Polyglot In Progress Issue #10

Today’s issue of Polyglot In Progress will dive into my progress, thoughts, realizations, issues and some science.

Target Languages

• Proficiency Target - C1: Spanish, French, Portuguese

• Proficiency Target - High B2: Mandarin, German

• Proficiency Target - Conversational: Telugu, Slovene

• Proficiency Target - Lower B2 (Listening Only): Japanese

Current Proficiency Levels

If I should measure my language levels. I based on this data, I would say that:

• Intermediate: French, Spanish

• Beginner: German, Portuguese, Telugu, Japanese

• Not-Even-A Beginner: Mandarin, Slovenian

Activity Overview

Over the month of November, for the first time, I have managed to spend my time in across all 8 languages. Most of my languages are in their very early stages thus major activities remained: Audio Reading, Comprehensible Input (Listening) and Language Priming for Input and then some speaking engagements were had. As usual, most of my efforts were in the French Language.

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Language Priming

For this period I did 56.12 hours of Language Priming. Below the graph shows the change in hours spent over month November.

Priming Stage 1 (<100hrs): The last two remaining languages in this stage of priming are: Slovenian and Mandarin. For Slovenian, I used the RTV SLO TV Slovenija 1, 2 & 3 as my source. So far, I have completed 6.61hrs (4.61hrs of this was achieved this month). Despite earlier experience with the language, I felt a heavy Russian vibe listening to Slovenian programmes. This would make sense as it is a Slavic language. In priming Mandarin to 6.78 hrs, I actively watched series in Chinese with English subtitles on the weekends. Having lived in China for a few months, I knew where to find resources including Youku and Iqiyi. I watched only Business Dramas as I find that the chinese intriguing in how they handle corporate life and succession, also my goal is to do communicate professionally in Mandarin. I have watched series like The Outsider (2023), Master of My own (2022), My Bargain Queen (2021). Strangely, I never thought mandarin was pleasant language. It used to sound coarse to me. Now, it sounds beautiful, partly due to my sudden appreciation of the different tones in Chinese.

Priming Stage 2 (>100hrs): Japanese, Telugu and now, Portuguese and German have passed the 100 hours of passive listening. For the final 20hrs of Portuguese which i completed on the 6th of November, I listened to episodes of Rebelde S2 the Brazilian version of Rebelde Way, a Mexican series for Adolescents that i used to watch growing up. I ended up learning subconsciously some of the words for the theme song (Rebelde Para Sempre) and even managed to hear pieces of conversations from time to time. For German, I honed in on a playlist by ZDFheute Nachrichten Youtube channel and listened to them for the final 18hrs completed on November 11. While i currently don’t recall remembering much except at times words would sound English-like so i would notice them. Telugu also saw some priming (+5.2hrs) as I started watching movies in Telugu (with english subs) on the weekends. So far, I have seen 2 comedy drama series with my current favourite being Samajavaragamana.

Priming Stage 3 (Fully Primed): Only French and Spanish are full primed as there is virtually no audio I am unable to comprehend at a very high level

Note: Even though Japanese has been primed over years of listening to anime. It cannot fall in stage 3 of being fully primed as it is not a language in which I can understand 90% of the spoken language while being focused elsewhere.

Comprehensible Input (Listening)

I did 58.04 hours of CI Listening for November.

French : In working on my comprehensions skills, I aimed to start finding content from other parts of the Francophone world. I selected one series from France, Burkina Faso and Canada. I watched 39 episodes of Plus Belle La Vie (PBLV), 3 episodes of Bienvenue à KIKIDÉNI and 4 episodes of Les Parent respectively. I immediately realized vast difference between the 3. Having watched so many episodes (800+) of PBLV, listening feels normal. I can handle the accents and expressions with minor difficulties. The series from Burkina Faso (Bienvenue à KIKIDÉNI), had much clearer pronunciation despite distinct accent difference. Les Parents (Seriés Québécoise) presented a whole different set of challenges. It felt like my comprehension fell back to the 70% or less! I noticed how long my brain took to interpret the accent. Visual clues and subtitles played a huge role in my comprehension of Quebec French. I also notice a high influx of English terms used and even English phrasing of French Sentences. I completed 17.34 hours this month of Input.

Spanish: In this same period, I completed 42 episodes (28 hours) Al Fondo Hay Sitio, (I am now at Ep. 291). I think that these episodes have become super easy to follow as my brain is accustomed to the characters. Thus, I am thinking to change series when I get to 300hrs. I appreciate this series because it provides expressions and vocabulary for daily and familial interactions. At the break of 300 hours mark (only 39 hours left), I intend to re-engage in speaking sessions (probably with my favourite Venezuelan Bianca González).

Portuguese: Input has restarted with achieving 4.6 hours of input in Portuguese. I watched probably over 40 videos of Speaking Brazilian Language School Youtube channel since they are mainly between 8 to 13 mins long. I found that I could clearly understand 80%-90% of a conversation if the speech is slowed, as Virginia does in her videos. She also ensures to enunciate her words. Also the subtitles helped to increase my comprehension if new words appeared or false friends between Portuguese-Spanish or Portuguese-English arose. Thus I felt that reading the subs in Portuguese, and English, activated my Spanish and English brains in a weird way that i cannot explain yet. Overall, I have now gotten about 35 hours of CI input.

German: Input has also restarted using Easy German Youtube channel. I have done about 42 videos (5.6 hours) from their German A1 playlist. I found that reading the subtitles while listening to Langsames Deutsch (Slow German), helps me to quickly decode the language. I could visibly see my comprehension increase each day despite not starting any grammar studies yet. I also see evidence of English and French terms in German. CI Input for German is at 24 hours.

Audio-Reading

Proper pronunciation in a foreign language is important as our aim is naturally to be understood. I read a piece from Lisa talking her experience moving to France and her Bad Pronunciation. Audio-Reading is a method I use to train pronunciation.

French: I have completed 11.16hours of Audio-Reading in November, (77hours in total). I still hear so many words that words that I don’t pronounce properly. Sometimes it’s even words that I know and heard before many times but for some reason by brain has decided that the correct pronunciation has not been acquired. Mainly the French “u” and the nasal vowels are the most problematic. Sometimes I even pronounce my “o” incorrectly! And these are just the sounds I can clearly hear a difference in. My current goal is to ensure that my subvocalization has the correct pronunciation even if I cant produce the correct sounds myself yet. I plan to do get to 100 hours of Audio Reading by the end of the Year, and then assess the difference.

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Speaking

French : While 8 hours of speaking was completed this month. I have not seen any noticeable leap in Speaking ability. I am able to maneuver through tough conversations with fewer stuttering or pausing. I am still conscious about my bad pronunciation, noun genders errors and my annoyance with past tense. Recently, I was told that I am not using the correct tense because I pronounced « ais » as « é » and not « è ». However, in production, I fail to see the big difference in sound when saying certain words.

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Miscellaneous & Other Observations

Interestingly, I was listening TV Slovenija 3, and I started noticing persons speaking in French. When I checked it out, it was a French dubbed movie with Slovenian subtitles playing. After seeing this and other instances in my other languages, I have come to the conclusion that French and English are the two most Invasive and Intrusive Languages in this world.

German: With Easy German, I am slowly understanding how babies are able to replicate an accent so well. While listening to the speaker for a few hours, her voice is now stuck in my mind whenever I think about German words, her Intonation and all. Interestingly, I feel this strange urge to violently absorb more German input, I see more and more German content popping up on my Youtube feed. (🇮🇹 Katarzyna Ciszewska and Chiara Languagefreak I hope you ladies aren’t slacking off)

Mandarin: Research and past experience with Mandarin told me that I need to work on pronunciation Chinese tones before I am ready to learn the language. So I found a Pinyin chart that I will use over 3-4 months to work on my ability to recognize and producing the 4 tones in Chinese while I do Language Priming in Parallel. The method is simple, listen and repeat two line of Pinyin each day. So far, I have covered 15/38 rows. After completing the rows, I’ll do by column to not be too bored. I have found that although I can discriminate between the four tones, i do have issues telling the difference in the wild amongst the 1st tone, 2nd tone and neutral tone. Also, there are a few consonants that carry a different sound than in English so these will have to be acquired over time. I will be taking advantage of The Mandarin Flow eventually to aid my learning.

French: Despite learning this language for almost 2 years, I still feel too many issues on language production (mostly oral) as well as I still struggle with a few concepts. Pronunciation, noun genders, Past tenses, and the Pronouns y and en (my least favorite in French) are major problems. It feels like a never ending battle to fix pronunciation errors which serves as a constant reminder why learning pronunciation is essential at the very beginning even before starting to speaking.

On another note, I’ve been considering giving up French series, even though I love them, especially sitcoms like Les filles d’à côté, Hélène et Les garçons, and Les Années Fac amongst so many others and opting for a non-visual solution…France Culture Radio. France culture has a plethora of interesting interviews and topics that are aimed at advanced level speakers. My only concern is that I might lose everyday, informal vocabulary and end up keeping mostly formal language.

Telugu: Despite not having done a lot work on Telugu since recently, I do feel a great deal of frustration when it comes to this language. I feel like due to my illiteracy in this language, I am blocked from making any satisfactory progress. Thus, I restarted learning the characters in Telugu following this Youtube video as well as a page on Polyglot Club I found. I treat the Telugu script (similarly with the Japanese and Chinese Scripts) as Calligraphy practice which is somehow therapeutic. I have written the 16 vowels in the Telugu script so far.

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Cognitive and Psycholinguistics Analysis

Learning across eight languages reveals recurring patterns in how the brain processes speech. Several mechanisms stood out this month:

1. Priming Builds Neural Sensitivity
Early exposure trains the brain to treat unfamiliar sounds as meaningful instead of noise. During this stage, phonetic categories, rhythm patterns, and frequency expectations begin forming. This shift explains why Slovenian suddenly resembled Russian or why Mandarin moved from sounding harsh to sounding pleasant: the auditory cortex is reorganizing itself around new sound structures.

2. Comprehension Depends on Processing Speed
Understanding difficult accents (like Quebec) is often a matter of timing. Psycholinguistic research shows that comprehension relies heavily on real-time processing of sound sequences. When speech is rapid, unfamiliar, or uses different prosody, processing speed may fall behind the incoming signal, making even known words temporarily inaccessible. Visual cues and subtitles simply widen the interpretation window long enough for meaning to settle.

3. Accent Echoing Through Phonetic Entrainment
Repeated exposure to a single voice creates a “default accent template” in the mind. This phenomenon, known as phonetic entrainment, is the same mechanism that helps children acquire accents naturally. When most German input comes from one speaker, that speaker’s rhythm and intonation become the internal reference point for German as a whole.

4. Cross-Language Activation and Interference
Multilingual brains activate multiple languages at once. Hearing or reading a word triggers related vocabulary and structures across all known languages. This parallel activation can cause interference, especially between closely related languages—but it also accelerates learning by allowing the brain to draw on existing linguistic networks when decoding new material.

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My Thoughts

I have realized that, in a way, a secretly envy people who have already acquired their 8-10 languages and are now living in them. This is something I would love to be able to do as soon as possible. I love languages, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life actively learning them. I’d rather to spend the rest of life refining them. Therefore a good foundation is important.

This also led me to the question. Do persons actually like going through the process of learning a language for all their lives? Language learning is long and tedious. I don’t think my interest expands that far.

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Goals

French: After, completing 100hrs of Audio-Reading (end of December). French will be moved into the refinement stage where most of my time will be spent on Speaking, Writing, Mass Sentence w/Anki…also my listening sessions will only be 30 mins of France Culture which I will be shadowing concurrently. For the entire month December i will work on pronunciation as much as possible as I am bothered by this. In terms of reading, I would like to take up the challenge by Ru to Read for 365 days

Spanish: The goal is to start speaking at 300hrs of input in Spanish. I had held back on speaking due to a very bad accent many years back. I suspect that I will hit 300hrs by February. However, before then, redo a pronunciation course for a month and an additional 50 hours of Audio-Reading to train my pronunciation (and some shadowing) to ultimately ensure my speech is clear.

Portuguese & German: These will remain in comprehensible input mode for most of 2026 as think I could get to 300hrs by the end of next year in each. Due to the fact that German is different from the Romance Languages, I will work towards at least 120 days of level appropriate Copywork and weekend journaling. Portuguese, on the other hand will receive pronunciation practice before any form of unassisted reading.

Telugu: My plan for this involves mastering the alphabet and their sounds in order to start reading in the language to slowly acquire vocabulary. I will also continue my daily Anki cards in Telugu. I would like to start language exchanges sometimes in mid-year 2026.

Mandarin & Slovene: These languages will continued to be primed throughout the year as I have no expectation to do anything else in these languages. I believe that by the end of the year, both languages will achieve 100 hours of priming.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day!

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You can see some of my older articles here.

Testing The Limits Of Your Language

The Hidden Barrier in Language Learning