Your videos are very inspiring. I want to thank you for having the courage to bring so much of the authentic human experience into all of your videos. We all have insecurities and doubts and you never hide them and it's very inspiring for me. Thank you bro!
I’ve always said, the word ‘se’ is the hardest part of Spanish by a mile. Much more than subjunctive. It never seems to brought up when people talk about the difficult parts of learning Spanish though.
You're right about 1500hrs and being "native". It seems Pablo also got the feedback from the community, because I don't know if I'm the only one that noticed, but It has been updated on the website. AT 1500 hours, It now says "You can use the language effectively for all practical purposes" unlike the "NATIVE - LIKE for all practical purposes" It was before. Also, thank you for your updates, 300+ hours in and you've always been one of my motivations from the very beginning.
Your accent has definitely improved from the other videos which shows that more input definitely helps. Also I’m around 500 hours and I understood everything which I’m happy about
@@DonJW25 the main point that he said is that basically over time you start to feel steady progress - 100 hours, 600 hours, 1,000 hours. He noticed a huge shift at 1,500 and 1,800 hours. He expressed that he didn’t read books as suggested so maybe it slowed him down a bit, but at 1,800 hours he felt like he can do anything, can watch content, make friends, create appointments - anything he wants. BUT that he doesn’t feel like a native, which the dreaming Spanish roadmap had initially stated. He feels really good about where he’s at.
This is great, man! Having had life get in the way, I'm only up to around 50 hours in Dreaming Spanish, but I am still happy that I could understand enough words to kind of, but not fully, get the gist of what you were saying.
Your level is fantastic and kudos for the discipline to put in that many hours! I think a weekly tutoring session would be super helpful for you at your level, to answer your grammar questions and iron out any mistakes, to make sure they are corrected early in your learning process
That’s great! Pablo needs to interview you since I think you’ve primarily done comprehensible input… unlike a lot of us who veered off that path a little. Solely listening and occasionally talking to family and junk, your ability is impressive. 🎉 Oh and we get it… someone’s always bitchin’ about something on social media…🙄 Now both hands on the wheel! 😂
Quizá Nativo o Fluido son etiquetas que pueden servirnos para utilizar como referencia. Pero desde mi punto de vista lo importante es que puedas comunicarte y tú lo haces perfectamente. Muchos de mis compañeros de crosstalk empezaron a hablar en 1000 horas, pero no se sintieron satisfechos con su nivel, volvieron al periodo de silencio y siguieron recibiendo input hasta las 1600-1800 horas. A partir de esas 1600-1800 hubo una mejora enorme. Estoy de acuerdo con tu reflexión. En España Roadmap lo traducimos por Mapa de Ruta.
Had my Puerto Rican fiancée watch a bit of this just to gauge her perspective on your accent. The only thing she really said was your R’s not being trilled so carro coming off as caro. So otherwise your accent is really well off after all this time! I lost my progress on my DS account because it glitched and started saying I watched no videos yet it doubled my hours. Hard for me to get back into DS specifically after and being so anal about tracking. Just watching YT primarily now and throwing the videos watched into a playlist so I can check hours later. IIRC I was around 600 hours so I’m far off from catching up with you but I hope one day the Spanish can come into my head as easily as it seems to for you!
@@LousyLemur yea the funny thing is i can actually roll my Rs no problem. it’s something i’ve always been able to do. but i think i don’t know when to do it so i dont 😂 and sorry to hear about your account. that would kill me.
@ I feel you on that! I can trill but I often overdo it (like with ronronear) so I just DONT or it sounds like I’m trying too hard lol Yeah it wasn’t fun! I’m tempted to say screw it and watch all the videos over for more hours but that’ll be a grind 😂 I gotta go back through your videos and Reddit posts to see how you squeeze so many hours in and pickup some of your habits. I’ve been lazy about it since I work in IT and I hate being on a screen more after work but I’ve seen just about all your updates and really appreciate them! You’re a huge motivator in this community.
Amazing mate, you have shown that its possible to have a decent level of Spanish if you put the hours and work in. I,m at about 1200hrs or so but in no rush to end the jounery. Just enjoying watching youtube videos in Spanish on topics that interest me hoping it all sinks in. Keep posting. Cheers Gary.
I have done similar hours to you also following pablos method at least to the best of my ability with my perfectionist overthinking brain getting in the way. Your spanish sounds great. I dont think it is possible to ever sound like a native a child doesn’t have as much cognitive interference when they learn their native language they are exposed to more of the culture. They also get more input hours in 3 months than you have in however long you have been studying. I know people who have lived in a country for 40 years who still have bad word choice. I think if like pablo says our talking will always be worst than our understnding until we can understand literally everything we cant hope to to speak like a native. Have you tried listening to audiobooks in spanish and reading i personally enjoy doing that even though i should do more of it. Congrats i think it is great you are still counting your hours i gave up at 1000.
Really great! Respect for doing it all in one take too. I'd probably do worse speaking off the top of my head like that. Your accent is good but could be great with a few fixes. Your R sound is like the English R and not the Spanish flicked R. Your V sound, especially with "ver", sounds like a v and not a b. Your D sounds sometimes should sound like TH. Todo, padre, leido, etc. Theres a great channel called 10 minute spanish that goes over these specific sounds and has helped me a ton. Hope this didn't sound too critical as your intonation and flow is great. Excited to see where you are at 2500 hours!
Your accent is great! I’m happy how far you’ve come. I make mistakes too. Granted I’m closing in at 400 hours more or less so that makes sense 😂 I’m actually happy I can understand you too. Éxitos, mi amigo.
@@ThePeachGirlDiaries you know what’s funny i felt it was “el” and not “la”. i kept wanting to say “el” and correcting myself to “la”. that’s so funny.
Thank you so much for sharing your journey and milestones with us. I came to DS after doing some other things, including reading graded readers. One thing I've noticed is there's a big difference in shear number of words per minute used in different media, and even by different presenters on DS. Reading and/or listening to an audiobook or podcast gives you far more words then say a dramatic video would. And when a presenter on DS acts something out, that helps comprehension, but lowers the number of words. Easily different media differ here by a factor of 2 or 3. That might account for some of why the roadmap is imperfect--it just doesn't take that into account. A better measure would be number of words, rather than number of hours, and even better is number of new but comprehended words. imho. But thank you and keep up the great work and sharing it with us!
@@kipcarson3240 this is definitely correct. but even number of words would be difficult. because says someone does a million words of dramatic tv and another does a million words of podcasts. i feel like the tv person would have the upper hand because it’s the same amount of words but the TV is more comprehensive. so it’s just a big journey and we all are on our own paths. no biggie.
Hey, congratulations on learning spanish to this level this quickly and thank you for giving me the motivaton and the inspiration to learn myself! When I first saw your videos I was just starting out my Spanish journey and it felt like I found someone who told about non-bullshit and very relevant experience. You have talked about "measuring sticks" and I used some of your spanish speaking videos for that purpose. I couldn't understand 90% of what you or the other person said. I also took your podcast suggestion and started listening to "hoy hablamos" when I could barely understand like 20% of it. I combined anki for vocab + language transfer podcast for grammar + youtube and podcasts for immersion to learn and experience the language. Now here I am, understanding everything you said in this video and also 90% of "hoy hablamos". Thank you for helping me turn my spark into a fire. Have a great trip at Costa Rica, cheers!
Really interesting. At 640 hours I feel like I speak about 85% to 90% or so as well as you but am certain your comprehension is far better than mine. I'd also say this was true of you when you were speaking around the 600 mark. But I've also had extensive practice talking with natives. Really bummed out about 1500 not being the magic number. I was planning on learning French after mastering Spanish. Looks like that's gonna be a while.
Congrats on the progress! I’ve been following your journey since the first video! Is there going to be a 3000 hr update? Also now that you have mastered Spanish, do you intend on learning other languages? I remember you mentioning that because it’s such a time suck that you don’t want to learn anything else. Just wanted to see if that opinion still held up or if you were interested in learning anything else . 🤔
@@AbdulKhan-nx8mk yupp as long as i’m still doing spanish i’ll continue to upload progress reports. hopefully i don’t have to go past 3000. still 0 interest in other languages.
Te pude entender, pero nadie podrá hablar como nativo con solo miles de horas escuchando. Sin embargo, escuchando es el mejor método mejor de entender.
Hola, soy de España, de vez en cuando veo algun video tuyo que me recomienda youtube, veo que estás progresando, en mi opinión necesitas pasar ya a contenido real, podcasts, radio, TV y por supuesto leer. Yo ahora estoy leyendo libros en inglés y realmente se nota. Un saludo
Good job on the Spanish. Great job on the seatbelt. I always had the idea that much more time would be required. I know Matt vs Japan always says more like 5000. I'm well behind you, but with lots of italki and a little reading and I would say, its very, very useful Spanish. Native is just bad wording en el mapa.
@geneticsFPS true, but I do feel like expectations are still a bit off. I don't feel like I'll be native-like even with another 1000 hours. But, I'll see.
LOL OG Spanish learning UA-camr doesn’t want to be some Spanish learning UA-camr :) Thanks for this! I’m at 675 hours and I’m starting to speak now. Can’t wait anymore. I feel like listening and reading have their place but your level is probably as good as you can get without a lot more speaking practice.
@@Mr_Kirk_ trying to use this channel more as just like a document of my journey than an actual youtube channel ya know? hence why there’s 0 production value 😂
I'm not hating or criticizing, but its el mapa y el problema. That's why I don't totally agree with Pablo's input only ideas. A little bit of active study can easily teach you that some feminine sounding words are actually masculine and vice versa (la mano, el problema, etc.) I'm just an intermediate learner, though.
I used his method and speak just fine at 2100 hours. Everyone has a different path and everyone learns differently at a different pace. Not all results will be similar at the same amount of hours. The op is doing great and should be very proud of where he is now compared to a year ago.
@osoperezoso2608 that's fine. I'm saying I don't totally agree with Pablo the founder of dreaming Spanish. He pushes these ideas that CI is the ONLY way to learn a language and doing anything else will somehow hold you back.
Using the term native is unrealistic. You can only ever be native in your native language (unless you grew up bilingually). You may become very advanced, even native like, but not native. Especially if you do not live in a country where they speak your target language and really try and integrate with the locals.
Even bilingual kids aren't "native". I have a larger vocabulary than my friends that grew up around the language more than I did. I don't agree. I think people can definitely sound native but I don't believe everyone can achieve that goal. It depends on the person, how they learn, and their work ethic. It's like saying that "you can't become a professional basketball player". Sure people have the ability to but that might not be your path.
You look great! You have not only gone through a language transformation but also health wise!! You are glowing
@@cosmicxessence thank you very much !
Your videos are very inspiring. I want to thank you for having the courage to bring so much of the authentic human experience into all of your videos. We all have insecurities and doubts and you never hide them and it's very inspiring for me. Thank you bro!
@@michaelsager5688 no problem brother !!!
I’ve always said, the word ‘se’ is the hardest part of Spanish by a mile. Much more than subjunctive. It never seems to brought up when people talk about the difficult parts of learning Spanish though.
You're right about 1500hrs and being "native". It seems Pablo also got the feedback from the community, because I don't know if I'm the only one that noticed, but It has been updated on the website. AT 1500 hours, It now says "You can use the language effectively for all practical purposes" unlike the "NATIVE - LIKE for all practical purposes" It was before.
Also, thank you for your updates, 300+ hours in and you've always been one of my motivations from the very beginning.
@@shoutfay glad i’ve been of help! pablo definitely took notice.
Your accent has definitely improved from the other videos which shows that more input definitely helps. Also I’m around 500 hours and I understood everything which I’m happy about
Can you summarize what he said? I've just started and only on 25 hours he sounded fluent when can we expect this level of speaking? thank you.
@@DonJW25 the main point that he said is that basically over time you start to feel steady progress - 100 hours, 600 hours, 1,000 hours. He noticed a huge shift at 1,500 and 1,800 hours. He expressed that he didn’t read books as suggested so maybe it slowed him down a bit, but at 1,800 hours he felt like he can do anything, can watch content, make friends, create appointments - anything he wants. BUT that he doesn’t feel like a native, which the dreaming Spanish roadmap had initially stated. He feels really good about where he’s at.
Bro, I can't believe how much your accent has improved, I think singing along with song improved my accent. LOVE YOUR VIDS!!
@@angryhephilump756 thanks! i’m sure it’ll keep getting better as well
This is great, man! Having had life get in the way, I'm only up to around 50 hours in Dreaming Spanish, but I am still happy that I could understand enough words to kind of, but not fully, get the gist of what you were saying.
Your level is fantastic and kudos for the discipline to put in that many hours! I think a weekly tutoring session would be super helpful for you at your level, to answer your grammar questions and iron out any mistakes, to make sure they are corrected early in your learning process
@@meghanmartin8492 thank you. prolly won’t do anything but CI until 3000 hours
I love the confidence 💪 Felicidades!🎉
That’s great! Pablo needs to interview you since I think you’ve primarily done comprehensible input… unlike a lot of us who veered off that path a little. Solely listening and occasionally talking to family and junk, your ability is impressive. 🎉
Oh and we get it… someone’s always bitchin’ about something on social media…🙄 Now both hands on the wheel! 😂
En español usamos la palabra roadmap tambien aunque no es español, tambien puedes usar la expresion " mis pasos a seguir " o " mi plan "
You are getting better, keep up the good work.
I'm from Costa Rica
Quizá Nativo o Fluido son etiquetas que pueden servirnos para utilizar como referencia. Pero desde mi punto de vista lo importante es que puedas comunicarte y tú lo haces perfectamente. Muchos de mis compañeros de crosstalk empezaron a hablar en 1000 horas, pero no se sintieron satisfechos con su nivel, volvieron al periodo de silencio y siguieron recibiendo input hasta las 1600-1800 horas. A partir de esas 1600-1800 hubo una mejora enorme. Estoy de acuerdo con tu reflexión. En España Roadmap lo traducimos por Mapa de Ruta.
Had my Puerto Rican fiancée watch a bit of this just to gauge her perspective on your accent. The only thing she really said was your R’s not being trilled so carro coming off as caro. So otherwise your accent is really well off after all this time!
I lost my progress on my DS account because it glitched and started saying I watched no videos yet it doubled my hours. Hard for me to get back into DS specifically after and being so anal about tracking. Just watching YT primarily now and throwing the videos watched into a playlist so I can check hours later. IIRC I was around 600 hours so I’m far off from catching up with you but I hope one day the Spanish can come into my head as easily as it seems to for you!
@@LousyLemur yea the funny thing is i can actually roll my Rs no problem. it’s something i’ve always been able to do. but i think i don’t know when to do it so i dont 😂
and sorry to hear about your account. that would kill me.
@ I feel you on that! I can trill but I often overdo it (like with ronronear) so I just DONT or it sounds like I’m trying too hard lol
Yeah it wasn’t fun! I’m tempted to say screw it and watch all the videos over for more hours but that’ll be a grind 😂 I gotta go back through your videos and Reddit posts to see how you squeeze so many hours in and pickup some of your habits. I’ve been lazy about it since I work in IT and I hate being on a screen more after work but I’ve seen just about all your updates and really appreciate them! You’re a huge motivator in this community.
@ yeah the truth of the manner is my job consist of me doing literally nothing all day. So it’s easy for me to get big amounts of input 😂
Amazing mate, you have shown that its possible to have a decent level of Spanish if you put the hours and work in.
I,m at about 1200hrs or so but in no rush to end the jounery.
Just enjoying watching youtube videos in Spanish on topics that interest me hoping it all sinks in.
Keep posting.
Cheers
Gary.
You are an inspiration! Thank you for taking us along on your journey.
@@videomelanie no problem! glad to have yall with me!
Wow bro you sound great! I can speak some Spanish but ive been struggling to improve it. You have encouraged me to sign up! Gracias y saludos de UK
Great update vid! I understood about 80-90% of what you said and I'm at 700+ hours. Interesting feedback on the map. Congrats on reaching your goal!
Creo ke hablas muy bien 👍. Me tocó ir a costa rica hace diez años, muy lindo lugar, me vuelvo para allá en un mes
I have done similar hours to you also following pablos method at least to the best of my ability with my perfectionist overthinking brain getting in the way. Your spanish sounds great. I dont think it is possible to ever sound like a native a child doesn’t have as much cognitive interference when they learn their native language they are exposed to more of the culture. They also get more input hours in 3 months than you have in however long you have been studying. I know people who have lived in a country for 40 years who still have bad word choice. I think if like pablo says our talking will always be worst than our understnding until we can understand literally everything we cant hope to to speak like a native. Have you tried listening to audiobooks in spanish and reading i personally enjoy doing that even though i should do more of it. Congrats i think it is great you are still counting your hours i gave up at 1000.
@@roylerroycerickson my reading has been meh. i need to get back to it. no audio books either. just podcasts, movies, and shows.
Really great! Respect for doing it all in one take too. I'd probably do worse speaking off the top of my head like that.
Your accent is good but could be great with a few fixes.
Your R sound is like the English R and not the Spanish flicked R.
Your V sound, especially with "ver", sounds like a v and not a b.
Your D sounds sometimes should sound like TH. Todo, padre, leido, etc.
Theres a great channel called 10 minute spanish that goes over these specific sounds and has helped me a ton. Hope this didn't sound too critical as your intonation and flow is great. Excited to see where you are at 2500 hours!
@@mikeyhartinger53 no it’s great. i appreciate the analysis. truth be told im not going to work on any of it until i hit 3000 hours.
El mapa del camino se siente muy cerca a la realidad!
@@SoloEspanol-wy4hi i agree. thats prolly the best name for it as well 😂
Your accent is great! I’m happy how far you’ve come. I make mistakes too. Granted I’m closing in at 400 hours more or less so that makes sense 😂 I’m actually happy I can understand you too. Éxitos, mi amigo.
Also it’s el mapa 💓any Spanish words that end with ta, ma, or pa, is a Greek derived word and automatically masculine:)
@@ThePeachGirlDiaries you know what’s funny i felt it was “el” and not “la”. i kept wanting to say “el” and correcting myself to “la”. that’s so funny.
@@bryhnlearningspanish El problema es que el mapa termina en la letra "A" y nuestro cerebro quiere pensar en modo femenino.
@@CleverChrononaut es lo mismo para mi 🤣
@@ThePeachGirlDiaries
Not all words ending in "pa" are masculine. For example, "etapa" is a feminine word
Te oyes excelente, claro que hay mas que trabajar pero ya quisiera yo hablar asi de bien en Ingles, a seguir adelante es lo que nos queda. 🎉🎉🎉
Thank you so much for sharing your journey and milestones with us. I came to DS after doing some other things, including reading graded readers. One thing I've noticed is there's a big difference in shear number of words per minute used in different media, and even by different presenters on DS. Reading and/or listening to an audiobook or podcast gives you far more words then say a dramatic video would. And when a presenter on DS acts something out, that helps comprehension, but lowers the number of words. Easily different media differ here by a factor of 2 or 3. That might account for some of why the roadmap is imperfect--it just doesn't take that into account. A better measure would be number of words, rather than number of hours, and even better is number of new but comprehended words. imho. But thank you and keep up the great work and sharing it with us!
@@kipcarson3240 this is definitely correct. but even number of words would be difficult. because says someone does a million words of dramatic tv and another does a million words of podcasts. i feel like the tv person would have the upper hand because it’s the same amount of words but the TV is more comprehensive. so it’s just a big journey and we all are on our own paths. no biggie.
@@bryhnlearningspanish totally agree.
Bravo!! Very inspirational! Well done!
Hey, congratulations on learning spanish to this level this quickly and thank you for giving me the motivaton and the inspiration to learn myself!
When I first saw your videos I was just starting out my Spanish journey and it felt like I found someone who told about non-bullshit and very relevant experience. You have talked about "measuring sticks" and I used some of your spanish speaking videos for that purpose. I couldn't understand 90% of what you or the other person said. I also took your podcast suggestion and started listening to "hoy hablamos" when I could barely understand like 20% of it.
I combined anki for vocab + language transfer podcast for grammar + youtube and podcasts for immersion to learn and experience the language. Now here I am, understanding everything you said in this video and also 90% of "hoy hablamos". Thank you for helping me turn my spark into a fire. Have a great trip at Costa Rica, cheers!
@@quas-r good shit man! great work!
Really interesting. At 640 hours I feel like I speak about 85% to 90% or so as well as you but am certain your comprehension is far better than mine. I'd also say this was true of you when you were speaking around the 600 mark.
But I've also had extensive practice talking with natives. Really bummed out about 1500 not being the magic number.
I was planning on learning French after mastering Spanish. Looks like that's gonna be a while.
Everyone is different. His experience will be different than yours. I would say get to 1,500 and assess yourself.
Una hoja de ruta - roadmap
Congrats on the progress!
I’ve been following your journey since the first video!
Is there going to be a 3000 hr update?
Also now that you have mastered Spanish, do you intend on learning other languages? I remember you mentioning that because it’s such a time suck that you don’t want to learn anything else.
Just wanted to see if that opinion still held up or if you were interested in learning anything else . 🤔
@@AbdulKhan-nx8mk yupp as long as i’m still doing spanish i’ll continue to upload progress reports. hopefully i don’t have to go past 3000. still 0 interest in other languages.
Respect bro, hablo español muy bien
Te pude entender, pero nadie podrá hablar como nativo con solo miles de horas escuchando. Sin embargo, escuchando es el mejor método mejor de entender.
This was fantastic. If I make it this far I'm totally satisfied. Did you ever do any italki or crosstalk? You're pretty pure as I recall.
@@markalford9535 0 anything except input
11:00 haha for sure. Like the Observer Effect. 😂
Hola, soy de España, de vez en cuando veo algun video tuyo que me recomienda youtube, veo que estás progresando, en mi opinión necesitas pasar ya a contenido real, podcasts, radio, TV y por supuesto leer. Yo ahora estoy leyendo libros en inglés y realmente se nota. Un saludo
De acuerdo. Cuando lees, se abre una puerta nueva y mejoras rápido.
Good job on the Spanish. Great job on the seatbelt.
I always had the idea that much more time would be required. I know Matt vs Japan always says more like 5000.
I'm well behind you, but with lots of italki and a little reading and I would say, its very, very useful Spanish. Native is just bad wording en el mapa.
Spanish is much closer to English than Japanese is, so both numbers are probably decent approximations for each language.
@geneticsFPS true, but I do feel like expectations are still a bit off. I don't feel like I'll be native-like even with another 1000 hours. But, I'll see.
They actually removed the "native" reference on the progress page recently. Not sure about the roadmap infographic.
@@austinstanley2425 yea i’ve had a couple people point that out to me. i had no idea ! really good news !!!
Thanks
good job
Pude entender lo que quisiste decir saludos desde Venezuela friend
@@edinson5191 gracias amigo !
Do you listen to Espanol con Juan's podcast? Sometimes when you are speaking it reminds me of him.
Ugh it was soo good u wanna cross talk with me😭😭😭I'm almost at Lv 3
El mapa
LOL
OG Spanish learning UA-camr doesn’t want to be some Spanish learning UA-camr :)
Thanks for this! I’m at 675 hours and I’m starting to speak now. Can’t wait anymore. I feel like listening and reading have their place but your level is probably as good as you can get without a lot more speaking practice.
@@Mr_Kirk_ trying to use this channel more as just like a document of my journey than an actual youtube channel ya know? hence why there’s 0 production value 😂
I'm not hating or criticizing, but its el mapa y el problema. That's why I don't totally agree with Pablo's input only ideas. A little bit of active study can easily teach you that some feminine sounding words are actually masculine and vice versa (la mano, el problema, etc.) I'm just an intermediate learner, though.
@@theymademepickaname1248 yea i could feel as i was saying it it was incorrect. felt so weird saying it
Most nouns that end in MA are masculine
@@aleehshihadeh4022 nunca me di cuenta de eso, pero tienes razón (problema, tema, idioma, trauma, etc.)
I used his method and speak just fine at 2100 hours. Everyone has a different path and everyone learns differently at a different pace. Not all results will be similar at the same amount of hours.
The op is doing great and should be very proud of where he is now compared to a year ago.
@osoperezoso2608 that's fine. I'm saying I don't totally agree with Pablo the founder of dreaming Spanish. He pushes these ideas that CI is the ONLY way to learn a language and doing anything else will somehow hold you back.
We’d all feel safer if you spoke Spanish with your seat belt on next time please bro
@@jamesc6227 i’m not driving
😂
@@bryhnlearningspanish just put the belt on bro. Can never be too safe
Using the term native is unrealistic. You can only ever be native in your native language (unless you grew up bilingually). You may become very advanced, even native like, but not native. Especially if you do not live in a country where they speak your target language and really try and integrate with the locals.
Even bilingual kids aren't "native". I have a larger vocabulary than my friends that grew up around the language more than I did.
I don't agree. I think people can definitely sound native but I don't believe everyone can achieve that goal. It depends on the person, how they learn, and their work ethic. It's like saying that "you can't become a professional basketball player". Sure people have the ability to but that might not be your path.