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How to bring up English from B2 to C1 ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 25 of 66 12 September 2014 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I had time only for the blue book "English Grammar in Use" before taking the exam. And it was sufficient.
Yes, I agree using the game helps only if it's something you enjoy doing. I just used it as an example of an "alternative path" to C1 that is not a torture. You seem to be doing lots of correct steps but you seem to have forgotten to leave your comfort zone. You've got a few favourite genres, just as everyone else, but you should get to others as well. P.S. Cavesa is a woman :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Enrico Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 3744 days ago 162 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Italian, Spanish, French | Message 26 of 66 12 September 2014 at 10:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you Napoleon.
I've understood where I have to move from now. I've watched 3 episodes of a series today, it was fun. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Enrico Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 3744 days ago 162 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Italian, Spanish, French | Message 27 of 66 12 September 2014 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is a very good book, I know about it and I have one, I have read about a half of it about a year ago. It is a good information that it is enough for CAE.
Not quite so, I just have a lot of useful video files to watch for my work and for things I would like to become my work/hobby. It is not a question of comfort zone, I just need it and this information is very interesting for me. But of course I also need to improve my English so I have to add something for that, TV series for example. Edited by Enrico on 12 September 2014 at 11:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 28 of 66 12 September 2014 at 11:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you don't want to read novels you can try non-fiction/popular science.
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| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4098 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 29 of 66 13 September 2014 at 8:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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Enrico, I didn't feel that I had the time for or interest in fiction either. I didn't own a TV, I had a list of skills and knowledge I want to acquire that goes on for miles, and I read extensively in those areas. I'll admit that I was even a little bit proud to be able to say (however rarely it came up) that I read 70 books for pleasure per year (much more counting work), but I hadn't touched a novel in more than half a decade.
I had to change that tune to improve my French, though. That doesn't mean that I don't still read non-fiction in French or watch French non-fiction. In fact those are still my main sources of French. I watch more history and culture programming and TED talks in French than TV series, since there are so few that I enjoy enough to buy them (still no TV). I read more specialised blogs, fora, news, and educational material in French than I read fiction. But, I try to work through two novels per month or so, which has proven incredibly useful for my vocabulary. Watching TV series has been less useful for vocabulary, but it has ingrained entire phrases in my head and is teaching me speaking strategies. Not to mention, it's improving my listening comprehension in a way TED talks, documentaries and the news absolutely is not. There's a reason I loved watching non-fiction TV series on online replay when I just got started improving my school French: they speak mostly slow, clear, Academy French... the kind that makes my A2ish level mother, 40 years after studying French, happy because she can pick out the main points even though she doesn't often understand when real life people speak French to her. Don't fear the novel! There's a lot to be learned from a novel and from experiencing something from the eyes of someone else. You're improving your English, which means the world is at your feet. You have more to choose from than anyone else. Pick things that pique your interest — don't compromise on that because it'll put you off reading fiction — but don't be afraid to let your interest take you in an odd direction. I don't normally like crime novels, but one of the first novels I read in French was a crime novel... because it was set mostly among the Saami and written by a Frenchman in Sweden. I'm still not a huge fan of crime fiction, but I loved seeing Scandinavia and Scandinavians from a different perspective. 10 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 30 of 66 13 September 2014 at 10:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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I totally agree with eyðimörk and couldn't have said it better.
Documentaries, ted talks and such sources still leave a huge gap between the required level for understanding and the level needed to understand natives in situ. Tv series and movies are a way to bridge that. You can choose, for exemple, historical series, if you find those to be more interesting. Movies with fascinating, educational setting, there is no shortage of those. The same applies to novels. There is so much you can learn from a well chosen novel. There are authors who take novel just as a support structure for their philosophical, historical, sociological and other thoughts (Fowles, Eco and many others), there are "normal" authors who just teach accidentally about their times and culture, there is a lot of snippets of knowledge one can gain from crime novels and such because fiction is not necessarily stupid. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 31 of 66 14 September 2014 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with all the advice given, but "extensive reading" in this case doesn't mean reading across a broad range of materials. It's the opposite to "intensive reading", which is what you do when you study a text carefully with a dictionary in hand, making sure you understand every word and phrase along the way. The idea of extensive reading is to find books that you enjoy and that are at more or less at your level and that you can read and enjoy without a dictionary. What is the appropriate level? Different people come up with different metrics, but if you understand about 95%-98% of the words on a text (98% being a lot easier) then you can extensively read. The five-finger rule is quite handy: Open the page of a book you are thinking of reading and count on your fingers the number of words you don't know. If there are more than five, the book is probably too difficult for extensive reading and pick another. I use an e-reader with pop-up dictionary and generally intensively read, but I can see a lot of advantages with extensive reading. I just haven't found enough novels I enjoy at this level. I'm also about B2 for my L2 - so it might be a good idea even at B2 to purchase a cheap Kindle (50 euros) and try out ebooks. I would add that I have largely gone from A1 to B2 German by extensive reading/listening. I like the method a lot, but it's slower than some people credit. I am now at +17000 book pages and +550 films in German and I would regard myself as solid B2 for comprehension. I am nowhere near that for writing, which I haven't practiced, and my speaking is still annoyingly bad (though I can generally communicate). To get to solid C1 for comprehension I have the feeling I would need to read at least 30000-50000 pages and watch +1000 films. To put that into some sort of perspective, I think it's quite doable to read about 10,000-15,000 pages a year, and watch 300-400 movies. So for me A0-C1 German comprehension seems to be about 3-4 years of consistent work. Edited by patrickwilken on 19 September 2014 at 8:41pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Enrico Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 3744 days ago 162 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Italian, Spanish, French | Message 32 of 66 14 September 2014 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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patrickwilken, thank you for the update.
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