Notes to self about progress and level of understanding:
Chinese: 595 (1142) hours
French: 8.5 hours
Spanish: 8.5 hours
Japanese: 8 hours
Peppa pig appears to be Level 4 understanding on the Dreaming Spanish roadmap. Based on what people say they understand, many people say at Level 4 they understand Peppa Pig. Level 4 is 300 hours for a language similar to ones people know. Or 600 hours for a language less like ones you know.
Chinese peppa pig: I understand by only listening, very easy. This feels as easy as listening to English. I am almost Level 5 on the Dreaming Spanish Roadmap doubled for Mandarin. So it makes sense this would be easy, and now regular dubbed cartoons for kids to teens and some easier shows for adults (like iPartment) are easy to doable.
French peppa pig: I understand if I look at the video. I do not recognize all words if I listen without looking (like voiture I did not realize was car until I looked), but I can understand enough from only listening to know the main idea of what's going on. To catch all the details, I need to look at the video to see what's going on. So from this result... maybe I am in the middle of Level 4, for French?
Spanish peppa pig: i can follow some phrases without looking, while only listening like "hello everyone, men/people (hermanos), a baby is coming" "a boy or girl, both" and "very interesting." However I didn't know the word for bird, until I looked at the video. I need to look at the video to understand the main idea of most sentences. I can understand the overall main idea if I look at the video, but many words/details that don't have a visual to hint at them I am perplexed by. Mentally this feels harder than listening to French, and much harder than listening to Chinese. I need to focus more intently to the Spanish. So maybe I am at the end of Level 3 in terms of what I understand? This is close to what I was guessing the content I can understand is - anything suggested for Level 3. So Beginner Dreaming Spanish videos, some Intermediate videos, some Spanish Boost Gaming (except the advanced videos - although I understand them enough for them to be fun for me).
Japanese peppa pig: this one is for fun, to check. If I look at the video, I think I understand this one as well as the Spanish one, possibly a bit more. Since I recognize the conjugations of words in Japanese, and I have no idea what the different conjugation endings in Spanish mean. If I don't look, only listening I just catch phrases. "Want to eat" "what?" "Lunch" "strawberry cake" "help me" "quickly." I need to look at what's going on to follow what they're saying fully. I think... I am vaguely familiar with ~4000 Japanese words, from many study activities, and so if I kept watching things I could turn those words from vaguely familiar to quickly-understood and then I would no longer need visuals to give me a hint about what many of those words mean. So I think I have the vocabulary to understand Peppa pig somewhere in my head (peppa pig only has around 5000 unique words), I just would need to watch and listen more. I am vaguely familiar with more Japanese words, in terms of words I studied at some point, than Spanish words. So based on this test, I would imagine I'd get to the point of quickly-understood when listening faster with Japanese than Spanish (not factoring in that Spanish might be easier to pick up/internalize for an English speaker). I have a way stronger internalized model of Japanese grammar, from all those years studying and reviewing and refreshing lol. Again I wonder how things would go if I just... watched the lets plays I have saved, or played the video games I have...
So based on these I'd say:
Mandarin - almost Level 5, feels like Level 5.
French - solid Level 4 listening skills. Still need visuals to understand some words. I think with some cartoon and show watching, to connect words I can read to listening while seeing visuals, my French listening might improve decently fast. I feel my French could catch up to where my Chinese level of understanding is, if I watched more French stuff.
Spanish - somewhere in Level 3. I still need to learn some basic words and grammar to understand some things without visuals. I am fully lacking some basic words. I have to learn many things brand new. Level 3 recommended materials and under will probably be most useful for improving.
Japanese - somewhere in Level 3 maybe toward the end, as the vocabulary is there inside my head somewhere. Like with French, I feel watching more visual stuff would rapidly improve the words I can recognize when only listening.
Some thoughts: studying reading first, like I've always done, seems to mean the phase where I am "confused about grammar when trying to understand something" happens while I'm learning to read. As for French, Chinese, and Japanese, I studied them through reading first (Japanese the least though) and grammar doesn't confuse me when listening. I can't replicate correct grammar when speaking or writing, but I don't have to puzzle out what they mean by X grammar when listening. I just 'get' it. I do remember the stage in Japanese when I was kind of reasing, kind of listening, and I WAS constantly confused by grammar and word order whenever I listened or read.
Then eventually one day it just clicked and I stopped having to intensively think about each sentence. I remember that stage in Chinese and I was mainly reading, so one day the grammar just "was understood" in reading and shows (Chinese captions I'd read) and I didn't need to intensively puzzle out every sentence and word order. That stage also happened in reading for French - one day 1-2 years in, I just stopped having to intensively think about grammar as I read. That phase is really frustrating, as its easy to get overwhelmed by every sentence. I have not had to go through it a second time when listening to Chinese or French. Even Japanese it only comes to mind once in a while, during more complex sentences. With Spanish, the grammar is constantly tripping me up - every single verb slows my understanding and makes me intensely puzzled. Lots of longer sentences confuse me. It is like night and day, how much similar things just Don't trip me up in French. My brain already did the work of puzzling over the word order and grammar, and now at listening speed (like shows or audiobooks) its ONLY words I don't recognize that trip me up - and I usually recognize them as words I've read after a while.
I liked the experience of picking up grammar in reading. If I have to reflect lol. It was an exhausting endeavor sure, but reading is as slow as I need it to be. Listening is so fast, so any confusion prevents me from understanding other parts I would otherwise have understood. So I guess if you learned to read, you could look forward to not having to adjust to the grammar a second time.
