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What is good enough? | ||
Tags: CEFR Language Levels | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| sammymcgoff Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4363 days ago 40 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 49 of 79 01 January 2013 at 5:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am studying Polish (not even an A1 at the minute) but would like to be fluent enough so that if I said something explicit or rude, then my family would not be able to realise what it meant!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 50 of 79 01 January 2013 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe it was the CV thread. OK, if I'm going to state something (e.g. on a CV), I'll better be prepared to back it up in some way (e.g. with some kind of certificate).
Anyway, what is good enough for one person might not be good enough for another. It can be a personal thing and/or a cultural thing. I know some that are afraid to make mistakes and hence want everything to be "perfect" before opening their mouth/stating any level at all. I've even seen threads on other forums where one guy more or less "busted" another because of a few unknown words (neither was a native speaker). That's setting the bar a bit high. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5219 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 51 of 79 01 January 2013 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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My tutor says I will be able to pass C1 Spanish this year: but I still don't feel that's good enough.
I am probably around A2/B1 in Polish and I think that IS good enough, for now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 52 of 79 01 January 2013 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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As the OP pointed out, we all have to settle with various levels of proficiency (not fluency! - what else would you expect from me?) according to our needs or use of the language. Yes, we would all like to speak our various languages to a C2 level but it ain't going to happen.
My own take on this question is that once you get up to the B2 level, good pronunciation allows you to give the impression of higher proficiency than is real. As long as you know your limits and do not make many mistakes, if you have decent pronunciation, you can do very well. In Spanish, for example, if you stay away from the imperfect subjunctive, conditional clauses, the vosotros forms, the simple future and conditional tenses, you can speak very fluently and function very well if your pronunciation is great. The trick is to really master the fundamental elements and avoid the complicated stuff. I know that some people get all worked up when I say this, but I believe that a small vocabulary, well mastered, is all you need to speak a language well. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| NC181818 Tetraglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 4349 days ago 17 posts - 24 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 53 of 79 03 January 2013 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've never taken any CEFR exam and not all languages I know/study are European languages anyway, so I am not sure about the exact levels I am currently on.
Cantonese is my native language and I have been using it frequently so that's a C2-equivalent level for sure. I started learning English since I was 3 years old (I'm 18 now), I use it almost everyday, and I studied in England for 3 years before, so I guess I can say that I'm on a C1 level. For Mandarin, I started learning it since I was 6 years old, although now I only speak it occasionally, the written form of Mandarin is very similar to the (formal) written form of Cantonese, so it is an easy language for me. Also, there were quite a lot of overseas students from mainland China when I was studying in England, so I had a lot of chances to practice speaking my Mandarin. I would say that I am on a C1-equivalent level. For Japanese, I only started learning it since 5 months ago, so there is still a long way to go to reach my goal, passing the JLPT N1 (the highest level) test, which is equivalent to the CEFR C1 level I think. I set this as my goal because I love Japanese culture, I like watching Japanese animes, travelling to Japan, etc. Also, I'm planning to live and work in Japan in the future. I almost complete learning everything in the N5 level (the lowest), so I think I am currently on a level between A1 and A2. For Spanish, I only started self-teaching recently, so I only know several very basic phrases. After finishing the course I will be on the B1 level, which is enough for me, because this is the language (out of the five) I would use the least in my life. I want to learn this language because it is one of the most spoken languages in the world, and I am currently studying a hospitality and tourism course, so learning another widely spoken language could be useful for my work in the future. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4622 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 54 of 79 04 January 2013 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is a lot of common vocabulary you can only really learn by actually living in the country where the
language is spoken. There are many people who can handle business discussions in English but wouldn't know terms like "skirting board" or "rolling pin"....things that every adult native speaker would know. I've spoken to lots of foreign visitors to the UK, many of whom had excellent English but none of whom actually had a true native-style vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4688 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 55 of 79 04 January 2013 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | ||
Yep, I wouldn't hold it against any language learner for not knowing those words. I'm an adult native speaker of (American) English, and I'm pretty sure I've never heard the word "skirting board" before. I'm going to look it up, but at the moment I have absolutely no idea what it is. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 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 56 of 79 15 January 2013 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been speaking Spanish the last couple of weeks, and I'm sure that I have said at least one error almost every time I opened my mouth. But I could discuss every kind of theme with people I met, including a few who were speaking rather unstandardized Spanish, and that's all I ask for conversation wise. If you can describe the inner workings of the European union, including the status of the Faroe Islands and Greenland, the role of the Schengen accord, the future prospects for the Irish versus the Greek economy and other relevant subtopics, then your Spanish is 'good enough'. But even good enough things can become better, and with time you can become better at spotting your errors before you blabber them out.
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