Language Priming – My 100-Hour Passive Telugu Listening Experiment

Lab Report #1: Language Priming

Jul 11, 2025

The Experiment’s Genesis

In spring of 2009, a song titled "Romping Shop" by the immensely popular dancehall artists Vybz Kartel and Spice, sampled on American R&B singer Ne-Yo's "Miss Independent," flooded Jamaica. To put it mildly, I detested this song. I consciously avoided it, never seeking it out. However, its compulsive popularity meant it relentlessly followed me everywhere. In a matter of two to three weeks, something strange had happened: I found myself singing the song. The lyrics had somehow invaded my mind like a virus, installing themselves comfortably into my subconscious thoughts. This involuntary absorption of lyrics without a single conscious effort to learn them, was my first experience with brain priming. It realized that I didn’t need to pay attention to something in order to learn it.

Language Priming

Language priming is the subconscious process where the brain is shaped by repeated exposure to a language, specifically by absorbing its unique sounds, rhythm, and underlying structure.

A New Language Interest

Telugu, a Dravidian language, an under-resourced language for learners outside of India who would like a more natural approach to learning. In October 2024, I wanted to learn Telugu but I lacked the time, energy and willpower to actively pursue another language. Remembering my experience with “Romping Shop” and my knowledge about language acquisition, I decided that I would prepare my mind for learning Telugu through passive listening. I wanted to see what listening quietly could accomplish.

Hypothesis

By passively listening to Telugu without studying the language, I can train my brain to recognize Telugu’s phonological patterns and rhythm. This should provide an easier, more natural entry into learning the language and somewhat contribute to developing a more authentic accent.

Literature Review: Is it possible?

Research strongly supports the profound role of passive auditory input in shaping language perception, even across diverse populations and learning contexts. Werker and Tees (1984) demonstrated that while infants initially possess a universal sensitivity to all phonetic contrasts, this sensitivity diminishes for non-native sounds over time. Critically, their research also indicated that adults can partially re-learn these lost distinctions through focused exposure.

Focusing on adults, Goldinger (1999)'s findings revealed that we subconsciously imitate frequently heard sounds, a powerful mechanism that contributes directly to phonetic adaptation and the refinement of one's accent. Best and Tyler (2007), also examining adult learners, argued convincingly that passive exposure to unfamiliar phonologies can fundamentally reshape perception by prompting the formation of entirely new auditory categories.

Collectively, these studies paint a clear picture: passive listening, can trigger genuine, perceptual changes, particularly in sound recognition and, by extension, lays the groundwork for future pronunciation accuracy.

The Experiment

As an adult native speaker of English and Jamaican Patois, with absolutely zero prior exposure to Telugu in any form, I committed to 100 hours of dedicated passive listening to Telugu audio content over approximately nine months, rigorously observing my perception of the language as it evolved. During this entire period, I engaged in no active study of Telugu, relying solely on unconscious absorption.

Listening Materials

Telugu films: Iddarammayilatho, Mirchi, Singham, Skati
Radio broadcasts: Telugu Radio: https://www.teluguoneradio.com/
Podcasts: Raw Talks With VK: https://www.youtube.com/@rawtalkswithvk
Youtube Web Series: Chai Bisket: https://www.youtube.com/@ChaibisketTelugu

Results – My Experience After 100 Hours

My 100-hour Telugu Language Priming experiment was completed on July 10, 2025. The results reveal the progression in my auditory perception

Early exposure (2–10 hours): Initially, Telugu sounded alien, even unsettling. At around 2 hours, I had a nightmare so vivid. Telugu felt genuinely scary and creepy. By 10 hours, however, Telugu had ceased to be just a "scary sound" and had transformed into something recognizable as a coherent language. I also noted a surprisingly high presence of English words within Telugu speech, making the stream less intimidating.
Intermediate exposure (22–57 hours): At 22 hours, I specifically observed I could not differentiate between Tamil and Telugu when my friends spoke, highlighting a persistent challenge in auditory discrimination for similar languages. By 57 hours, having listened to two full films without subtitles, I could understand and pick up some common words like "Amma" and "Telsu." A fleeting, temporary feeling of being able to imitate the language's sounds also emerged. The occasional English words within Telugu continued to aid my ability to follow the general flow of the audios.
Completion (100 hours): Telugu no longer sounded like undifferentiated noise. I consistently recognized and mimic repeating phrases purely by their sound. I could anticipate rhythms and intonation shifts.

Validation: Tests with the Help of a Native Speaker

To add an objective layer of validation to my subjective observations, I conducted specific tests with the assistance of a Telugu native speaker from Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

During a 30-minute call, I asked the native speaker (who also spoke Tamil) to converse with her partner in either Telugu or Tamil. I was able to successfully identify when Telugu was being used in real-time conversation. However, when presented with five isolated, random sentences and asked to differentiate between Tamil and Telugu, I was correct only 2 out of 5 times.

Discussion

My 100-hour experiment shows that just listening passively makes a huge difference in how a beginner hears a new language. I went from hearing noise to picking up rhythms, feeling the language's flow, and even mimicking short phrases. This simply proves how amazing your brain is at soaking up sounds without you even trying to understand them. This phase is crucial for developing both pronunciation readiness and robust listening skills, laying a vital foundation long before active speaking or studying commences. This early listening stage is super important for building strong listening skills, long before you start actively speaking or studying.

The challenge in differentiating isolated Telugu and Tamil sentences, despite success in real-time conversation, provides a critical insight. My brain relied on little clues, like the distinct "u" sounds at the end of many Telugu words, to figure out which language it was. But without the whole conversation to give me context and more obvious hints, those small differences were harder to spot. This tells us that even though just listening can give you a strong, gut feeling for a language's sound, truly telling languages apart, especially ones that sound pretty similar, is much easier when you have the whole conversation to give you more robust cues.

Practical Benefits for the Busy Learner

For individuals juggling demanding schedules or facing initial motivation hurdles, Language Priming offers you the chance to:

To start building an ear for your target language today, without the need for immediate study.
To create a familiar sonic landscape, significantly reducing frustration during future active learning.
To develop a more natural accent and rhythm through subconscious mimicry.
To gain confidence from simply hearing and recognizing elements of your target language in real-world contexts.

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Best, Catherine T., and Michael D. Tyler. "Non-Native and Second-Language Speech Perception: Commonalities and Complementarities." Language Experience in Second Language Speech Learning: In Honor of James Emil Flege, edited by Oscar S. Bohn and Murray J. Munro, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2007, pp. 13–34.
Werker, Janet F., and Richard C. Tees. "Cross-Language Speech Perception: Evidence for Perceptual Reorganization during the First Year of Life." Infant Behavior and Development, vol. 7, no. 1, 1984, pp. 49–63, doi:10.1016/S0163-6383(84)80022-3.
Goldinger, Stephen D. "Words and Voices: Perception and Production in an Episodic Lexical Memory System." Talker Variability in Speech Processing, edited by Keith Johnson and John W. Mullennix, Academic Press, 1999, pp. 33–66.
Kuhl, Patricia K. "Early Language Acquisition: Cracking the Speech Code." Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol. 5, no. 11, 2008, pp. 831–843, doi:10.1038/nrn1543.