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Reaching C1 proficiency | ||
Tags: Advanced Level | CEFR Language Levels | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Talib Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6660 days ago 171 posts - 205 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 1 of 8 02 May 2015 at 3:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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How long might it take an English speaker to reach C1 proficiency in a foreign language? Assuming that it is a language that takes less time to master (according the FSI difficulty scale), is it possible to reach C1 proficiency after a couple years of study without traveling to the country where it is spoken?
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| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5058 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 8 02 May 2015 at 4:22am | IP Logged | |||||
According to the FSI difficulty scale, the easiest group of languages for English speakers take about 600 class hours or about 6 months of study. Of course, a talented and dedicated learner in favorable conditions could do it in less, while a typical student may study for 5 years and still not achieve C1.
Yes. An interesting follow-up question is whether traveling is significantly faster than serious full-time study without traveling. Edited by robarb on 02 May 2015 at 4:22am 2 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 3 of 8 02 May 2015 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It is certainly possible to do from your home, especially for languages with tons of
resources available. Spending time in the country can help but "just" usual traveling is not a way to C1, in my opinion, as a much lower level suffices for that usually. Studying/working in the country is ideal. Yet, not necessary. How long, that is a tricky question. Basically there is a combination of factors: 1.What language? It is very likely gonna be different for Spanish and Japanese. There might be even huge differences among the "easy" languages for you, depending on your background. 2.How much time can you devote to learning? A few hours a day are certainly different from a few hours per week. 3.Your talents. Intelligence, memory and so on. However, these play minor role, in my opinion, compared to the diligence and hard work. 4.Motivation 5.amount and quality of resources available. I'd say this is a key to getting to high levels. You'll need much more than just a few coursebooks I agree 6 months are a possible amount of time for someone extremely dedicated. Even though someone more normal with other duties might want to expect something between a year and two at best, in my opinion. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 4 of 8 02 May 2015 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm not sure where Robarb got that number from, but I think s/he's referring to the classroom hours expected for a student to reach S3 in speaking and R3 in reading. When I read the descriptions of S3/R3, it looks more like B2 to me. S3 is described as "general professional proficiency", while CEFR B2 has as one of its descriptors, "including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization". A better guide for the hours needed for C1 would be the Alliance Française, which expects learners to need 810-950 hours of instruction to achieve C1. Here's the source on that. And remember that both the FSI number and the AF number are about classroom hours. I'm pretty sure they would expect their students to complete something like the same number of hours doing homework, review and other forms of practice. Interestingly, none of these numbers make any reference to whether the student visits the country or not. I think it would take extra dedication to achieve C1 without ever visiting, but on the other hand being in a foreign country is no guarantee of success either. There's one more thing to take into account: the difference between passing a C1 test and actually having C1 proficiency in a language. If a person studies hard for a specific test, they might be able to fake their way through it. I imagine anyone who has passed C1 in a year or less would fit in this category unless they keep maintaining it. On the other hand, there will be people who meet all the criteria for C1 or above, but don't pass the test because they aren't prepared for the peculiarities of the test. I've been playing the role of skeptic too often on HTLAL of late, but I don't want anyone to get unrealistic ideas based on what might be possible in the best of all circumstances. Six months or even a year to C1 isn't normal. I am sure it is possible, but I'm skeptical of it as a general claim. So what's realistic to expect? A while back I found this blog post about completing Hindi at FSI. She says it took 30 weeks (7.5 months) to get to S2/R2, with about 600 classroom hours, as well as homework. I didn't get the impression that she had any free time after her 4 hours of lessons every morning. They didn't visit India, but they did take cultural excursions. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4289 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 5 of 8 02 May 2015 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I say that time is probably one of the most important factors. Someone with little time
simply progresses less than someone doing the same study strategy with more time. And about visiting the country, I think that it does not matter. Some people have no money to travel, much less live in the country, but succeed in getting to C level anyway. I see this all the time with English L2 speakers. Anglophones are not known for their knowledge of foreign languages, but with effort and dedication, they can do the same as the others. I have also heard about Anglophones who said that if you cannot live in the country, there is no point in even trying to get past B level. I personally call that not only an excuse, but complete rubbish, and is just a sign of lack of dedication and effort. Even more so when they can afford financially to live in the country. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| holly heels Groupie United States Joined 3885 days ago 47 posts - 107 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 8 03 May 2015 at 12:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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I believe theoretically any distance learner thru self-study can potentially reach C-level, even C-level comprehension, which I believe is more elusive than C-level speaking ability.
At this point after studying Mandarin about 4 years, in a given week, I am able to speak at C-level 5 days a week. Two days ago I gave a smokin C-level presentation on installing and cleaning a blower on an air mattress, which included many medical and technical terms. But yesterday's presentation, on the subject of shyness, fell short of the standard of C-level, because I repeated myself too much and I used too many filler words to stretch out the presentation. I have made decent progress in comprehension as well. My yardstick is the most difficult TV programs I have access to. Not talk shows, children's shows or soap operas, but head-spinningly fast local news from Taiwan, with a newsreader who stands and bobs his head up and down as well as a bunch of reporters out in the field. Last year May 2014 there was only one day that month where my comprehension was approaching C-level for those TV news programs. One year later my comprehension is at C-level about 15 days a month. Also last month I had 2 unexpected long beautiful conversations with a native speaker from Taiwan. What's more, they were on a speaker phone at work, so if I had known in advance I would have recorded them and made this two-way interactive illustration available to this forum for your analysis. One of the issues I have with difficulty scales is that from what I have seen, they are not clear on what exactly constitutes "difficult" in terms of content (listening/speaking), so I am in a position where I have to figure everything out on my own. My experience is that C-level comprehension ability fades in and out like a radio signal, and the more experience you have, the more days that signal is clear. Edited by holly heels on 03 May 2015 at 12:17am 4 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 7 of 8 03 May 2015 at 10:08am | IP Logged | |||||
I think there is one problem with this measurement. The classes at AF are pretty slow and inefficient in methods. That's why I don't like these classroom hours counts. You can do much better than that on your own or assisted by a tutor. The trouble I am mentioning is not a fault of a particular teacher or group. The methodology counts with slow and lazy students dragging the class backwards, it counts with lots of review and "fun" exercises in class. It counts with very little outside work and therefore wasting expensive in class time on activities that should have been the homework. It doesn't count with students who get a BD after a few months of study and dive into a tv series after one year or so and just open the damn grammar book when they need to study more. It counts with people who struggle and expect to be taught, not to learn. I agree with others that getting to C level comprehension is not hard on your own. You just need to put in the time, devour lots of input, some grammar and other base stuff and so on. C level active skills are harder, that is true. But not impossible to get. The passive ones make a good fundament for them and it can just work out with some extra efforts and, should you wish it, extra help from either tutor, conversation exchange and so on. But just tourism is not that awesome at this, unless you are as good at social interactions getting you the right kind of practice as the Irish Benny. Thanks holly heels for a good example, that's inspirative. Mandarin is surely a different experience from my languages as I am still picking from the easy pile. Are you living in China now or having lots of use for it at work? It sounds great! 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| holly heels Groupie United States Joined 3885 days ago 47 posts - 107 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 8 04 May 2015 at 2:17am | IP Logged | |||||
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Cavesa - Ahoj and thanks for the shout out, I always try to be as specific as possible about my study methods, successes, and failures.
No, I'm not in China, I'm here in the States, but my employer needs Mandarin every day and I have spoken in person to 4 small Mandarin-speaking delegations, and he is pleased with the feedback from them. Someone on the phone, not knowing my ghost white skin color, even asked if my parents are Chinese. Edited by holly heels on 04 May 2015 at 2:20am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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