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Is C2 possible without a tutor ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 97 of 144 19 December 2014 at 4:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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And how many of them can pass for native speakers in writing despite that.
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| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4085 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 98 of 144 19 December 2014 at 5:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
How many native speakers would pass the C1 exam? "express yourself clearly and logically in essays on complex issues" Bwa ha ha. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 99 of 144 19 December 2014 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
To anyone studying German and contemplating a C-level test, these descriptions must be somewhat discouraging. Notice how simple the C2 description is. It is all of C1 and more: it seems to say that you have to know everything. All this is daunting, but I believe that it is not as bad as it looks. I'm not saying that it's easy. I'm saying that it's not impossibly difficult. There is a certain logic and reasoning behind these tests that we have to understand and interpret. First of all, "understand everything in German that you read and hear effortlessly" does not really mean absolutely everything. You are not expected to be able to pick up a specialized technical journal and breeze through it as if you were reading a book of fairy tales. The examiners are language specialists; they are not mathematicians, philosophers, geologists, etc. They want to see how you can handle complex language constructions in various situations. If we focus on the C2 speaking test, what can be reasonably expected of you? I have already outlined this in a previous post where I suggested that we should put ourselves in the shoes of an examiner. Basically, you the candidate must come across as being able to engage the examiner as a kind of equal, linguistically speaking. Do you appear at ease and comfortable in the language and able to talk about anything in a coherent and sophisticated manner? Is your speech idiomatic? Can you play with words? Maybe make a reference to a proverb or saying. Can you reference a well-known author or literary work? Can you make up or derive a "new" word by using the various derivational structures of the language? Is your speaking delivery smooth? Your pronunciation very good? In summary, is speaking with you interesting? Let's look particularly at vocabulary. This is a treacherous subject here at HTLAL. Some regular readers know that I have adamantly defended two very different but superficially similar ideas: 1. In all languages one can begin speaking, i.e. making sense with whole sentences, with a small number of different words or word families. I've suggested that for French this number is around 250. 2. In a typical C2 speaking test, a candidate will probably not use more than 300 word families. Although some people may be champing at the bit and want to fight over these ideas, these concepts have been debated to death, and I don't wish to start over. But with reference to point 2, the fundamental idea is that, regardless of how huge an active vocabulary you make have, in the 20 - 30 minutes of actual conversation with the examiner you will only use a small number of different words. The elephant is the room of course is what words and how you use them. One of the silliest notions that I've seen is that you could pass a C2 speaking test by learning the first 300 entries of a word- frequency test. We're not talking about that. We're talking about choosing your 300 "best' words to demonstrate your mastery of the language. Where this is particularly important is technical vocabulary. This can be very daunting. You can't be reasonably expected to know all the vocabulary of physics, chemistry, automobile engineering, finance, biology, etc. The examiner is not going to say: Give me 100 words for parts of the human body or describe the parts of a sailing ship. I doubt that the examiner could do this. You must of course know the basic terminology of the human body. And what is particularly important is that you know some of the many idiomatic expressions that are based on body parts. I don't know any German but I wouldn't be surprised if there exists, as in English, hundreds of expressions based on the equivalent of "head, hand, heart, eye, foot, nose, etc." You have to have good general cultural knowledge. For example, you should be able to say something intelligent about mental illness or Alzheimer's disease because we hear so much about these things. When it comes to making complex arguments and nuances of meaning, one tool is good use of logical connectors like "therefore, however, that said, nevertheless, given that, on the other hand, etc." The point is all this is that how the words are put together is more important than sheer numbers of words. Edited by s_allard on 20 December 2014 at 1:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5348 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 100 of 144 20 December 2014 at 1:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Of course it is possible.
By reading books you become acquainted with a vastly greater amount of the language than you would with a tutor, and of a much greater quality too. At some point, not too remote either, you do become attuned to the patterns of the language, and producing it yourself becomes a matter of activation, which can be achieved relatively painlessly with some practical exposure. Even natives, and even "educated" ones -at least in the formal sense- make reiterative mistakes. No one would maintain they can't educate themselves without the aid of a tutor. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 101 of 144 20 December 2014 at 3:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Ah ha! You are the 300 word C2 guy! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 102 of 144 20 December 2014 at 3:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Possible yes, probable no. As we have seen in this thread, under certain highly favourable circumstances, a good tutor is certainly not necessary to attain the level of C2 certification. But for the many people, here at HTLAL particularly, who are not living or studying in those favourable conditions, it is very hard to imagine how one could achieve the C2 level as described by the German C2 requirements given above without some external help or collaboration. I think that writing and speaking performance at a C2 level is a much more difficult than just activating painlessly some patterns of the language picked up from reading many books. Edited by s_allard on 20 December 2014 at 6:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4625 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 103 of 144 20 December 2014 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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A Tale of Two Test Takers (German C2) Both are native English speakers, college graduates, living in the USA, who speak Spanish at home, so German is L3.
Here's some actual data. Extremely small sample size, but feel free to analyze for whatever it's worth: Learner 1 2004-2005 two years school German in grade 7 & 8 (5 hours per week) Summer 2009- 8 week intensive Uni course equivalent to 1st year German, followed by 10 days vacation in Germany Fall 2009-Spring 2013- college level courses leading to degree in German Studies Jan-Mar 2011-10 weeks college abroad in Berlin, living with German-speaking family June 2011-vacation: 1 week in Germany, 1 week in Austria July-Dec 2011 6 months internship German company in Bavaria July 2013-3 week vacation in Germany Oct 2013-Aug 2014 Post-Bac study of Law at German university, participation in German language debate society Exam prep consisted of writing stories for friend to correct and using memrise to learn verb+prepositions, did one C2 prep sessions with tutor (2 hour speaking practice), listened to podcasts, read fiction, did grammar exercises. Nov 2014: C2 Exam (age 23) Results: Reading 74, Speaking 100 Did not pass writing or listening Learner 2 1976: one year school German in grade 8 (5 hours per week) Spring 2009: 1 month intro to German class (4 hours per week) Summer 2009: 10 days vacation in Germany October 2010-May 2012 A1-A2 class (2 hours per week, four 12 week sessions over 2 years) June 2011-vacation, 1 week in Germany, 1 week in Austria Jan 2012-Dec 2012 Community college class-2 semesters equivalent to 3rd year German (3 hours per week, 16 weeks each semester) Jan 2012-Dec 2014 (ongoing)-weekly language exchange with 2 people (1/2 hour German-1/2 hour English) March 2012-Joined HTLAL May 2012-Dec 2013 did SuperChallenge on HTLAL (completed) Sep 2012-May 2013 Intermediate conversation (3 hours per week, two 14 week sessions) October 2012-July 2013 B1 class (2 hours per week, two 12 week sessions) July 2013-1 week vacation in Germany, 1 week business trip in Switzerland October 2013 B1 class (3 hours per week, one 9 week session) May 2014-Started second SuperChallenge (currently over 85% done) July -Oct 2014 C2 class (3 hours week, 13 weeks) There were separate C2 Exam prep sessions available, but only did one of those (2 hour speaking practice) Additional exam prep: writing 4 formal letters for German friends to correct, using Anki (50 cards total over 6 weeks), listening to podcasts and watching documentary news programs, read news and nonfiction, did grammar exercises. Nov 2014: C2 Exam (age 51) Results: Reading 77, Listening 71, Speaking 68 Did not pass writing C2 scores: 100-90=very good 89-80=good 79-70=satisfactory 69-60=sufficient <60=fail 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 104 of 144 21 December 2014 at 5:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It's difficult to make any general observations from these two cases, but I'll have a go at identifying a
few things that came to mind: 1. Learner 1's speaking score of a perfect 100 is very impressive. We note that this young person spent quite a bit of time in Germany, notably 10 weeks studying German and living with a German-speaking family, 6 months internship in a German-speaking company plus 8 months studying law in a German university. All this plus produced undoubtedly a very good accent, good fluency and overall mastery of the spoken language. 2. With all this studying in German and the fabulous speaking skills, it is surprising that learner 1 failed the writing and the listening exam. My only explanation is that this person did not properly prepare for the examination and maybe became cocky because of their great speaking skills. 3. Learner 2 is probably more typical of the older learner who does not have the opportunity to spend lots of time in a German-speaking environment and has to rely totally on formal studying. It's not surprising that the speaking results are not great. But a pass is a pass. Kudos. 4. For learner 1 there is little information on how much writing was done in preparation for the exam. I think that writing is generally the hardest skill to master. Writing stories for friends to correct sounds a bit iffy compared to working systematically with a good tutor and writing a few pages a week. 5. For learner 2 we also have little information on how much formal writing with external correction was done. There didn't seem to be a lot. 6. In both cases, I'm a bit surprised by how little formal tutoring was used. A couple hours here and there plus some conversation exchange (Learner 2). Obviously, tutoring is not necessary to pass the exam but these results make me believe even stronger in the value of systematic speaking and writing under good guidance. I would think that one or two hours of professional tutoring a week for 4 - 8 weeks would be a minimum, and more would be even better. 7. Learner 2 wrote 4 formal letters for friends to correct. In my opinion, that's not enough. I would suggest at least 15 one-page letters with full correction. The only way to get good at writing is to write a lot and have somebody correct your work. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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