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Level D1 on the CEFR | ||
Tags: Native Fluency | CEFR Language Levels | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6268 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 1 of 50 24 March 2011 at 11:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Some texts are so intricate that they're as far from C2 as B2, or C1 at least. There
should be a level to reflect this giant leap - not to start creating tests or lessons for it, but to acknowledge that some things ought to be beyond a mortal non-native speaker. These will be mostly written in a poetic way even if they're not poetry outright, with lots of neologisms, half-forgotten words, symbols, word play, subtle connotations and unusual word order or really long sentences. Also, a plethora of cultural references may be involved. For German, I just saw one such text in the German satire magazine Eulenspiegel - the text in question can be read online at http://bit.ly/fANPnn and it's about the singer/band Unheilig. If any non-native here understands it, let me know so that I can kowtow to you. Question: do you know of such texts in other languages? 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5491 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 2 of 50 25 March 2011 at 1:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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Wow, that's intense! It's a very good reminder of how far I still have to go in German. After struggling through about five sentences, I needed to take a rest. :)
EDIT: An idea just struck me. A lot of writing from the American "beat generation" might come close, although I don't think it's as difficult as the article you linked to, Sprachprofi. In any case, for purposes of comparison, here's a brief excerpt from William S. Burroughs' famous "Naked Lunch." Any non-native speakers of English want to let me know how difficult a text like this is for you?
ONE MORE EDIT: Coming from a very different literary tradition (heh heh), here is ONE sentence from the pen of the legendary Henry James (from the book "The Ambassadors").
Edited by Jinx on 25 March 2011 at 2:14am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5564 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 50 25 March 2011 at 2:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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I still have a long way to go with my English, and those texts are ... opaque, taken out of context. In context they might be manageable, even though I would still miss a lot. Edited by Bao on 25 March 2011 at 2:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4928 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 4 of 50 25 March 2011 at 6:14am | IP Logged | |||||
I don't speak German, so I can't comment on the example you provided. But regarding CEFR levels and the creation of a level above C2, I don't know that that would be necessary or even helpful. If someone is able to pass a C2 level, to me that signifies that they have a good enough grasp of the language to enter into university studies in the target language - studies that would go much deeper into literary forms, vocabulary, etc. - in short, all the things you mention in your post. At this level, I would think that even natives would initially have a hard time grasping such literature, excepting perhaps cultural references. In my opnion, that extra level of proof of proficiency would actually be a university education, taught in the target language. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 25 March 2011 at 6:15am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6268 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 5 of 50 25 March 2011 at 11:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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Jinx, the texts you've chosen are indeed very complex. The first one is beyond me and the
second one I had to re-read several times. For this matter, I could cite some Kant, which is definitely also in that category. However, I prefer to stick to texts that the average educated German understands without further preparation - for Kant, my philosophy class had to read and re-read sentences again and again as well, while that satire I posted is still (the very tip of) your typical newspaper German, it's not Shakespeare nor Chaucer. hrhenry, this is not about proof of language ability. C2 is a great achievement and I don't think that anyone needs to go beyond. In fact, even C1 is fine if you want to study in Germany, and I've seen people start their studies with less. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4928 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 6 of 50 25 March 2011 at 2:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
I guess I misunderstood your post. When I read "CEFR" I understood "assessment of proficiency", That's the entire reason we have CEFR. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LLF Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5378 days ago 66 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 50 25 March 2011 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
How much do we need to understand to get a kowtow ? It seems to be a critical article about a flamboyantly ridiculous member of a band which has some kind of vampire-goth style, and whose front man, the Baron, tries to cultivate a strange and secret past. Their fans take the band too seriously, and write pretentious pseudo-philosophical articles about them. Is that enough for a kow, at least ? As for complexity: yes, that's fairly tough, but I think I see things almost as bad everyday in the FAZ. Edited by LLF on 25 March 2011 at 2:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5179 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 8 of 50 25 March 2011 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Deciphering a text the author of which couldn't be bothered to write clearly is more part clairvoyance, part dedication than an indication of a level of proficiency higher than C2.
9 persons have voted this message useful |
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