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B2-C2 for Spanish! | ||
Tags: CEFR Language Levels | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| drp9341 Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4903 days ago 115 posts - 217 votes  Speaks: Italian, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 8 08 May 2012 at 7:36am | IP Logged |
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Hello everyone!
I'm in the process of trying to expand my Spanish and get to a solid C2 level. I would say around now I am at a strong strong B2 - weaker C1 level. I know this is crazy, and within a short period of time, but I want to get to C2. This date would be by August 15th. I know it's random but it will be the day which I will return from Peru. I am aware that there will be no way to really test this, but this is the level I am searching for. I will be comparing myself in terms of conversational abilities and ability to "play" with the language and grammar as fair indication of my level. I will be spending 9 weeks in Peru, outside of Cusco, starting June 12th. My plan so far is this. 1 episode a day of watching La Reina Del Sur on Telemundo.com (lots of different and varied native/non-native Spanish accents) Translating my Text Messages/Books from English to Spanish. Anything I am not 100% sure on in terms of translating certain structures I am going to put on wordreference.com forums for help, because I want to have a wide variety of constructions available. I am going to be working through the 2 books. "Negocios sin fronteras" a B2 level book from my Spanish class, that I feel like I could get a LOT more from if I worked through again. As well as Street Wise Spanish the newest version. I have 34 days before I go, and I feel like with this solid 3 hours a day studying I can accumulate a good amount, maybe enough to set me up for a possible C2 by the time I'm done in Peru. So basically if anyone has any advice I would love to hear it, I want to know what kinds of materials are out there to help me with the finer aspects of the language. I am pretty darn fluent. I can tell jokes, watch TV, discuss politics with ease and even enjoy stand up comedy. But I feel like I am lacking some of the more refined vocabulary and grammatical mastery that C2 really means. I mean if Benny the Irish polyglot could go from 0-to almost C2 in German, then I may be able to actually make this work. It would be the most advanced I've ever gotten in a foreign language in terms of vocabulary and grammatical Mastery. So that all being said!! What do you all think!? Thanks, Danny 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| en.fr.es Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4596 days ago 15 posts - 22 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 2 of 8 08 May 2012 at 5:00pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Danny,
My advice would be to watch as much TV (Reina del Sur but try and get in some variety too)and listen to as much radioas possible and everytime you come across a work you don't know look it up and try and learn it with (Using an SRS is my technique - with the piece of vocab or expression being used in an example sentence) As you have a solid B2 level I don't recommend any "courses" like assimil but just keep trying to listen and read as much as possible in Spanish and try to avoid using English. I wouldn't worry about the translation - remember people train for years to become a translator and you will more likely make mistakes and you don't want to get into bad habits! Remember that Benny studied German for many years at school before going to Germany "without being able to speak" at all. This is not an attack on him but try to take what he says with a pinch of salt (or a whole salt shaker!) as he is very sneaky in his writing. Good luck, any take any chance you can to speak Spanish with natives :) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5624 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 8 09 May 2012 at 4:03pm | IP Logged |
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Is there any way you can sign up for an Instituto Cervantes examination in August/September? Having that to work towards is such a huge motivator to really drill yourself towards the level (without that fire under my ass, the progress I had in German would have been way less possible).
Cusco is a great city - living just outside it is a good idea, since I was in the very centre and the touristy atmosphere isn't quite conductive to language learning (I can confirm since I was trying to learn Quechua :P ) The way I got to C2 level in Spanish in my time in Salamanca (similar starting point to you it would seem) before sitting the actual exam was to spend several hours in the library every morning (when I wasn't teaching English) reading advanced texts and studying expressions and advanced grammars, then several hours in the afternoon writing texts for correction or doing exercises in my book (this one: El Cronometro, and then of course spending all evening socialising. Those (natives) I socialised with were quite intelligent, as many of them were studying literature or something along those lines, so conversations would push me outside of my limits. What helped me in the final weeks before sitting the exam was getting a private teacher to iron out all my final hiccups. In Spain this was a little expensive, so I couldn't get as many classes as I would have liked (my teacher had to be familiar with the C2 exam), but in Cusco you can get some very affordable private lessons if you put advertisements in the university. At your current level a language exchange will not get you very far. It would "seem" that those of us at B2+ are beyond teaching and should soldier through on our own, but you should never underestimate the power of an intelligent native who is skilled to help you, and doing so in a professional setting. Even after my C2 exam I got further private lessons in Spanish from a voice trainer to help me reduce my accent a little. @enfres Please be nice. Saying you aren't attacking me and then calling me sneaky in the very same sentence is quite a ridiculous thing to write. I was always clear about my background in German when I took on the project, and I certainly did not "study for years", I was sitting in a classroom daydreaming for 5 years while my teacher yakked on about datives and other such things I didn't care for. It's hard for people who aren't skilled in languages throughout their life to appreciate this. Let's agree to disagree and focus on helping drp. On a side note, in Peru they can be very polite, and this was hard for me to adjust to with the rough way of using the language I am used to. In most cases Peruvians took me for a Spaniard, which is great because there is a tendency to dumb down speech when you know you aren't talking to a native. If you have any other particular accent associated with your B2 Spanish, force it ;) Just watch out that on occasion in that area they throw in some Quechua words in conversations, but it's just for basic words and not something non-beginners need to worry much about. Edited by irishpolyglot on 09 May 2012 at 4:06pm 10 persons have voted this message useful | |
| drp9341 Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4903 days ago 115 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Italian, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 8 09 May 2012 at 9:54pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for all the the advice Benny and enfres!
@Benny I won't have that much "freedom" while outside Cusco unfortunately as I will be with this program www.amigoslink.org "volunteering" So I don't think I will be able to get a tutor unfortunately. But I will have free time, so I will use that to go over books in the morning, and reinforce that while socializing the rest of the day, as I will have no one to speak English to for the first 8 weeks :D Plus! I am not sure that I can sign up for CEFR tests in New York for when I get back, otherwise I would love to do that. Is the CEFR tested in the USA even though it's not the main language rating system used here? I love the idea of reading complex texts and writing things for corrections on complex things. I might try and get a tutor here in the US, but unfortunately I found most of my highschool Spanish teachers spoke Spanish worse than I did... so I may have to just use lingq haha. I think I might carry around a small small notebook while in Peru, where I will write down all the constructions I have not seen prior, and all the new words I learn! Thanks for all the advice, Danny. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5624 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 8 10 May 2012 at 1:30am | IP Logged |
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Check it out: http://nyork.cervantes.es/en/default.shtm
Where there is an I.C. there are DELEs ;) On their site they say: "AUGUST Friday, August 24th 2012 Please note that in August only B1, B2 and C2 exams will be available." If in-person lessons aren't so easy, I've actually been learning heaps of Chinese from italki.com teachers, and Spanish is one of their biggest languages too. You could very easily find a teacher familiar with the DELE on that site, but you'd have to start work on it right now if you were truly serious about it. Edited by irishpolyglot on 10 May 2012 at 1:33am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5382 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 6 of 8 10 May 2012 at 10:46am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for this thread - I'm also trying to get to C2 but in French plus the Spanish resources ought to
help when I get to an advanced level. As Benny said there isn't much in the way of materials geared for this level. Though European materials will often be marked with CEFR ranges and there ought to be some that may be of some help for B2-C2 (I've found a vocabulary book, a writing book which focuses on writing a synthèse which is required for the C2 exam, and a method which uses a bunch of native materials as a basis for exercises geared towards tasks C1s and C2s would need to be capable of). There are also test manuals which given your time frame if you were to take a test right after would be useful as studying "to the test" would give you the best chance of passing. Materials alone won't be sufficient, you need lots of exposure and practice, but they ought to help keep your Spanish from plateauing at B2/ C1. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| drp9341 Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4903 days ago 115 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Italian, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: Japanese | Message 7 of 8 10 May 2012 at 10:41pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks Benny!
I am strongly considering signing up for that exam... It's looking VERY likely that I will at least attempt it... if only to as you said, "put the fire under my ass" This way I won't just become complacent with my level while in Peru! I have sent out a few E-Mails to language schools for lessons while I'm still here in NY so thanks a lot for that! BTW What materials did you use for the grammatical study!? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5624 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 8 12 May 2012 at 6:18pm | IP Logged |
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I don't remember what I studied for grammatical improvement. I just went into the university library in Salamanca and started studying their Spanish language section and stuck with whatever books worked for me.
If you get that book I recommended for preparing for the C2 it will help as it will have complex grammar exercises. I was surprised that the grammar part of the exam was by far the hardest, since I was generally confident with my Spanish grammar. You really should sign up for that exam! In comparison to other European certificates, the Spanish C2 is quite cheap! 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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