Level 7 in 7 months

Finally, I have reached the beloved level 7!!

My husband is from Honduras and in my wedding vows in July I promised to finally learn Spanish. Since July 19th I’ve been studying Spanish in secret to surprise my in-laws. I rushed at first because I thought we were going to visit for Christmas and I wanted to be able to speak to them. But it didn’t happen so they still don’t know that I’ve been learning Spanish.

Stats: 1,243 hours of Dreaming Spanish 64 hours watching tv shows/movies 69 hours listening to podcasts 125 hours talking with friends 110,000 words read

Listening: No surprise this is my strongest skill. All videos in DS are easy for me. I have no problem understanding natives from various countries talking at native speeds. Usually it’s just a bit of vocabulary that trips me up.

Reading: I haven’t read much. Since the new year I’ve been trying to read a book a week. I’ve just been reading books for learners. I can probably read harder content but I’ve been taking it easy on the reading. I’m planning to bump this up now that I’m at level 7. I can read texts, Reddit posts and other online native content with little issue.

Talking: I started talking at 550 hours in Oct with 1 italki class a week(12 hours). That brought me to the new year where I signed up for WorldsAcross. Since then I’ve been taking 2-3 classes most days. I’ve been loving my classes. The tutors are fantastic and worth probably double the price. I can sit and have a 3 hour conversation without feeling fatigued. I can always communicate what I want to say just my word choice might be a bit different than a native.

Grammar: This is my biggest insecurity right now. I’m mostly struggling with the verb tenses and feminine vs masculine. 7/10 I’ll get it correct but it’s frustrating for the 30% that I don’t. I did start studying grammar with the WorldsAcross classes. I’m happy I waited till 1,000 hours but I’m also happy I didn’t wait longer.

Writing: This is new for me. I just started a writing exchange this week. We’ll give each other a writing prompt every other day, write a paragraph or so and then correct the other. I’ve been loving it. My writing is about where my speaking is. I can communicate just fine it’s just the small grammatical errors with a few spelling errors thrown into the mix.

Overall I’m over the moon with where my Spanish is at. I wouldn’t consider myself at the same speaking capability as a native, but I have no problem communicating.

Thank you thank you thank you to Pablo and the entire DS Team!