Hola a todos! I started my Spanish journey in September 2024. My progress has been slow and somewhat inconsistent due to juggling work, kids, navigating a huge career transition for my husband that requires him to be away from home a lot, and recently giving birth to my third baby. I made it to 50 hours in November 2024, 100 hours in February 2025, 150 hours in August 2025, and now I am at 200 hours in May 2026.
The hours from 100-200 have felt like a grind - perhaps because of all my stops and starts and slow progress. I had many months where I got no input or very little input, especially towards the end of my pregnancy and right after my baby was born. However, the amazing thing about CI is that even if life gets busy and I don’t get a lot of hours in for a month or two, all that input seems to still stick in my brain without too much loss.
About 15-20 hours or so ago it started feeling like my comprehension was getting worse, but I think I just started becoming more aware of all the words I don’t know as opposed to thinking I understand because I am understanding the overall meaning of a video or podcast. I dropped back to much easier videos and rewatched a bunch of super beginner and beginner videos for a while. Right now, videos rated between 35-40 are ideal for me, although I’m still mixing in a lot of much easier content. Outside of DS, I’m listening to Chill Spanish (currently at Ep. 160) and I do a Pilates workout video (Move with Nicole en Español) most days. I count half the time as input from the Pilates videos as I still miss the meaning of some sentences and phrases. I have also started the supermercado series from Spanish Boost Gaming in the last 5 hours or so and I actually find it quite entertaining and engaging even though I do not play video games myself.
A huge win for me recently was being able to communicate with my old neighbor who I had previously not been able to communicate with at all as she speaks no English. We had a long conversation about her new house, my new house, her children, my children and how they are all doing in school, the health of her one son, her husband’s work and many other simple topics. My speaking was very disjointed with mostly short phrases and gestures. I am sure I sounded like a two year old but I was so happy to actually be able to communicate at all with her! I also saw another one of my old neighbors who speaks some broken English and it was funny to me that I couldn’t understand her English but when she would repeat what she said in Spanish I could understand it much easier!
My current goal is to make it to level 4 by the end of summer which should be doable for me as I am now at home with my infant so I have some time to listen to podcasts while baby is asleep and I get some mindless chores done. I also have a goal of getting my school aged kids to at least 30 hours of input, hopefully closer to 50 hours though, by the time they go back to school at the end of August. I have started working on a list of DS videos that are appropriate for their age in order from easiest and will also be using the PBS Salsa series as input too.
I am often lurking on this sub looking for new resources for my level and what to expect progress wise at different stages but I rarely post. Hopefully this is helpful to a few people here!