The mistake almost every adult expat makes is targeting 'fluent.' Fluent is a vague star you'll never feel like you've reached. Instead, pick a concrete CEFR level: B1 lets you handle daily life (doctor, landlord, school pickup) without switching to English. B2 lets you have a real conversation with your neighbors. C1 lets you read El País without a dictionary and follow La Sexta news.
Most committed adult learners go from A0 to B1 in 9–14 months with 1 hour/day. B1 to B2 takes another 8–12 months. Set the milestone, ignore everything else.
Daily 20-minute streak on Pimsleur for the first 3 months — the audio-only format forced us to think in Spanish rather than translate. It's expensive (~$20/month) but it's the only app that built real speaking confidence quickly.
Weekly 1:1 lessons on Preply or italki with the same tutor (€10–€18/hour). The consistency of one teacher who knows your patterns is worth more than rotating through 'native speakers.'
After month 4, an in-person intensive at a local school. Camino Barcelona, don Quijote, Enforex, and Hispania, escuela de español in Valencia are reliable. Intensive (20 hours/week for 2–4 weeks) accelerates more than 6 months of part-time.
Daily input: SpanishPod101 podcasts on commute, then graduating to RTVE news clips, then El País headlines, then full episodes of 'La Casa de Papel' or 'Élite' on Netflix with Spanish subtitles (never English).