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What a year actually changes
It is worth being concrete about what a year of steady work on a language does and does not do, because learners consistently misjudge both. What it does. It moves comprehension from decoding to understanding, which is the largest single change and the hardest to notice from the inside. A year ago you heard Spanish as a stream you had to break into words; now the words arrive already separated most of the time. It builds the automatic layer: greetings, ordering, asking directions, apologising, arranging to meet — all of it now happens without composition, which frees attention for content. And it gives you the whole architecture. You have met every tense Spanish uses, both moods, the pronoun system, and the main subordinating structures; there is no large grammatical continent left undiscovered. What it does not do. It does not make you fast. Comprehension at speed, three people talking at once, television without subtitles, a phone call with bad reception — these lag well behind reading and behind careful conversation, and they improve with hours of exposure rather than with study. It does not give you range: you can discuss what you have practised and you will run dry outside it. And it does not remove the accent or the hesitation, both of which are permanent features of adult language learning rather than failures. The progress curve is also worth knowing because it is demoralising if you expect a straight line. Beginners improve visibly every week; at B2 you improve invisibly for a month and then notice, all at once, that something that used to be impossible has become ordinary — which is exactly Alex's ahora mismo no, pero con el tiempo sí. Plateaus at this level are normal and are usually not plateaus at all but periods in which consolidation is happening below the waterline. One suggestion for measuring it honestly, since exercise scores will not tell you. Record yourself for two minutes, unscripted, talking about your day. Keep the file. Do it again in three months. That comparison is uncomfortable and far more informative than any test, and it is the only way to see a change that happens too slowly to feel.