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What is good enough? | ||
Tags: CEFR Language Levels | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4663 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 57 of 79 15 January 2013 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | ||
Amusingly enough, I had to look up "skirting board," though if you had called it a "baseboard" I would have recognized it. I wonder if that is a US / UK thing. But I agree that having a real native-like vocabulary would mean knowing thousands of words for those kind of commonplace items that may never even come up in a normal conversation, especially if you're not in many domestic situations with native speakers... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6123 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 58 of 79 16 January 2013 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||
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B2:"Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options."
C1:"Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices." So how does this work when they test this? If you make grammar mistakes in your writing, how does that figure in? I need to fish around the internet to see if I can find examples of a C2/C1/B2/B1 essays in Finnish -- just to get a sense of how high of a mountain this is. I'm not sure how this would apply to Japanese -- if you'd have to use a ballpoint pen or could just type on the computer. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 59 of 79 16 January 2013 at 4:20am | IP Logged | ||
For the French DELF B2 exam, I had 60 minutes to write a 200- to 250-word letter to the editor of a magazine expressing an opinion on a subject supplied by the exam. According to my tutor (who used to grade these tests), we were allowed a few mistakes, but preferably nothing systematic. Our vocabulary was expected to show a little variety. Everything was written by hand, and there was no way to go back and revise in any significant way. No dictionary was allowed. For the DALF C1 exam, you would apparently need to write a particular type of essay (a synthèse) summarizing the points in several documents, and giving your opinion. An all-French dictionary is allowed, I think, which suggests that you're expected to get the spelling and accents correct. University entrance requirements are typically B2 (for easier programs that expect to deal with foreign students) or C1 (for programs where you're already expected to be up to speed before arriving). 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6123 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 60 of 79 16 January 2013 at 5:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, that does make it more clear what B2 means. I would like to be able to write correctly in both Finnish and Japanese. So, I think at a low minimum I'd want to get at least to where I could do something like your 250 words in an hour -- I guess I could probably fill a notebook page in about an hour in Japanese now, give or take a few mistakes and awkward passages, so maybe I'm close with this one.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6701 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 61 of 79 16 January 2013 at 10:35am | IP Logged | ||
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250 words would be something like emk's plus cythrynm's latest messages above - the amount of text demanded per hour can't be scary. And if the only new thing contentwise at the C1 level is that you have to summarize a number of existing texts before giving your own opinion then I fail to see why that should make the task much harder. So there must be a difference in the correctness and maybe 'maturity' level demanded of your text. And it can of course be difficult to specify exactly how much more correctness, vocabulary and idiomaticity you expect of a C1 'synthèse' than you would do of a mere B2 essay.
Edited by Iversen on 16 January 2013 at 10:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 62 of 79 16 January 2013 at 11:56am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, not to sound arrogant but I think my livejournal (the link is below my username) is a good example of going from a low B2 to C2.
In my C1-C2 exam, we could not use a dictionary, not even a monolingual one. Some example topics were: -should the public healthcare treat some people differently? (basically should people whose health problems is their "own fault" (smoking, alcohol, overweight) pay for it?) -write a report about a workplace accident, with your ideas on preventing this in the future. I wrote some shit about Matti getting a burn and killing the keyboard due to drinking coffee at the computer.... I think in Finnish it's very important not to make morphological mistakes. Using the wrong case can be odd (and very odd sometimes), but nothing is more horrible than forming a case incorrectly, especially when consonant gradation is involved. this is simply a mistake you shouldn't make above mid-B1. Reading is the key for writing well. I used to get corrections from a Finnish friend, but then she no longer had the time for that. I lost the motivation to write (as most other people on my friend list didn't understand anyway), but started reading a lot. I read LOTR and the series by Eddings and I was soon writing much better :) I could go back to the uncorrected posts and improve them myself. Edited by Serpent on 16 January 2013 at 11:57am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4557 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 63 of 79 16 January 2013 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | ||
Those are EXACTLY the same books that got me into reading when I was in the 3rd grade. In that order, too. This is almost too spooky. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| petteri Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4930 days ago 117 posts - 208 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: German, Spanish | Message 64 of 79 16 January 2013 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | ||
The papers below should illustrate the level of command required to pass CEFR writing exams. The writing samples are at B2, C1 and C2 levels. http://www.scribd.com/doc/56245348/Writing-samples-B2-Level http://www.scribd.com/doc/56245351/Writing-samples-C1-Level http://www.scribd.com/doc/56245354/Writing-samples-C2-Level 9 persons have voted this message useful |
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