AI Overview

Language Log Update #4: Current Speaking Progress in My Four Main Languages (Multilingual Language Learning Journey with Phrasing.app)

This episode is a raw, spoken-language demonstration of the podcaster's current proficiency across four languages(French, Italian, Dutch/Netherlands, and Portuguese), shifting away from English narration to showcase real-time speaking ability, comprehension gaps, and ongoing improvement using spaced repetition reviews (via Phrasing.app and likely Anki-style methods).

• Introduction (00:00–00:00:45)
  Explains format change: pure language speaking to track progression over time; non-English content may be hard to follow; no detailed timestamps yet.

• French (Tier 2 language, strongest active one) (00:00:45–00:05:30)

  • First language studied seriously; multiple improvement cycles, including time in France. 

  • Strong production and rules/vocabulary knowledge, but struggles with comprehension, accents, slang, idioms, and fast native speech. 

  • Recent increase in Phrasing.app reviews (tier 2/long-term cards) to boost vocabulary, idioms, expressions, and overall fluency. 

  • Goal: reach a "presse" (press/media) level; sees natural improvement potential.

• Italian (Tier 3–4 language) (00:05:50–00:09:30)

  • Studied alongside French; easier due to Romance language similarity, but code-switching/mixing occurs. 

  • Strong passive comprehension (understands AI/ML videos, research papers, opinions mostly). 

  • Weaker active production: slower, less accurate speaking compared to French. 

  • Interesting receptive-productive gap; can understand more than speak.

• Dutch (Netherlands) (Tier 4 language) (00:09:30–00:15:00)

  • Learned enthusiastically in Amsterdam; initial progress, but burnout, pandemic, and limited immersion stalled it. 

  • Some interference/mixing with French/Italian; low daily reviews (1–5 cards). 

  • Potential for revival via more targeted reviews/videos; currently weakest active use among the main four.

• Portuguese (Brazilian/Portugal variant, Tier 4 language) (00:15:30–00:18:30)

  • Started years ago (Brazilian focus), paused for long time, recently restarted with more cards. 

  • Very rusty: brain "freezes," few words come to mind; not claiming any speaking ability yet. 

  • Honest depiction of nonlinear progress—some days fluent-feeling, others near-zero recall.

• Closing Reflections & Future Plans (00:18:00–00:20:09)

  • 20-minute update feels right; honest (even if "terrible") portrayal of current state. 

  • Nonlinear language learning reality: fluency fluctuates wildly day-to-day. 

  • Tier summary: French (tier 2), Italian (tier 3–4), Dutch & Portuguese (tier 4, minimal daily reviews). 

  • Next update: smaller/experimental languages (Maltese, Lithuanian, Estonian, Welsh, Sanskrit, Cantonese, Mandarin, Greek). 

  • Ends with "Ciao."

Optimized keywords: multilingual language learning, French progress, Italian comprehension vs production, Dutch burnout recovery, Portuguese restart, spaced repetition language apps, Phrasing.app updates, polyglot speaking demo.

AI Transcript

[00:00:01] Okay, so this is the second update, language log update and podcast format. This one is going to be a little bit different in that it's more me just speaking languages. It's going to be going over the four languages that either I can or at one point could speak in my life. So it's not going to be in English, so it might not be followable. And I'm not at the point where I'm putting timestamps on these yet.

[00:00:26] But the goal here is to show the progression in these languages over time. And so this is just a little recording of how my languages are now. And so we'll start avec le français, mais non, je suis en France et aussi c'est la langue qui j'ai fait le plus review on Phrasing.

[00:01:03] Français était le premier. J'ai fait avec moi français en deux fois, trois fois de améliorer mon français, avant une fois en France et si je dois faire quelque chose je peux le faire si je dois dire. Je peux pas une bonne expérience pour moi ou l'autre personne.

[00:01:45] Mais je vous le français langue, un niveau de la presse ou dans les États-Unis, et je pense qu'il était on par la française. Les français. Alors, c'est pas la française. Mais j'ai tous les règles. Je beaucoup de vocabulaire. C'est une langue.

[00:02:23] Mais quand les autres, il utilise les accents et les mots, construction... Ah! Vous n'êtes pas après un grand grand grand grand problème avec moi français et le vocabulaire. Alors je pense à problem. The problem is mon comprehension. Je peux pas assez je peux produire.

[00:03:03] Uh, that was not well pronounced. En français difficile pour trouver un peu plus bas et je ne sais pas comme des Français. Mais quand prendre comprehension et terrible, et un plupart des la et un vocabulaire. Alors je pense qu'il mon français et à une pointe ideal pour améliorer avec Phrasing pour tous les choses et les choses sont la revue pour moi par les règles, pour apprendre les idioms et les expressions et aussi améliorer mon vocabulaire.

[00:04:04] Alors il y a un mois ou du moi, j'ai ajouté plus revue du français dans mon jour et maintenant, je suis beaucoup de français pour beaucoup peut-être tier two, tier du long et le pas assez a Japan. They are rubbish. Difficile de la langue de la taille. Mais pour moi, je pense je dois le seigneur et pas de la femme et je vous en avec la Mort, la femme.

[00:05:04] Mais c'est pas assez temps avec les français plus frequent, frequent. As for les résultats ou mais avec cette niveau du religion, améliorer naturellement ces français.

[00:05:50] Um let's see. Il secondo lingua che voglio presentare e italiano e Italiano. L'altro lingua che oh eh preso no. Dimenticato parole e per apprendre aprendo.

[00:06:26] For alterna tra multilingual ma per io non e il più difficile con francese e italiano. Ci sono lingua che ho studiato al mesmo tempo. Allora non un gran problema per parlare italiano e francese nel mesmo conversazione uh italiano, secondo lingua che.

[00:07:25] E a molto straniero perché non posso parlato molto bene. Non posso parlare rapido correttamente e più difficile per io per parlare in italiano che francese ma quando guardo video in italiano posso capire molto. Posso Guido il video in Italiano the artificial intelligence and machine learning and totally quasi non posso capire tutto day and I are che persona I opinioni non posso capire la pignone esattamente ma posso kopperl il sujeto e il papier.

[00:08:31] The research paper and non interessante conosco che non capire tutto ma si e interessante e ma non posso parlare italiano molto bene e allora uh come posso capire italiano più francese. Ma posso parlare di francese e più che italiano um e qualcosa uh interessanti per io non so perché.

[00:09:03] It is what it is.

[00:09:15] I think that na Italian again in Netherlands. Now Netherlands is the kind of base breaker. It can Netherlands feel better in France? It can help me understand. I can film a video for son. Yeah, come on Netherlands uh France in itself the dark space.

[00:10:00] This for my uh it kept the apart. Cleared uh murdered by a by a fifteen year yards apart. And yeah, for French or Italian then it's a hell in the Netherlands it is the online uh and in an era and of the mood in the city. And for me it is more crap France and Italians and that was a problem.

[00:10:50] It was a family and then Netherlands fifteen years later and now and then have become a problem with the crossover the mixing up between them. And yeah I think that my Netherlands videos that needs the need videos maybe podcast design need the best showing from Netherlands.

[00:11:21] I think that in Netherlands, France and from France is here. And it's a kind of I can deal with it a little bit in Netherlands the douster that the France bring but yeah.

[00:11:48] Netherlands was in Amsterdam in Amsterdam and it was enthusiast Netherlands first uh Netherlands lira in my yard um and in my inferior I kept it verbetert and verbetert and I thought okay yeah I can new Netherlands breaker. That is a new I can eat it.

[00:12:16] Ma in Netherlands in Amsterdam Netherlands is a coffee shop or cafe? Yeah coffee. Oh sorry I don't speak Dutch and oh yeah it's neat. And everyone outside. Yeah that in combination with the pandemic. Netherlands.

[00:13:17] And yeah here and here and it was outside the Netherlands but it was born in Amsterdam in Amsterdam. Yeah no I think I think a burnt out sign with Netherlands for my city so framed it. So exciting.

[00:13:31] Exciting is always a weird word to translate into other languages. Whenever that pops into my head it always trips me up. So very interesting my Netherlands. I've been scared of a kind of unchanged with the new reviews due to that Phrasing. That was a great sentence advantage is mine.

[00:13:59] Uh how would you say fourth tier? Here to hear. Nouveau Marvel is a fourth tier language of mine. Does he do reviews? Ane of ane thoughts? Five uh cards per dag. So fail Mar Netherlands.

[00:14:30] Powder and screen for over three hours or three hours. Um what is the next input? Um man uh if Netherlands if a cool effect of the Netherlands then can I get more interest of reviews done um of videos of what it is.

[00:15:09] That I think that I kind of need for yeah just a hail hail reviews.

[00:15:23] And that was that uh let's see. La ultima lingua? No uh Ultima um Portuguese. Um and uh Portuguese do Portugal. Entao como aprender Portuguese do Brazil uh muito any no.

[00:16:03] Uh I want to say I started learning Brazilian Portuguese a couple of years ago um and um now I am learning Portuguese from Brazil um todo por um Portuguese um aprender soap or uh fish mesa um yeah well uh and no no fico muito uh freezing corn? No.

[00:17:08] Um see uh como se utiliza uh freezing ma uh for Portuguese ma um I want to say but I stopped um for a long time and I only just recently started adding more Portuguese cards as well um wow yeah.

[00:17:44] I don't know if Portuguese is actually this bad at the moment which is entirely believable um or if it's just out coming after all the other languages. But no no Portuguese words are coming to my head. Sometimes I can say a couple things in Portuguese um I've definitely it's not a language I claim to speak um but uh huh yeah now my brain is just freezing up.

[00:18:12] I think that's enough languages and enough updates for one day. Um I guess I'm gonna have to work a little bit on Portuguese for next time so I can actually that was a terrible update or maybe that's a great update it's an honest honest depiction of where my Portuguese is.

[00:18:23] Uh one of the weird things about learning languages is uh you know some days you are so fluent and everything makes so much sense and then the next day you can't say a single sentence um and it's such a nonlinear path of progress um but uh that's no excuse it's not like my Portuguese is any good.

[00:18:45] Um but I do think that just by doing some some reviews with enough time I'll just uh relearn it by osmosis not necessarily to fluent level but um at least to be able to explain these basic basic concepts.

[00:19:02] All right that's the update how to do twenty minutes that seems to be about um where I'm landing at. So that was the update for these languages again French is probably a tier two language and uh Italian is probably a tier three language maybe a tier four I'm not sure.

[00:19:18] Um and then Dutch and Portuguese are both tier four languages so I'm only doing like one to five reviews with them per day uh the tier four ones um yeah I'll see how they progress.

[00:19:28] The next update will probably just be about all of the little languages um these are ones that are not uh I'm not doing a bunch of and I have no experience with so it's very hard to update on them probably just be me gushing about some of the linguistic features some of these languages Maltese and Lithuanian and Estonian and Welsh and Sanskrit uh and Cantonese and Mandarin um yeah I guess those aren't all smaller languages but uh those are those are my and Greek as well Greek has been a very uh wild ride um these past couple of months.

[00:20:05] But all of that in the next update. Uh ciao.