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What is good enough? | ||
Tags: CEFR Language Levels | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Laurae Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 5030 days ago 51 posts - 67 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Dutch | Message 17 of 79 22 December 2012 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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For German, I must achieve a C2 standard, for as you have described your relationship with Spanish, German is 'part of who I am'. I love it. I'm a B2/early C1 standard now, and I don't mind how long it takes for me to achieve the C2, but I will achieve it, and sit the exam eventually.
For Italian, I'd be happy with a C1 standard, though I enjoy it so much that I might want to push that bit further in the future. With French, I am hopeless, so if I ever achieve a B2 I will be very happy! Russian? I'm not sure, I don't feel I will ever have a lot of opportunity to learn it, so a B2 is the aim - in 2 or 3 years! Irish - I will just keep chipping away. Edited by Laurae on 22 December 2012 at 8:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5373 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 18 of 79 22 December 2012 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Although I wouldn't even mention an A2 language, I'd start saying I speak a language when I reach a B1-B2
conversational level. Whether that's satisfactory or not will depend on my goals for that specific language and the way I use it; what is satisfactory at one point may no longer be so at another. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5326 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 19 of 79 22 December 2012 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You lost me. Why would me assessing myself as B1 have any influence on how you assess yourself? :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4592 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 20 of 79 22 December 2012 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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although I quite resemble solfrid cristins initial comment, 19, still for all intents and purposes a basic user of any
foreign language I can use, however, I have no doubt I have the discipline to continue learning my languages, ... while a so called A2 polyglot is by no means a polyglot at all, its a step along the way, and my initial goal... after which I will push to more advanced things, which I can already feel my japanese going into a more advanced style of learning... ive been spending less time on Teach Yourself and Pimsleur japanese, and Im going to japanese websites, reading authentic material regardless of my ability to understand it, and skipping the subtitles on whatever I watch [and to my delightful surprise, I can understand more than I expected], and I have friends in japan whom I can frequently email, and converse with on Skype :D so yes, I am scratching the surface so far, Im the part of the Iceberg that could be seen from the titanic, but im not stopping... so to answer your question, right now ive only scratched the surface of japanese, and Im still not even on the map with Spanish, but for both of those plus mandarin I will not be satisfied until I reach at least a C1 in those, and I will be ecstatic if I can go even farther... but I also have interests in other languages [but for lesser reasons] like thai where I would be quite satisfied with an A2 ability 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 21 of 79 22 December 2012 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5326 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 22 of 79 23 December 2012 at 1:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I always sound like I know more than I actually do, which sometimes gets me into trouble. Many years ago I was given a scholarship to The University of Warsaw. We were given a placement test, and although I knew next to no Polish, since all I had had were some evening classes, I managed to get myself into a class with people who had studied Polish in German universities for four years, or who were half Polish, or had lived in Poland. Now obviously, that went down the drains, since although I had done really well at the placement test, I did not know 10% of what the other guys did. So trust me, if I say I am a B1, I am a B1, but that does not mean that someone who has the impression that I know a lot, is not B2. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6431 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 23 of 79 23 December 2012 at 1:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Good enough really depends on the language. For now, my Romanian is 'good enough' - I'd be hard-pressed to say hello, but can get the gist of the written form more often than not when I encounter it. My Esperanto is C1 on a good day, and is nowhere near as good as I'd like it to be - and while I'd be over the moon today if my Japanese were as good as my Esperanto currently is, I wouldn't be content with leaving it there either.
As I think the other posts in this thread demonstrate, 'good enough' has very little to do with a particular level, and a lot to do with a person's attitudes towards languages in general, and for some people, specific languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5548 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 24 of 79 23 December 2012 at 4:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The phrase "good enough" contains two highly relative qualifiers: "good" and "enough", and perhaps herein lies the complexity of the question...
If I take just a broad skill set, for example, active speaking and writing (not disregarding the importance of other skills of course), I can say that being able to communicate anything at all through another language always feels like a mini-miracle for me. Of course it largely depends on other aspects, like the situation, content of the dialogue, environment, and audience as to whether the other parties feel this is a "good" thing too. On the other hand, as someone always keen to dive into new languages and cultures or deepen my knowledge of them, I'm always thirsty for so much more in the learning process. So I can't quite convince myself that any skill level will ever feel like "enough", although perhaps those struggling with listening to my 2-year-old toddler attempts at Russian would quickly agree when enough's enough. ;) Therefore I prefer to think in terms of how comfortable both I and my conversation partner feel during a dialogue (at least with respect to my language skills or lack of them), and use this as a rough guideline. Progressing beyond wild grimaces and scratching heads to a consistent and tolerable mild discomfort level depends on so many factors that it's hard to say how this aligns with the CEFR scale, but I notice that dialogue at least becomes much easier around B1+ to B2 level for both parties. So maybe this is a "good starting place"? Edited by Teango on 23 December 2012 at 6:18am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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