Why do people who study languages look unkempt and advertise energy drinks?

I’ve been working on Spanish for 4 months or so now and can speak about simple concepts and can get the gist of most everyday conversations.

I’m using Dreaming Spanish which uses comprehensible input- just listening no studying grammar or vocab. It was a bit of a slog in the beginning because I could only understand things so simple that they were uninteresting. But after two months at three hours a day I started watching dubbed shows (usually kids shows) like Avatar and Pokémon and could mostly keep up with it. I think a few more months and I’ll be able to have a decent conversation without tripping up. If I keep my responses somewhat simple I can already do a lot. I have a lot of Spanish speakers at work and they have said my pronunciation is very good, and sometimes don’t believe I’ve only been at it 4 months.

The method is really great IMO. I’ve tried Duo and other traditional methods in the past and never got even close to this far. It definitely helps my listening comprehension miles better. With the other methods speaking and reading seem like math problems where you’re trying to conjugate and put things in order… to me some things just sound “right” and I’m not sure why/couldn’t quite explain it.

I’ve been working on Spanish for 4 months or so now and can speak about simple concepts and can get the gist of most everyday conversations.

I’m using Dreaming Spanish which uses comprehensible input- just listening no studying grammar or vocab. It was a bit of a slog in the beginning because I could only understand things so simple that they were uninteresting. But after two months at three hours a day I started watching dubbed shows (usually kids shows) like Avatar and Pokémon and could mostly keep up with it. I think a few more months and I’ll be able to have a decent conversation without tripping up. If I keep my responses somewhat simple I can already do a lot. I have a lot of Spanish speakers at work and they have said my pronunciation is very good, and sometimes don’t believe I’ve only been at it 4 months.

The method is really great IMO. I’ve tried Duo and other traditional methods in the past and never got even close to this far. It definitely helps my listening comprehension miles better. With the other methods speaking and reading seem like math problems where you’re trying to conjugate and put things in order… to me some things just sound “right” and I’m not sure why/couldn’t quite explain it.

But now I’m hitting that intermediate plateau where it seems the more I learn, the more I know that I don’t know. If that makes sense. A lot of work ahead.

Ich lerne jeden Tag Deutsch! Still getting in my daily Deutsch lessons (on Duo, I don’t just mean trying to decipher !ich_iel@feddit.de posts!)

I kind of miss studying Chinese as well but I wasn’t getting much use from it and a casual watch of any actual Chinese speakers convinced me that Duo was not really teaching me the right way to say things.

Maybe I should get back into Spanish though… it’s weird but learning multiple different languages as once actually seems a little easier; it gets the language center of the brain making lots of new connections.

Though, I’m still salty about duolingo changing the free-form lessons into the “learning path” and don’t feel motived to work on other languages much. I keep up with German because I’m nearly to a 1000 day streak and my ocd wont allow me to let it drop! Help, the green owl is holding me prisoner with my own mind!