Learning Spanish — Part 13
Hello, again. As September recently ended, I wanted to do another monthly review of my progress.
Last month I started watching Pokemon: Liga Índigo starting from episode 1 in Spanish. As of today I am at episode 28, so over halfway through. September has been a challenging month just to get one hour’s worth in a day, but I made it.
Lately while watching DS (Dreaming Spanish) videos, instead of sorting them by “intermediate” I’ve been sorting them by “elo” at 55–65, sorted by “easy” (so I’m watching videos right at elo 55 still). At this elo I see a broad mix of videos from beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. Some videos at this elo are a bit too difficult, others are very easy.
For watching pokemon, there are times when I think “wow, yeah, this is too advanced for me for comprehensible input” and times when it’s maybe what I’d rate around 70% or more comprehension easily.
Last month I compared my comprehension against my blog post in September of 2025, and I don’t have another entry until December of that year, and I think at the end of this year I’ll do another review against the entry from 2025.
I feel like there are times when I can watch content on YouTube about a topic I’m familiar with, and I think “Wow, this is surprisingly easy — I may not understand everything or nuance, but I can follow the meaning well.”
When trying to have a basic written conversation with someone online about my hopes and goals in learning Spanish — as we stayed within certain topics it was very easy, but there would be certain things I’d want to say, or say a certain way that I thought to myself “I have no idea how I’d say that…” and have to get creative, or would likely sound forced/awkward if I didn’t at least use help from translation tools (which themselves can sound unnatural).
Comprehending Books & Reading
Dreaming Spanish says a lot about reading at this level…
I decided to set my phone back to Spanish and that’s what it’s set to as I type this. I also thought I would go through some of the Spanish books I’ve managed to collect and compare my comprehension today. The idea is that a year from now I hope / expect to be able to understand them fluently by that point, even if they aren’t accessible to me then, and it’s always fun/exciting to find content that I specifically knew wasn’t accessible, but became so. I hope I end up with a decent Spanish accent/pronunciation, but I’ve not really been a purist since I started with methods like Anki and Duolingo, etc.
La brújula dorada (Book 1)
Chapter one starts on page 11, titled “La licorera de tokay”, which means nothing to me. Maybe tokay is a place. I could guess what “licorera” might mean (looks like how the word “pescadora” works), but I don’t know. After reading the page, I can say my comprehension wavered in and out — not enough to feel that I understood well. It’s at least a bit too advanced. There’s a lot of words I don’t understand.
El Irresistible Encanto de tu Peor Enemigo
Starting with the “Glosario”, which I’m sure has a lot of fantasy words in it. I find it very interesting it has a few words it says are “of the ancient English…” and then has a word like “TACN” (with an accent over the “A”) or “Deofol”, neither of which mean anything to me. Perhaps it’s ancient English that exists only in-universe? I haven’t searched. :)
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Reading the “Nota Al Contenido” on page 11, I understand that it’s describing that the story is one where enemies make the journey from hate to love. It says that, basically, this book is not appropriate for all readers based on some of the content, for which it gives examples, and encourages reading responsibly. It references that later in the book there is a guide to pronunciation — I guess since there’s a lot of English used in the book? I also read page 17 (first page of chapter 1) and get the feeling this is too advanced for me as comprehensible input, but I would likely understand a lot of what I’m reading.
Los Juegos del Hambre: La balada de pájaros cantores y serpientes
Starting at the beginning of chapter I. I’ve recently watched the movies so I have that to help me understand the content. Even so, just reading half of the first page feels like a mini-reading-marathon — or at least a mini-reading-sprint. It’s definitely too advanced for me to enjoy.
Los Juegos Del Hambre
Reading the first paragraph of the first page feels no different than reading “La balada”.
Zapatillas Rojas
(Sorry for the lack of accents) The book starts with the chapter title “Justo lo que queria”, which I guess would mean “I want to be together” or perhaps something like “I want to do it together” or “I want it to be together”. Reading the first page, I understand that in this story, a young girl receives some shoes “violetas” that she loves for Christmas, I think from her grandmother. There’s words I don’t understand. I feel like it’s possible that the rest of the book could be easier or harder to understand, depending on the topics and vocabulary, but it feels like it could be on the advanced side for me.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon El Principe De La Niebla
I’ll start on page 7 “Una Nota Del Autor”. Just read this 1 page, and it is challenging to understand, and much that I do understand feels like a literal word-by-word understanding. It’s advanced for me.
El ladrón del rayo
Already in the “Contenido” there are words I haven’t acquired, or of certain conjugations of like “tejen”, “inesperadamente”, “torear”, “desvanece”, “estropeo”, “asesora”, “aboco”, “adiestramiento”, “saldo”. I’m confident it’s safe to wait to read this one again.
Piedra Filosofal
There’s words in the contenido of this book that I also don’t know. My comprehension of the first page is much easier than any random page especially due to my familiarity with the story, but most of the vocabulary and sentences do not feel difficult to comprehend — I read it entirely for review.
Moving Forward…
I may try a few other series or movies on Netflix, although I still intend to finish Pokemon Índigo. My Spanish input every day has been a mix of Pokemon (tracked), listening to Spanish music here and there (Spotify, FM Radio), and usually no less than 15 minutes of Dreaming Spanish and often much more.
Since Dreaming Spanish encourages users at level 6 to “Listen and read A LOT.”. Their estimation of the difference in words known jumps from 5,000 to 7,000 and the total hours logged from goes from 600 to 1,000. If I continue at ~30 hours a month, I should easily get there by around this time next year. So I should try this again around October — December of 2027.
I also think that over an entire month, watching just one series, it is easier to be more consistent just sticking with Dreaming Spanish content than it is mixing Dreaming Spanish with, say, Netflix or just watching a series by itself. At least for me, at this level. I am hoping that will get easier, or maybe I’ll find content that is closely aligned with my level that I can sit through.
Anyway, back to it… good luck, reader! :)
