Spanish subtitles on and translating words I don't know. The CI method recommends learning languages through input only, meaning only through listening or reading. They don't believe in studying grammar, memorizing conjugation tables, or vocabulary flash cards. In fact, if you research CI or Dreaming Spanish, you'll run into a lot of people who are a bit militant about it. They worship DS and believe it's the only way to learn another language. In fact, there's even some people who believe it's a cult.
I admit the DS fanatics can be a little annoying, in the same way a born-again Christian or a newbie vegan can be. But as someone who has been learning Spanish off-and-on for years using conventional methods (classroom/textbooks, apps, etc.), I've gotten the most advancement from this method.
And DS isn't the only place teaching comprehensible input. There are also channels like Spanish Boost Gaming (if you like video games) and various podcasts in slow Spanish, like Chill Spanish Podcast.
My goal is to get to a proficient level in about two years. After that, I want to learn either French or Portuguese. Before discovering CI, I didn't think being multilingual (especially at my age) was achievable, but it feels attainable with this method, which is pretty exciting.
What a wild ride. My husband and I had no idea where it was going, but ultimately, we did enjoy it.↩