What has been the most important thing that you’ve learnt so far on your language learning journey?

“Language is not the subject. Language is the tool to learn things.” I love this point!

I spent sooo many extra hours watching videos on "how" to learn Spanish as opposed to actually watching or listening. Great point. I wanted to be at a certain level very quickly because I was so excited. Once I became patient and realized it was a process i learned so much. I can listen to a podcast now and follow everything that's being said after around 500 hours of input. And I think it's so cool how you always try to make time to respond to your followers. Bien consejos, buen trabajo compa

I´m a spanish speaker (mexican) and I´m hard working to learn English. I´ve been studying for 1 month and I feel I´m stuck, sometimes I wanna give up but I won´t so if you read this, believe I feel you, It´s complicated learn some lenguage but not impossible. You can do it! P.S: I feel uncomfortable when I write in english because I think there are mistakes but I try and do my best .

Thanks Shane. I really liked the “language is not the subject” point.

watched this video when it first came out. But it just popped up, so I watched it again. As I close in on 700 hours of active immersion this video hits different. It made sense back then but now it is so much more relatable lol.

Yo llevo 40 horas. 2 horas diarias viendo contenido en inglés y la verdad es que se nota un montón. Es agradable, porque a pesar de que no entiendes una oración completa, sin darte cuenta la entendiste. Soy un A2 por si les interesa.

great video! thanks for the report, i agreed with so many of your points. subbed :D

Good tips!

And I'm here looking for interesting media which I could enjoy in my target language, congrats btw!

Great video! I completely agree with all of your points! I'm glad I found your channel! ☺I'm learning Levantine Arabic, not Spanish, but all the principles still apply. Thank you!

Excellent your advices!

I've found that everyone does time tracking differently and because of that time tracking is really only useful for tracking your own progress. I mean, I guess that would be true anyway, because even if Shane and I watched the exact same things and spent the exact same time, our 100, 500, or 1,000 hours wouldn't necessarily produce the same results. People are different. But, as an example, I record (roughly) the length of the show as immersion time. I'll only cut off a a few minutes for credits, for example. So my 50 minute show might be recorded as 45 minutes, not 30. I know some people record the time they spent with the show, so if they spend time rewinding, replaying, pausing to look something up, etc and it took them 1 hour to watch a 30 minute show, they record it as 1 hour -- because they're tracking their time spent learning the language. Also, I never record my time reading. I record the words read -- so I have no idea how long I've spent reading. I also do track "passive" listening -- but only what I'd consider "active passive listening." For example, if I'm listening to a podcast while walking or shopping, I'm given it 80-90% of my attention, so I track it. If I had something on where it was more background while I was more intently focused on something else, I wouldn't track that. But, any way -- it's a good lesson that if you reach a 1,000 hours, you may not have the exact same results as Shane. And that's ok.

I’m at almost 400 hrs. I agree about listening to the same videos or podcasts a couple times. That has helped me hear words I missed the first time. I’m reading el alquimista and it has short sections. I read them twice and sometimes three times. First time, I just try to get a general idea of what is happening. Second to get a better idea. On the third time, I’ll try and look up the words that I didn’t understand to fill in the blanks. Thanks for bringing up this idea. It does help.

I qualified as an English language teacher 20 years ago and continue to teach in Spain but young Shane puts me to shame with his super articulate, enthusiastic messaging. Keep up the good work.

Cheers Shane 👍

Congratulations Shane! Nice milestone. And solid reflections on learning languages. I’m at app 500 hours of Spanish and actively trying to wean myself off of (Spanish) subtitles. Part of me is still fighting to retain my safety blanket! I recently heard Matt vs Japan say something that to me really hit home re the language journey - something you were touching on in your passion/percentage point, to paraphrase: ‘learning a language successfully has a lot to do with your ability to tolerate ambiguity.’

Thank You Shane

An absolutely superb vídeo Shane. Really useful advice and a very interesting and perceptive take on journey of learning a language. Articulate, clear, thought provoking and extremely motivating. Gracias tío, te agradezco mucho 👍

I so agree with finding something that you enjoy in that language. This is easy in Spanish because it has almost everything dubbed and there is lots of content. It becomes much harder when learning a not so common language.

“Get comfortable being uncomfortable.” YESSSSS!!! I teach in Japan and it’s all about grammar-translation here and they want everything explained. And some things have no explanation. And even for things that can be explained, you can’t just memorize 6 million explanations. If you don’t understand some part of a sentence in a foreign language, that doesn’t mean you failed. It means you are normal. When you speak your native language and you don’t understand a word, you might stop the speaker and ask what it means, or you might figure out from context. You will not, however, freak out that you don’t understand and stop speaking the language. You need to pick that skill up in foreign languages too.

Hey Shane loved this video, any recommendations for pretty much a beginner as in podcasts, Spanish tv or movies etc thanks 🙏

Oye! Estoy de acuerdo con todo! Uso “ the Netflix chrome learning extension” pone la series, películas etc en ambos idioma! Me encanta! realmente lo me ayuda.

This is a great video man, I'm really glad I found your channel. Focusing on input and immersion is definitely the way to go, and I can't see myself ever going back to traditional methods. I would love to have a chat with you some time!

I'm a bit of a language and linguistics fanatic, and I like to watch videos about linguistics for comprehensible input xD

Thanks Shane, that's really insightful. I'm at a similar point with my own Spanish learning and I'm drawing similar conclusions, particularly re the idea of the new language itself not being the main point, but rather the opportunities it creates such as developing new interests VIA the new language and indeed forging new friendships as a result of the language learning journey. Para mi lo que realmente importa numero uno es LA GENTE, la verdad es que el idioma espanol en si mismo, casi me da igual! si tiene sentido.. :)

gracias

¡Enhorabuena chaval! No sigo el método tuyo, pero al final no importa el camino que seguimos, con tal de que disfrutemos y lleguemos hasta dónde queremos. Así lo veo yo. :-)

I agree with you 100% on grammar I think of it like a wax or a polish.

Agree on grammar. Basic patterns so you can speak and understand. Everything else with time.

Excellent! The best way of learning is by practising it. Our conversational course allows you to speak conversational Spanish as a native fast. And why not learn about culture at the same time?

Desde mi niñez soleo oír estaciones de rádios de Argentina y Uruguay en onda corta. Hablo español fluído.

I am brazilian. Spanish is easy and straight forward to learn it. Because my mother tongue is brazilian portuguese. It is so close to spanish, Less than 06 months is necessary to speak it fluently. I speak the variety rioplatense. Like argentinians and uruguayans. I do Seseos and Voseos.

Excellent video. I wish, however, you had mentioned what level those 1000 hours of immersion yielded. B1? B2? Would love to know purely out of curiosity. (I fully realize everyone's results will be different.)

Hi Shane your videos are really useful , I’m so glad I’ve found them so thank you! Please can you tell me what was the channel you watched every day for 8 months ?

Amigo, quiero decirte muchas cosas, espero que las puedas leer. Primero, tienes una manera de explicar las cosas EXTRAORDINARIA, increíble. Se ve que eres muy bueno en la materia y te expresas demasiado bien. Me has motivado y ayudado a ordenar mis pensamientos con respecto a la carrera profesional que estudiaré, ya que amo las matemáticas pero hace poco encontré el aprendizaje de idiomas como uno de las habilidades más hermosas en la vida. Así que me has ayudado a elegir mi carrera universitaria. Siento mucho que no tengas muchos subscriptores en tu canal. Espero que pueda crecer rápido. Te mando un saludo y un gran gracias por tu contenido de calidad...

Estoy empezando aprender español después de universidad. Es difícil pero estoy mejorando cada día

As for the constant use of subtitles, I can say that it didn't hurt me at all. For about 2 years of immersion (in a lazy way), I continued to use subtitles, but gradually, without forcing myself, I stopped using them. I just started not turning them on sometimes because I felt lazy to bother, and after 3-5 months, I stopped using them at all. So if you are worried that you will never stop using subtitles, I think it is possible to naturally outgrow it (at least for me). Also, I didn't do in passive immersion for 2 years. At the beginning of my third year, it helped a bit, but I can't say that it was crucial for active viewing without subtitles.

Your grammar point is valid for a language like Spanish and even English, which have a relatively simple and somewhat flexible grammar, now try learning German without learning the grammar alongside with vocabulary and such. Good luck with that.

Nice vid Shane and you’re doing a great job with the channel! What do you consider active immersion? I ask because I guess most of my immersion would be considered passive as it is usually when I am walking/cooking/at the gym etc. The only active immersion I think I do must be reading or tv shows/films. Was just curious how you have been immersing when you’ve being doing so actively and how much more beneficial you think it might have been for you?

I don't think speaking early "hurts". But I do think it has great potential to delay language acquisition via input. What I found, when I spoke German early was that I was so caught up in speaking that I kinda thought I had it all figured out, and I assumed that my language would improve by speaking and conversing alone. That might happen if you are living in the country where your target language is spoken, but it definitely won't happen if you are not, and you'll find that the opportunities to converse are just not there enough of the time. The important thing to do is to avoid thinking you've "got it" and instead keep getting comprehensible input, because early speakers always have a long way to go - a lot further than they tend to think.

Congratulations Shane on reaching 1000 hours! I have a question on immersion, how do you start it with a new language? What do you watch/listen/read when you can almost understand nothing of your target language?

Hi bro! Good video! My lenguage mother is Spanish, actually I'm learning English, I'm beginers hahah, so my English is not fine; maeby your are my lenguage parent. Learn your lenguage is very emociont and satisfactory (I know have errors). Your pronnuntation is very good. Hasta luegoooooo!!

Great video! I really admire your journey to learn/acquire Spanish and your insights are valuable for every language learner. I would just comment on the point of speaking early. The bad habits you cannot fix easily are concerning in my opinion pronunciation. It's easier to fix sentence structures, verb conjugations or word choices than a false pronunciation. When you speak from early on, I think you should focus on pronunciation.

Great video! One thing I wonder when it comes to immersion: I have several Spanish KZfaq channels that I watch regularly, and each one has a ton of content. I usually alternate between each channel throughout the day/week/month to get more experience with different accents and speech patterns. BUT I wonder if that "inconsistency" of accents is slowing down my overall listening progress... would it be better to immerse in only one channel, and work my way through all of its content, and maybe improve more quickly with that one channel's particular accent/speech pattern?

How did you get started initially? Like obviously watching a show at 0% immersion would do nothing right? How did you get the first initial basics in a language? I am learning Dutch and want to do it through immersion, but it's all gibberish to me currently. Should I learn the 1000 most common words first and then start immersion?

I often need subtitles even in english (my native) because it just helpes me absorb the content better. lol

¿Qué aplicación utilizaste para registrar tus 1.000 horas?

I've found that , in french , the subtitles in movies are so off that It is hilarious , and so I just dispense with them and forge on picking up a much as I can on my own. Since I also have trouble sometimes when I watch Australian movies , I don't really feel I'm doing that bad with French !

I think people over analyze just because of a small amount of immersion. I have learned a lot of grammar and vocabulary before started immersion (about 5-6 years), but only after 2-3 months of immersion I don't have any problem to produce sentence in my head without analyzing or thinking about rules (but sometimes I definitely make mistakes). I don't think any amount of grammar can really hurt while learners continue immersion a lot. A lot of grammar is more like a waste of time.

I've only listened to you in Spanish so far, so I didn't know you were from the UK! I thought your accent in Spanish was "US American speaking Castilian Spanish"! (mine is "US American speaking Latin American Spanish")

I dont put subtitles on, but it helps to slow the video down than using its normal speed

After how many hours did you start to output/speak Shane?

I'm at 60 hours after immersing in Spanish for only 3 months. LOL. I've learnt a language before to a C1 level, so I know what it takes to reach fluency. I'm just focusing on connecting with the Spanish language first before I move on to more intermediate level content. I haven't even looked at grammar yet.

Hi, native Spanish speaker here, I'm curious, which country dialect are you immersing from?

Language is not the subject! And I think language is more like a skill like playing sports or musical instruments, especially in which one's body feeling condense. What we're doing is converting sensory stimuations like voices and words to the meanings until it truns into your intuition one day. Sports like volleyball for exmaple, I can't really do a reception in the beginning, ball always flew somewhere unpredictably. But gradually, I'm able to pass correctly to the front or even do sets. The most surprising thing to me is when I'm defencing spikes, it force my brain to make decision in a millisecond and my body just subconsciously moves itself. It's a moment that a skill really sinks in and becomes your native reflex, hope this is a better understanding when it comes to language learning.

In my 65 years of learning foreign languages, I never bothered counting my hours and minutes of listening. What did I do wrong?

How would you know how many hours you’ve done?

who wanna exchange language ? i'm native spanish from colombian, my english level is A2/B1

what is your level after 1000hours? You shoulda start with that

Can you learn two languages at the same time

Idk how many hours I'd be at, I've been living in Mexico for a year and live with my gf who doesn't speak English

I have also dedicated thousands of hours to Spanish since 1996 with no success. What a waste of time…

So you don't think it is helpful for someone who is a beginner to listen to more advanced content if they only understand like .0005% of what they are listening to? I am trying to listen to the same things in English and then in Spanish so I can grasp a few things here or there, but the majority of it makes no sense to me. Not sure if I am wasting my time and should listen to something more basic.

Grammar is useless... I never took grammar until age 7? And it doesn't change how anyone speaks anyway. I also speak fluent Hungarian since birth and never learned any grammar... So with Spanish I'll never study grammar beyond any curiosity i noticed on my own.

"irregardless" isn't a word.

spanish is soo hard 😖 im about to quit

Yeah, I still think Pablo has it right - comprehensible input only, don’t speak (how would you know how much you’ve messed up your accent by speaking too early?? It’s not something you can correct). No subtitles. No reading until 1,000 hours. Just listen.

immersion is a slow way to learn language

¿Porque no dices ni una sola palabra en español? Tendría que ser facilísimo darnos un ejemplo de tus destrezas linguísticas después de tantas horas de clase. Por la evidencia que nos das en este video, podrías ser alguien que no sepa nada del español.