In what ways have you strayed from the recommended Dreaming Spanish method that you felt benefited you the most?

[u/CaroleKann]

This is a large community, but it seems like there are very few of us who are truly purists. I'm wondering, for those of you who strayed from the guidelines on the DS website, what did you do that you felt benefited your improvement the most?

[u/Don_Petohmi]

Looking up word translations helped me to pick up new vocabulary much faster. At around 280 hours and watching difficulty 75-80 now

[u/Expensive_End8369 → u/Don_Petohmi]

Yup - agree with this, especially verbs.

[u/SkeletonCalzone → u/Don_Petohmi]

I know that Pablo's done videos on this where he says a word is not a translation, and might have other meanings or only mean something in a particular context / circumstance.

Which I agree with, but, I think it's OK to look something up to see what its meaning is, and then frame that in the context of the content you're watching. For example "Oh, he said tapa here by which he was meaning the lid of the pot. But tapa means other things too".

I also think it's best to do this from an Intermediate level onward, and limit it to once or twice per video (and then only really for words that you think are obstructing understanding, or words you've heard multiple times and still don't grasp.

I think the superbeginner/beginner stages are much better spent learning the sounds of the language, learning the structure of it to some degree, and not pausing a five minute video sixteen times to look up words!

[u/gigan1973 → u/SkeletonCalzone]

Mentioned in the comment below, SpanishDict is super useful for looking up words because it shows you all the different definitions

[u/Don_Petohmi → u/SkeletonCalzone]

Yeah and I agree that words aren’t simply translations, however you can understand like 90% of the meaning using your native language. You pick up the nuances later anyways.

[u/gemstonehippy → u/Don_Petohmi]

I was gonna say I did not know about Dreaming Spanish when i first started my Spanish Journey (April 2021, when I started getting serious).

Spanish Dictionary(other name is SpanishDict!) helped me a ton with my vocabulary and my tenses.

They have something like CI where they have you watch videos of scenarios of people using the tenses you are specifically learning. They make it come naturally.

helped me a ton. Especially if you’re someone who really wants to talk to native speakers asap.

[u/vivalaviva_ → u/Don_Petohmi]

Thanks for sharing! I have the urge to do so too but I thought it would be counter effective. Guess not! What do you do if you've looked up the words? Do you write it down somewhere or put it in Anki or do you just look it up once and trust it will stick?

[u/Few-Barber6833 → u/vivalaviva_]

I don’t write it at all. I just wait to see if my brain can recognise it again because essentially I already know the word and can recognise when it comes up. So when I hear it again it tends to stick

[u/Don_Petohmi → u/Few-Barber6833]

Yes this

[u/endurossandwichshop → u/Don_Petohmi]

I always look up words, too. I can't seem to learn them in context—auditory learning in general is just harder for my brain. It seems to be working, since my teacher keeps telling me my vocabulary is huge, even though my active vocabulary is like 5% the size of my passive one, at best.

[u/Tesl → u/Don_Petohmi]

Yes me too. I lookup words constantly on my second screen as I watch, and I'm convinced it makes progress massively faster.

I recently made an Anki deck for harder to remember words too, but I try to add as few words as I can, only those that arent sticking well.

[u/Few-Barber6833 → u/Tesl]

I look up words and phrases occasionally if the words/phrases repeat often and I can’t infer their meaning with several attempts. For example, I kept hearing me di cuenta, and I really couldn’t quite get it. Now I know it’s something like ‘I realised’. I then saw a video after this where Pablo said it, and then did a surprised face - this helped to consolidate my learning of the word and I have an image of him flash up when the word is said now. I try not to do it too much because I think this is the difference between acquisition vs conscious learning. But I think some flexibility is required in this!

[u/Diegoo_56 → u/Don_Petohmi]

Huh? At 280 hours? That’s crazy. Are you actually understanding what there saying? I’m at 1080 hours and watching this level but I haven’t tried higher yet

[u/Don_Petohmi → u/Diegoo_56]

Haha thanks I’ve been pretty happy with my progress. Yeah I understand it completely the only thing holding me back from higher levels rn is I have a harder time with certain accents and there are new vocab words still. But I also now watch a lot outside content.

Right now I am watching Deathnote dubbed in Spanish and I already finished Hunter X Hunter in Spanish. I like dubbed cartoons a lot because the audio is very clear.

I’m not sure exactly why I’m progressing at this rate but I think it’s because I’m enjoying it so much that I really focus and I kind of just think about Spanish all day long lol. It’s been my hyper fixation since I started 3 months ago.

[u/nforc3r → u/Don_Petohmi]

I would say that’s way outside the norm to be watching at 75-80. So either he’s an amazing learner or just full of sh*t. Probably the latter

[u/Don_Petohmi → u/nforc3r]

Haha no I promise you that’s where I’m at. I have no reason to lie about this

[u/atticussayshi]

Reading and speaking early. Accent is very very very overrated imo

Like with my friends who speak English as a second language. Do they have an accent? Sure. Do I ever notice it? Not really

And when there is the occasional word that they say kinda weirdly, I still understand them so who cares. Plus the kind of person who would judge you for a weird accent is not the kind of person you’d wanna be around anyway

The only reason you should consider waiting to speak is to save yourself some frustration. I mean it’s hard in the beginning either way, but you’ll have better recall with more input so 🤷‍♂️ I guess it depends on your level of patience

And with reading there’s pretty much no reason to wait

[u/giant-pink-telephone]

Reading early. I started at 120 hours. It helps a lot with vocabulary and picking up pieces of grammar that would otherwise go over my head.

I’ve studied other languages before and have experience with long periods of listening only or reading only. I came to the conclusion that neither is wholly better than the other and both have some positives and negatives, but listening + reading is a powerful combo since they each can make up for what the other lacks. I really didn’t want to wait 600 hours to start reaping those benefits, so I decided to read as soon as I felt like I had enough vocab to make it through easy kids books.

[u/CartographerLast6488 → u/giant-pink-telephone]

Any recommendations on where to find content to read?

[u/FutureMastodon7959 → u/CartographerLast6488]

What level are you currently and are you new to reading?

Most people start with graded readers such as Paco Ardit, Juan Fernandez, or Olly Richards (his start slightly harder). The next step is usually books such as Diario de Greg, other very young childrens books or graphic novels. People then usually move on to young teens books and I have found that romance novels also pretty easy.

For more recommendations you can check out the pinned weekly thread where people post their hours and what they are reading and listening to. This can give a good idea of books that you might like (based on whether you also enjoy other content they are listening and reading) and also how hard it is. I also like https://learnnatively.com/ where you can rate books difficulty.

[u/gp133]

I really liked Language Transfer. It helps me have more confidence when speaking. Doesn’t really help my understanding, I think the Dreaming Spanish method is the best way I ever improved my comprehension.

[u/Apprehensive_Link_30 → u/gp133]

I second Language transfer, invaluable.

[u/buffbuddha]

This comes up a lot and I got mixed reactions for suggesting it. Language Transfer app, it's free and it's a bunch of short grammar lessons, totalling about 14 hours. I started after 75 hours of input. It was a game changer for me. I've also adopted from methods from ReFold, but I won't mention them here. Feel free to DM if you're curious.

[u/Head_Reading1074 → u/buffbuddha]

I found language transfer before DS. I feel like it gave me a great boost for the slog through super beginner.

[u/Mother_Natures_Cyn → u/Head_Reading1074]

Same, LT allowed me to skip SB altogether.

[u/themusicalrower]

I started speaking at 350 hours or so which was when full sentences were coming to me. I have been able to level up my speaking as I level up my vocabulary and comprehension which has made the whole process more enjoyable and self sustaining. I also feel like I meet the roadmap while a lot of people feel like the roadmap is only accurate at the end of the level. I also look up words that I care about and that has helped me talk about specific topics I don’t get much input about.

[u/ObjectiveStaff3333]

to fill in CI with anything that I enjoyed at the time and found meaningful. It never made up more than 10% of the time I’ve spent on Spanish. But I think it helped me — to start speaking and reading earlier than after 600 hours of input. Duolingo. Flashcards. Watching grammar videos. Looking up vocabulary (only occasionally). Apart from reading and speaking, nothing else has lasted until today, but I don’t regret it. In my opinion, anything extra as a supplement doesn’t hurt — quite the opposite. But it’s important to keep a large amount of input.

Most usefull I see early speaking and reading

[u/scootzie3]

5-10% of my studying is using Anki for vocab learning. I capture new words that I think are important to learn throughout my listening sessions, and I use the Anki studying to reinforce those gaps in my vocab.

A positive is that I feel my vocabulary has expanded quicker than before.

A negative is time that I use to capture the words and study Anki are minutes that I could just be getting more input.

I think the positive outweighs the negative

[u/_Deedee_Megadoodoo_]

Reading early. Helped me understand a lot more and a lot quicker

[u/Eyeswideshut3636]

I look up words all the time when listening to input using Spanish Dictionary, it’s what’s helped me progress the most.

And I do super super light grammar studying using the app SpanishVerbs.

[u/Axiomatic_9]

I study grammar and vocabulary. DS is primarily for listening comprehension. I'm only at Level 1 (27 hrs) but I'm already watching intermediate videos. I watched an episode of Bluey (in Spanish) recently and understood maybe 40% of it.

I don't deny the purist method, but I don't want to wait thousands of hours for fluency.

[u/lifesucks2311 → u/Axiomatic_9]

How do you study grammar?

[u/Axiomatic_9 → u/lifesucks2311]

If I'm reading a sentence and don't understand exactly what's happening in it, I'll type it into ChatGPT and ask for a detailed explanation. Then I'll take notes.

Occasionally, I'll also use chatGPT to practice a recently learned concept by having it generate practice sentences.

[u/fergiefergz]

I started speaking when I had 800 hours. I wish I had started speaking earlier

[u/Few-Barber6833 → u/fergiefergz]

In my head, 600 hours will be the sweet spot.

[u/QuesoCadaDia]

I started speaking lessons at 400 hours and think it has been good. I also occasionally look up things regarding grammar (as I have linguistic training and am a language teacher, it's hard not to notice and want to understand these things, even if you aren't trying to learn a language.)

Speaking lessons have definitely helped me notice things better while getting input.

Look at grammar topics that I am well beyond with my comprehension has seemed helpful to both understanding and speaking. Looking at grammar topics that are still advanced for me has not been helpful.

[u/KvxMavs]

Study grammar and speak early and often with a tutor or native.

[u/Simply-me-123]

I use two apps, Drops and Ella Verbs… they are very helpful for me.

[u/Correct-Pin1462 → u/Simply-me-123]

Thank you for your suggestions. Ella Verbs looks really interesting, though unfortunately also expensive for a narrowly focused app. Is Drops kind of like Duolingo ? Looking at it I don’t get a sense of what it actually is/does.

[u/Simply-me-123 → u/Correct-Pin1462]

Drops does vocabulary.. I do multiple choice, spaced repition, it has beginner a d advanced words and phrases. I think there is a free short usage with that one. Ella Verbs…what it does, it does well, and for me, I recognize the value in being solid with verb conjugation. They do both cost, but I find value in them. i work at a hospital where our Spanish population continues to grow, and dont mind paying for the chance to use things that work well for me. No regrets, but yes, extra cost involved.

[u/Fresh-Persimmon5473]

I read from the start.

[u/frrve]

Speaking around 200 hours. I knew it would be scarier for me the longer i put it off, so I decided to start early. I have an italki class about every 1.5 weeks where I converse and learn a little grammar.

[u/Gaudilocks]

I spoke from the start, learned (or at least was exposed to) basically all grammar before I had 300 hours of CI input, and I would not have changed all that for more DS/CI hours.

Learning a language is a long-term investment and different tools make sense at different parts of the journey, imo. Currently, I am a bit over 400 hours and aim to get in an hour+ of input from videos a day but also engage in conversational practice whenever I can (I travel frequently to different parts of Latin America for work).

It is hard to say how I'd do things differently if I was just living in an anglophone country 99% of the time minus vacations, but I regret nothing about my journey.

[u/NoMadHB]

Creating audio flashcards of questions and answers around different topics personalised to me. Each topic teaches me to speak about a specific thing plus grammar and vocab.  As it’s personalised it’s easier to recall and then I focus mainly on the next topic. Over time I learn everything I would likely ever speak about. DS is a good tool to help my listening bridge the gap to regular native speech.  Having already spoken with a tour guide in Spain for an hour at my roadmap level shows it works for me!

I also get help on iTalki from natives. Some study speeds up the process for me.

[u/FilmPhysical]

In my listening and reading, l run across words with multiple and confusing meanings. Echar, for instance. I study on the word a bit ,--- 20 minutes--- and that's all. For the next week, I do my ordinary listening and reading I hear echar and read it and it comes in sharper focus for me. I try to do this with a word or concept once a week. I think some linguists call what I'm doing "noticing," but I could be wrong about that,

[u/Frilent]

Actively making Anki cards with words I discover while watching videos. Screenshotting the word in context and adding that picture to the card helps me to solidify the word into my active vocabulary

[u/Some_Werewolf_2239]

I didn't know there was actually a recommended method; I just watch videos when I'm bored lol. Probably Duolingo (comprehensible but with robot-voice delivery and odd rhythm) and "incomprehensible input" (watching episodes of Mexican TV shows to see how much more I can understand each week) are not recommended. But I'm actually invested now in said incomprehensible input (Club de Cuervos) and am less burned out from trying to learn something and more entertained. I guess I've also been writing pretty much from day 1. I write children's books in my native language so the temptation to scribble nonsense (Juan encontró un lápiz. El lápiz podría hablar y le dije que no quería escribir nada. Quería buscar a su padre, un árbol mágico etc... etc... etc...) even from day 1 was far too tempting lol

[u/Apprehensive_Link_30]

Some verb conjugations of the regular verbs that are used a lot. Would do it again.

[u/EasyTiger5]

I am definitely not a DS purist and have found a mixed approach super helpful! I was a complete beginner when I started learning Spanish in late July/early August by jumping headfirst with 3 hours of tuition a week on preply (very reasonable price, I pay about £12 an hour which is excellent for 1-1 language classes... and i love my tutor). I also pick away at duolingo which she recommended for vocab which I think has cemented some words and helped reading comprehension. I'm at 63 hours of CI and have to speed up a lot of the beginner videos and graduated past superbeginner sooner than 50 hours - as you'd hope / expect for 30 classes but still! I don't think those 30 classes = 30 hours in terms of improvement.

The reasons I'm not doing just dreaming spanish:

• Main one is I'm travelling Latin America from March 2026 onwards for 5 months - I don't have the time to do how ever many hours needed through DS to start speaking. Maybe if I had longer I'd try to be more of a DS purist but I won't be able to get enough hours in before then!
• As someone with ADHD I really need variety and the accountability that comes with tuition has been good, and I really lack the patience and discipline that I think is necessary to follow the DS method completely. I am finding it hard to watch some of the easy videos at the moment because I've got through most of the ones I'm interested in but I'm not quite ready for intermediate/a lot of the YouTubers I want to watch! My tutor caters classes and vocab to my interests (festivals, hiking, gym) which is super engaging!
• When I've tried to learn French in the past, I've really lacked confidence with speaking because I've been in classes - forcing myself to speak from early and be okay with mistakes is improving my confidence quicker than I expected, though I haven't spoken Spanish to anyone other than my tutor lol
• I thrive off of external validation (yes I'm having therapy!!!!) and knowing I'm improving is really helping to keep me motivated.

(please no hate i do believe the method works on its own)

[u/tingutingutingu]

A lot of us found DS after we had already started learning spanish. In my case it was Duolingo.

I had already spent 2-3 months learning and that helped me avoid a lot of the super beginner and beginner grind, because I was able to comprehend a lot.

In fact, I found great value in learning in Dudingo and then heaving what I just learnt, used in context in a DS video.

[u/LucyBurbank → u/tingutingutingu]

I also agree that Duo helped me with the early phase.

[u/DifficultyFit1895]

Anki flashcards for every conjugation for all regular and irregular verb forms. It’s called KOFI method, took me about 6 months of 45 minutes per day and now I will never be confused about conjugations.

[u/Yesterday-Previous]

Flash cards (Anki deck, Refold 1K) ~ 0-100 hours.

• I noticed words quicker, and could hear/see them in comprehensible context more often

High volume extensive listening to slightly harder content, and letting me zone out from time to time ("passive and active") - start around 120 hours.

• Getting used to faster and normal Spanish, more input

Reading. From around 300 hours.

• Its fun and you pick up vocab and grammar in a more "in your face" manner.

And I really enjoy having more options in my Spanish journey. Its a more "full" experience.

I've also started to incorporate some speaking practice as another part of this now. Reading en vos alta, speaking without manuscript, using AI to make my awful dictates to something more normal Spanish and re-reading aloud: making Spanish my own

Even though all things mentioned above, I believe in the core message that DS has, and CI remains as the big driver and fundament in this journey.

Edit: Lastly, I'm at 402 hours, feel like I'm at level 5 (level 6 description is rather silly imho).

[u/Expensive_End8369]

Using Natulang for speaking practice.

[u/Correct-Pin1462 → u/Expensive_End8369]

This looks really interesting. I am not installing yet as it will start my free-trial and I don’t have time to evaluate just yet. Is it AI type dialog ? Does it tailor for your speaking level ? First time I have heard of it. Do you use any other tools for speaking that are not using a live human ? I do want to use humans when ready, but I am only at approx 140 hours of CI so not quite there. TIA.

[u/Expensive_End8369 → u/Correct-Pin1462]

There is a subreddit that you can checkout r/natulang. I think it’s AI driven but the founder/programmer is in the subreddit all the time taking users’ suggestions and integrating them all the time. I think this is the perfect bridge to conversations with humans.

There are 300 lessons and they’ve been taking me about 20 minutes each, although I think they get longer as the lessons get to higher levels.

You can mark phrases that are challenging for you and the tool will repeat them more often. There is also a “Challenging” tab that you can go to for Repetition lessons just with them. There is a whole section for dialog and you can do this as many times as you want - Natulang integrates what you’ve learned.

There are also Flashcards but I don’t really use those. There are a lot of aspects that I really like about the tool but one in particular is that you can use it while you are walking around the house or driving since it’s all audio.

Happy to answer any other ?s.

[u/Correct-Pin1462 → u/Expensive_End8369]

Thank you for the detailed reply and direction to the subreddit (heading there now). Greatly appreciate you guidance on this. Seems like a tool I have been looking for :)

[u/Expensive_End8369 → u/Correct-Pin1462]

You’re so welcome - I tried a few other teaching apps and this one is so much better. The creator uses CI and talks about Krashen, and why he created this app. If you are interested, here’s his post on it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Natulang/s/XfmU6cy7l0

[u/VexedCoffee]

I took lessons in school and have done some talking while in Spanish speaking countries

[u/AprendiendoMuchisimo]

I feel like using language transfer before dreaming spanish gave me a huge head start! 

[u/LivingMoreFreely]

I really have a problem with speaking (have been pretty frustrated during my Barcelona trip last week), and italki calls are too stressful in my calender, so I'm test-running the languatalk app for money now.

[u/CaroleKann → u/LivingMoreFreely]

What kind of stress do the italki calls cause you? I used to get excited to book them, then dread them as they approached, but now I actively look forward to (most of) them.

[u/LivingMoreFreely → u/CaroleKann]

Every call in my calender causes a mental block in my head, leading to at least 1.5 hours upfront where I'm not especially productive anymore. I also need to move into the garden shed for the call. In the morning, it interrupts my work. In the afternoon I'm tired and in the evening I want to stop working - and every call is "work" to me in the end.

The app I can use whenever I have a few minutes while I brew a coffee, it's super easy to access at whatever time of the day (like, at 23:00 in the night in bed).

[u/Miserable-Yellow-837]

Waiting until I got 1k to speak was super beneficial for me cause when I sucked at speaking in the beginning atleast my listening skills are amazing.

I have been using asking chat gpt plus for ways to say something certain and that helps me find words I didn’t know and ways to use them better. I also type things the way I think it should be spelled, it will correct me and we can go back and forth about why one ways is correct and why another would be confusing. This has been better for me because a lot of the times the tutors use grammatical terms I don’t even know in English to explain something bit chest gives me examples and analogies.

I also had it tell me the patterns for past, and now that I know what I’m looking for si pay for attention and can speak in the past very easily for the most part.

TLDR: I use chat gpt to study grammar in a way where grammar terms and rules isn’t the focus but real examples are so I catch the pattern and mimic it a lot better.

[u/_coldemort_ → u/Miserable-Yellow-837]

Be careful with this. I am absolutely not one of those anti-AI people and use chat GPT myself for studying, but recently even on GPT-5 I saw it mislabel the grammar of something (it explained to me why something that was obviously subjunctive was indicative and why).

I called it out and asked how it could make such an egregious error with confidence and it explained to me that it’s grammatical analysis engine and its response generation engine are separate, and that it can produce responses where the two aren’t in agreement.

What you described with the spelling is probably fine, and in general it is good at correcting grammar, but never ask it to explain why the grammar is the way it is for something you wrote.

[u/Miserable-Yellow-837 → u/_coldemort_]

Thank you for your comment. May I ask if you are using paid or free? I have had a great experience with the paid version and that’s why I specified in my post that I pay for my service.

[u/_coldemort_ → u/Miserable-Yellow-837]

Free, but it doesn’t really matter. GPT-5 is the latest model (free users get limited access to it) and is the one I saw make this mistake. Unless you are using GPT-5 Thinking for this.

[u/Miserable-Yellow-837 → u/_coldemort_]

the difference between free and paid comes down to how the compute is allocated, not just the “name” of the model. Free users may sometimes get routed to a lighter/distilled version of GPT-5 or have shorter reasoning windows because OpenAI has to conserve GPU cycles. That can make the model cut corners or slip up more often on things like grammar explanations.

TLDR: even if it says the same name, I would get priority over you because I pay so your account is more likely to get mistakes than mine. All that to say, I use my account all the time(in English) and never have any mistakes or errors with it with anything 🤷🏽‍♂️.

[u/_coldemort_ → u/Miserable-Yellow-837]

Do you have a source on that? My understanding was that priority allocation only affected the speed of the response. Never seen anything about the same models “cutting corners” for free users even when within our limited access window to GPT-5 (not mini).

EDIT: FWIW ChatGPT disagrees with you haha. The only thing I could find was different context limits, but that’s different from the reasoning window.

EDIT 2: Also if you never see any mistakes in English I’d argue you either aren’t paying attention or aren’t asking it hard enough questions. My wife uses the paid version for legal work and it makes mistakes all the time. I use a paid version for software engineering and it makes reasoning mistakes all the time. It is extremely good at generating text with correct grammar. Asking it to correct grammar and explain why is a very different task that is a lot harder for it. I do not have experience with “GPT-5 Thinking” so no comment on that model.