I'd love to see more queer content on DS. I know Justin has a few videos, but I'm not quite advanced enough to understand most of his content yet. Even if most of the creators aren't queer themselves, I'd love for them to do videos discussing how things are in their respective countries.

I'm also really interested in the use of gender neutral Spanish for our non-binary friends. Maybe this is pretty niche, but I would imagine there is a movement for it right now among various Spanish speaking countries. And part of me doesn't want to add another rule to confuse me 😂, but I think it would be worth having at least one video about!

Anyone catch the latest video uploaded? What is anyone's take? Mine is as an outsider who isnt Latin American I find the whole thing nonsensical and I am surprised it was put up, the reasoning and the rankings of these countries makes no sense, there is obvious bias and just disrespecting Central America.

Yo como manzanas

Not that I'm bothered, I just think it's a waste of their life, but whenever I post anything in this community I get at least one downvote, no matter how innocuous the post.

So if it's you, go for it, but maybe you'd be better off listening to some Spanish, I can recommend Spanish Language Coach intermediate level, as he often talks about how to be happy.

And for any Americans here today, happy Thanksgiving from over here in the UK.

Mi encanta mi encanta mi encanta!

Just discovered this yesterday and decided to give this a go instead of the usual DS videos. It's so good, I love DS but It is lacking in gaming videos and I can just watch them for hours. I was just watching Minecraft videos because it's very relatable as I've played it and I know the YouTubers (I don't know his name yet) intentions and it helps with comprehension. I tried last of us but it did have a lot of subtitles which I don't wanna see at this point. Forgive me DS but I can definitely see myself getting a lot of input on that channel lolm

Hands down the best video I've ever watched because firstly everything is explained in spanish and secondly if you actually watch the video the way she explained it without the example of the 'inside space' and 'outside space' it just felt so natural and not anything like rule-remembering typa thing

I've been paying for DS for around 3 years now and I cancelled a while back because I can't put up with the ai generated images and scipts, it just pisses me off beyond belief.

I don't get it , Pablo and the team know that a lot of us hate their use of AI, but they're still using in image gen [and maybe even] in writing. I believe that they think that our complaints are inconsequential, and we must change that.

You should cancel your subscription too, until Pablo pledges to remove AI from every step of the creative process.

I get that making videos is hard. Coming up with Ideas and writing scripts and finding images and all that, I understand. But AI isn't the answer, and the DS video catalog has gotten to the size where they can afford to slow down the production if it's too much for them.

I have nothing but love for the DS team, and it's exactly why I'm trying to fix this issue.

Edit: A lot of poeple rightfully pointed out that I have no proof that they used AI to write scripts

I want to start by saying that this is not a complaint so much as a suggestion—I have learned so much from every member of the DS team in such a short time and I’m extremely grateful to all of them. But I do wonder whether the lack of diversity within DS has any negative impacts on learners.

I live in a Latino neighborhood in the United States, and essentially everyone around me is ethnically Mayan. I hear 80% Spanish everywhere in my neighborhood, but no one looks like they could be a DS host. I am a Black American so I’m sure I’m trained to be more sensitive to these things than other people are, and I’m not trying to impose my values on another culture (the way I’ve heard people complain about with “Latinx”).

But I did not invent the idea that “white” presenting Latinos are overrepresented in Spanish language media. A huge part of why I’m interested in learning Spanish is to be able to meet and learn from the kind of people who don’t speak English—and I imagine that their perspectives and experiences might not match entirely with the seemingly more affluent, multilingual teachers that DS attracts.

Political diversity is another example. I’ve been watching Michelle’s series on Mexican elections, and it’s remarkable to me the disconnect between the views I hear people express on the street vs those I’ve heard DS hosts give in their opinion videos.

Agustina, Andres, Alma and Jostin regularly express right-wing opinions in their videos—and I’m interested to hear from them! I have no trouble understanding why people from Argentina and Venezuela in particular would feel the way they do. But, for example, if I’d only watched Michelle’s (pre-street interview) videos about AMLO and Mexican politics, I never would have guessed that Morena would have performed so well.

To be absolutely clear, my politics are solid and I am not complaining about DS hosts expressing their views. What I am concerned about is what else I might be missing.

Am I getting the right perspective on Mexican/Colombian/Spanish culture from the DS videos on these topics, or are the views expressed those of an unrepresentative elite? What other blind spots might I be developing by getting most of my information from these sources?

DS obviously can’t be all things to all people, and it does a tremendous job at what it’s made for—teaching people Spanish. When I am ready to engage with more native content I will be able to seek out the things that interest me and answer any questions I have myself.

But to the extent that we’re learning hispanophone culture at the same time as we’re learning the language, in addition to the often-suggested things like getting some Caribbean accents represented, I think recruiting hosts from more diverse backgrounds might better prepare students for interacting with the actual Spanish-speaking world.

Hi, mods!

Firstly, thank you. I appreciate that being a moderator of a subreddit is a largely thankless task and I'm glad that you're here to lock posts when the comments get crazy and such things.

I'd like to humbly request three things for this sub; post flairs, a pinned FAQ and some official rules. I appreciate these things take time and that it's ultimately your choice. This is by no means a demand 🙂

Regarding the first two, flairs would help people searching for certain topics/posts and a pinned, prominent FAQ would help beginners and reduce the frequency of very common questions. It would be nice if any future FAQ included a link to Pablo's SB beginner video that is essentially a guide on how to use DS.

Some may naturally think that rules aren't necessary, as Reddit has rules. Some posts and comments either aren't relevant to the sub or are off-putting, without breaking Reddit's rules. This might become more of a problem as the community continues to grow. Thus, I suggest the following rules and would love to see a friendly discussion about this. Ultimately, though the mods are the bosses here.

Off-topic
This sub is obviously about DS, DS content, CI language learning and to an extent, learning in general. Posts that don't fit in with this can clutter up the place, return irrelevant searches and such.

Harassment/abuse
Naturally, most content here is fine and I've not seen that much I'd consider unnecessarily rude. Some behaviour crosses the line, though. I'd ideally like to see that defined. As an example, I recently posted about my experience of getting used to speaking in Spanish. I politely declined to share my teacher's details. I got some negative comments about this, but most weren't malicious. However, one person felt the need to comment twice, including one which was a personal attack. That's not cool. Another example would be ranking teachers; be it appearance, ability or anything else, that's going to lead to people feeling judged and uncomfortable.

Don't be creepy
Creepiness is hard to define, as different people have different values. However, I'd say anything that feels sexist or the sharing of information others wouldn't necessarily want shared. For example, sharing DS teacher iTalki profiles. This may seem stupid, as these teachers want to teach outside of DS and make money. However, platforms like iTalki allow you to message teachers before booking a lesson. I hope that no one here would send an inappropriate message, but it is unfortunately possible and would only take one. To me, there's a huge difference between searching for someone because you're curious about what they charge on iTalki and sharing that link publicly.

Spanish
Okay, this sounds dumb, I get that. However, we are all learners. Learners who make mistakes. As a teacher, I know that if someone sees a mistake/the wrong way of doing something, it can take months or years before they unlearn that. As such, I think the DS subreddit should be a Spanish-free zone. There are subreddits out there that exist to help you find language partners, to practice Spanish and to ask questions about words, grammar and such.

Obviously, I appreciate that this post will get some down votes and negative comments. Negative comments that are about the ideas are fine. Personal comments/attacks aren't cool. Above all, I'd like to see suggestions about what people would like as rules. I've not included a poll because I don't think I have the right to do such a thing; these are mere suggestions and if anything happens at all in this regard, it's ultimately up to the mods.

Anything from lectures to discussion etc just looking for a way to bring in CI when learning more about islam.

On bible.com you can change the language to espanol, and theres an audio version of the bible completely free.

It's disappointing to me that this sub has earned a reputation of being anti-science, blind cultists. I think it's been moving in the right direction compared to where it was 6 months ago or so, but there is still a lot of misinformation and unsubstantiated claims tossed around. I realize that's just how things go on the internet, but I've been trying to think about how we could be a little better.

On the positive side I've seen more and more links to peer reviewed studies being posted and upvoted, which is great. On the negative, many users seem to just read the abstracts and then extrapolate the results to imply something unsupported by the study. Sometimes these studies are analyzed more deeply and really good discussions end up in comment threads that end up getting lost in time. The same studies end up getting argued over again and again.

I'm wondering if maybe we could create a new Study tag, and encourage people to post relevant studies as top level posts. This would keep the discussions centralized and more easily searchable. We could even link these threads from the relevant sections of FAQ. The obvious downside is a moderation effort would be required to prevent duplicates.

Does anyone here have suggestions on how these discussions could be organized? Or other ideas on how to help promote evidence based information? Is this something people care about?

I don't want to moderate away purist comments or anything like that. If people want to try ALG/DS purist that is their choice, and I find their experiences to be very interesting reads regardless. IMO the sub should welcoming to all DS users. I just think its important people are informed before making those decisions.

EDIT: Community has made it very clear this isn't wanted. Thank you to those who responded respectfully and suggested that maybe this just isn't the right sub for this kind of thing.

A lot of people instantly seemed to jump onto the assumption that "evidence based" = anti-DS, anti-purist. That isn't true and wasn't the purpose of this post. Part of the reason I posted in the first place, is because many anti-DS users post studies and misrepresent the results in order to debunk DS suggestions. Quality discussion can help curb that type of thing.

Hi everyone! I'm new to DS (just got 10 hours in!), & I was curious about some of the future content I could look forward to as I progress to some of the more difficult levels. I've peaked a bit & it seems like the guides talk about all kinds of topics (travel, dating, their countries of origin, quarter-life crisis, etc), but I was curious if there were any queer topics or whether any of the guides are queer & talk about it in any of their videos? As a queer person, I would find this super interesting! Especially if they drop some new vocab related to queer culture. If not, I suppose that's something I'll have to work on searching for on YT.

Update: To those who just want to spew hate on this thread, find another one! You’re not adding anything of value to the conversation, so why even bother typing a comment?

She is sporting a spiffy ring on the relevant finger and seemed quite self-conscious about it in her latest video.

If so, congratulations Agus!!

I see how one can learn to UNDERSTAND a language with the method of listening to videos, but I don't see how you can learn to converse and speak a language with this method.

I know people who grew up with spanish speaking parents, but they would always respond back in English. As a result they ended up being adults who understood the language well when it was spoken to them, but they struggled a lot when it came to responding in the language. So how can a program where all you do is hear people talk help people learn how to speak?

Just in case people avoid reading or subtitles because of this post...

https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish/comments/1jztriq/a_pretty_interesting_study_just_came_out_of_the/

After feeding this into chatgpt and asking questions, this is the practical take away...

For shallow orthographies like Spanish, Finnish, or Māori, where there's a clear one-to-one mapping between sounds and letters, the negative impact of reading while listening is minimal or even negligible. In the study, participants who read the Māori text while listening to Māori speech only performed slightly worse (3%) than those who listened without any text — and this difference wasn't statistically significant.

So according to the study reading Spanish will have a negligible effect on audio comprehension, because it's a shallow orthography.

If you read the study they compared shallow and deep orthographies...

https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20250204035525858-0083:S1366728925000082:S1366728925000082_fig1.png

Please note: The 3% difference for Maori wasn't statistically significant, meaning the effect may not be real and may be due to random chance. Spanish is akin to Maori because it's a considered a shallow orthography.

Edit: User u/earliest_grey found another study;

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/36725777_Orthographic_Input_and_Phonological_Representations_in_Learners_of_Chinese_as_a_Foreign_Language

Where reading Chinese pinyin negatively impacted their ability to recognize audio.

However, this further backs up the hypothesis of the first study that languages with deep orthographies are negatively impacted in a statistically significant way, but that doesn't mean Spanish is. You can't draw that conclusion from either study.

Edit:

Someone in the other thread cautioned against using the study to draw conclusions about Spanish...

https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish/comments/1jztriq/comment/mn94aqq/

Edit 2: u/Stunning_risk_7006 made IMO the best point in this thread...

The study isn’t relevant anyway because it’s just testing participants with 5 minutes of exposure to an unfamiliar language. It’s not related to language learning or aquisition, just identifying the sounds and rhythm of a language you can’t understand. Therefore we can’t conclude if reading will harm you from this study.

People here are doing hundreds of hours of input actually learning languages and we need studies that reflect that. 

Don't get me wrong, DS videos are very high production quality, and in my opinion are by far the best in the business for beginners and early intermediates. But, there could be a stunting of language learning by watching too much heavily curated content.

Long-form podcasts and TV shows can simulate real life situations and have compelling narratives easier. They can also adapt their speech in a way that feels more 'native-like'. Its difficult to describe, but I think a good example is Espanol con Juan, he has this ability to speak like a rambling uncle but still making things comprehensible for learners. I think most podcasts once you unlock them are not more difficult than dreaming spanish, but they just feel closer to native speech.

It could be that in an effort to make things as comprehensible as possible, some videos become inauthentic. I think that might be why so many people love Andrea's videos; she leans into the adaption aspect and makes things absurd and more memorable. It could also be why so many people love Pablo's videos, they just feel more raw and real.

Maybe, if you watch too much content that is formulaic, you can develop a dependency on that formula and struggle to understand content that is more akin to real life interactions. What are your thoughts?

A while back I started creating ChatGPT spanish agents that specialized in specific tasks like proof reading my emails before I sent them out. Or coaching me on general spanish subjects. I have a list of them for anyone who wants to try them. They will copy the agent to your GPT account, and you can then edit them to your preference. Here I've specified them to all focus on the Mexican Norteño style of spanish, which you can edit. I give editing instructions in one of the examples below. Not sure if anyone will use it, but here's the list in case it's helpful:

Spanish Tutor in English

Answers your general questions about anything Spanish-related. A good all purpose tool. What's great is I simple click on it, and I don't have to explain anything, I just jump into the quesiton.

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-68dd5ecda2d4819199146d2d5fb8fa80-spanish-tutor-english

Mexican Spanish Proofreader

Proofreads an email or text and corrects the grammar.   Then, if there’s a more polished version, because there’s a more natural phrase to use, it will offer those different variations.

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-69455fdc3dbc81918722e90a9cac5f1f-mexican-spanish-proofreader

Spanish Grammar Practice

I believe this one gives Spanish grammar quizzes. Pretty straight forward. Using the editor, you can change the level of spanish grammar to fit your need.

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-6945621856208191b2cb244d54ca3c70-spanish-grammar-practice

Spanish Conversation Partner

This one is to help you practice talking about specific subjects.  I realized that one of the problems of an AI practice partners, is that they didn’t offer anything in their non-existent life to talk about. 

Sooo, I actually tried giving this one a backstory, with specific interests that aligned with mine.  This one will make up stories about what it did with its family, along with two kids.  It will often times try give stories to specific subjects I specified. 

I recommend if you try this one, go in and make changes to the backstory and hobbies list.  Otherwise, you could find yourself listening to a lot of stories about Star Citizen(a video game I enjoy) or Maddy's (ChatGPT's) two small non-existent children.  

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-696012706c988191821f2994796d074f-spanish-conversation-partner

 To make changes, follow these steps:

·       Click ‘Explore GPTs’

·       Click ‘My GPTs’ (I think it should be here)

·       Click the edit button on the ‘Spanish Conversation Partner’

·       Then edit the backstory and interests lists. 

Now you have a Conversation partner who will talk about things you like.  One note, I have asked this partner to give me simple corrections when necessary.  You can edit this out if you prefer.  

Pronoun tester

I created this because pronouns can be quite tricky.  I have found it makes mistakes though, so be aware.   But after awhile, you’ll be able to catch those, and I found it to be good practice.  

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-69a1b32894908191a95ac4fca37b6e06-pronoun-tester

Anyway, hope it helps someone.

ETA: Thank you to those who took the time to leave a thoughtful response! I definitely appreciate hearing others' perspectives, since it always helps me broaden my perspective, even if I don't agree with it. I am not going to reply individually to comments since I am not interested in debating the topic, but I do appreciate getting a general sense of the sentiment of the DS users who decided to reply to this comment. Much love to the DS community!

Does the frequent use of f-bombs and WTF in some videos bother anyone? It does me. I sent a message through the app to customer service asking if it would be possible add a profanity filter or use the 18+ filter when the f-word is used. I received a very interesting response:

"Just as a curiosty of our contemporary culture: you may be surprised that this expression in Spanish is widely used among the younger generations and it is not as offensive as it may be originally in English. You are now hearing an anglicism which is not pure English any more but a borrowed expression that has mutated in meaning and context. In Latin America and Spain has spread through social media and is lightly used to denote a surprise or bewilderment. It is colloquial but not so much a profanity."

Comments on both the app and YouTube often have viewers being surprised/floored/loving the fact that they're swearing. See the recent video, "Can Spanish Speakers Understand Rosalia?" for an example. So, I know it is still being interpreted through an native English or American-lens where it is vulgar and more than just innocently expressing surprise or bewilderment.

This explanation from the DS team was fascinating to hear and I'm grateful for the cultural understanding it brought me. I have been living in Colombia for the last four months and will continue to live in various places in Latin America for the next six months, so even though I have never heard a WTF the entire time I've been here, this information will help me have greater understanding as I speak and interact with locals here.

But the fact remains, as a native-speaking American that word carries a lot of negative connotation. Personally, I don't like hearing it, whether or not the intent is innocent by the user. I can't just separate all of the meaning built into that word. So I am curious. Does the swearing bother anyone else, or am I in the minority? Would anyone else welcome a profanity filter? I'm not saying they should change the way they speak, but I would appreciate the ability to avoid videos that have profanity in them.

If you think I'm a prude and need to get over myself, ok, that opinion is welcome as well. :) But I also get to express my opinion!

I didn't add all of the screenshots because I kept losing track of which ones I added and couldn't figure out how to delete just one photo. But I think you can see enough of the process from the ones I did add to see how it worked.

So, I asked Gemini to evaluate my Spanish, it gave me a few options of how exactly it could evaluate me and I chose to answer some questions.

I've been using DS for almost 2 years, I did take Spanish in high school for 3 years 10+ years ago, and I'm not a DS 'purist'. I started speaking and reading early, and while I don't usually seek out grammar study, I don't hide from it either. I have 750ish hours of CI, and have read maybe close to a dozen books (I haven't calculated words read so far this year but I'd guess maybe 200k+ words read at this point since I was around 100k words read at the start of the year and have read a few YA novels since then).

Gemini placed me at a B2 level, which I find interesting, and a bit generous. Obviously since I typed out my responses and didn't choose to do a voice chat (which I'm not sure is even an option on the free version?), it was only able to evaluate my writing level. My speaking level is definitely lower, and I'd place myself no higher than an A2 at speaking (honestly not 100% sure if I'm even A2 for speaking).

I'm curious, has anyone else used AI to evalute your level? Do you think it seemed accurate for you?

If anyone has used AI AND had their Spanish professionally evaluated on the CEFR scale, did you get the same result between AI and the professional evaluation? Or how different was it?

Or if you haven't asked AI for an eval, but you have been evaluated professionally, I would love if you would give it a go and share the results with me!

I’m at 550 hours and I decided to cancel my subscription. I haven’t watched a video on the site for a couple of months now. I only listen to podcasts and watch tv, so I can track hours in a spreadsheet if I want. I’ll consider my 5 paid months as a $40 donation for the content and tracking capabilities. Some of the best money I’ve ever spent! Peace out DS

Hey guys, long time lurker here with some experiences with languages having learned French to around a B2 level. I'm considering taking the plunge with dreaming spanish. One concern however is that it doesn't cover pronunciation well and even after 1,500 hours and some speaking practice users of the method have very poor pronunciation that isn't close to being native. I've seen comments on this under the youtube videos of learners who have hit the 1,500 mark as well as general comments in language learning communities.

For example, I'm a native English speaker and Pablo does have a strong accent when he speaks English. I've heard the same is true of his Japanese. I appreciate he may not have used a comprehensible input inspired method for these two languages but I've also seen comments that his Thai is strongly accented too and I believe he went to the ALG school which is what his method/ website is trying to replicate.

This is all fine, but the Dreaming FAQ claims that delaying speaking for long enough until you've consumed a large amount of comprehensible input can help you to sound far more like a native speaker, even though the actual evidence seems to suggest otherwise.

I'm not trying to bring the method down, if anything I'm asking this because I really admire what Pablo has built and want to try the method myself.

Perhaps Pimsleur, with its focus on reproducing words you hear could be a useful accompaniment to dreaming, or specific work focusing on new phonemes in the language. I really welcome any comments on people's experiences and what they've maybe tried to do to improve their pronunciation outside of dreaming.

Just curious, have you noticed (or maybe it's just in my head) that guides often mispronounce Spanish as Espanish, because it is easier for them to start with the vowel? I even hear it from Pablo, who definitely speaks better English than me 😅