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HŘÍBEČEK TAC13- CZECHOSLOVAK & jäŋe/ledús

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hribecek
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5146 days ago

1243 posts - 1458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish
Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian

 
 Message 73 of 96
27 June 2013 at 1:15pm | IP Logged 
stelingo wrote:
Thought you might like to know that the Leda Polish book (if I'm thinking of the right one) is a translation of Polish in 4 Weeks Level 1, and there is a sequel, Polish in 4 Weeks Level 2! Chung has been recording his progress whilst using the latter. You might want to pick up a copy when you're back in England.

Polish in 4 Weeks

Wow, thanks for the tip, I had no idea that language course companies would just copy another company´s course.

It will definitely be next on my Polish hit list. I like the first course.
1 person has voted this message useful



stelingo
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5629 days ago

722 posts - 1076 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin

 
 Message 74 of 96
27 June 2013 at 6:51pm | IP Logged 
hribecek wrote:
stelingo wrote:
Thought you might like to know that the Leda Polish book (if I'm thinking of the right one) is a translation of Polish in 4 Weeks Level 1, and there is a sequel, Polish in 4 Weeks Level 2! Chung has been recording his progress whilst using the latter. You might want to pick up a copy when you're back in England.

Polish in 4 Weeks

Wow, thanks for the tip, I had no idea that language course companies would just copy another company´s course.

It will definitely be next on my Polish hit list. I like the first course.


Well, I presume they must have made some agreement. I don't think Leda are breaking copyright laws.
1 person has voted this message useful



hribecek
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5146 days ago

1243 posts - 1458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish
Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian

 
 Message 75 of 96
02 August 2013 at 6:34pm | IP Logged 
I've really slacked off here for a while so it's time for an update. I haven't had
internet access for a week, so I have to look through the forum and see what I've
missed.

CZECH C1 EXAM

So I took the Czech C1 exam last week. I don't know the results yet and haven't been
able to get it out of my head since I took it, remembering what I should have said and
done, realising mistakes and generally stressing out about it; I've still got another 2
weeks to wait before the results come too! Overall I believe that I failed because I
messed up the speaking part quite a lot, found myself daydreaming during the listening
part and therefore missing some vital questions and maybe rambling too much on both the
writing and speaking. It was a really tough exam.

My predictions for reference are (60% is a pass and I must pass all 5 parts to pass
overall) -

READING 70% - Unless I did something stupid then I believe that I did enough here to
pass. The biggest problem in this part is how boring some of the topics were and all
the specialist vocabulary used.

LISTENING 57% - Probably a fail due to lack of concentration and again the specialist
subjects. One part was about art and the history of a certain type of architecture,
which are not my strong subjects.

GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY 63% - Touch and go, won't be surprised if I fail this. I can
remember several mistakes.

WRITING 70% - Very hard to predict, could be 10-20% worse or better. Hopefully I
answered all the parts of the tasks and didn't ramble too much.

SPEAKING 50% - Again very hard to predict and it's possible that I passed. The problem
was that my brain froze and I ended up just blurting out whatever came into my head. I
was so nervous that I didn't listen to the questions properly, didn't structure my
monologues at all and couldn't focus on what my speaking partner was saying. On the
other hand the terror of the exam helped me to speak faster than usual and for once I
ignored all mistakes, so it could go the other way if I somehow managed to accidentally
structure my answers.

Overall I realised how hard these type of exams are for me. It's not just a question
of my Czech, I think I understood 98% of what I read and heard. The main problem was
the complicated nature of the tasks and the time limit which makes you have to rush.
The grammar was more difficult than I expected, in the mock exam I got 79% but the real
exam was much harder with more questions about old Czech and Czech that is only found
in literature.

Even in the practice for the speaking I couldn't express myself properly so I was quite
surprised with how fluent I was in the exam (the frozen brain syndrome meant I was
unable to think and so the words just appeared).

Anyway it doesn't actually matter, I only did it for fun, but a pass would be a very
nice surprise. I probably won't try it again for another year or two, because it was
too stressful. I'm going to try B2 Spanish in November next.

POLISH

So I've been in England for a week and have done about an hour of Polish every day.
I'm really enjoying it and my active level is improving quickly and I've been annoying
my wife with it.

SPANISH

I've been having lessons of Spanish every day with my wife (me as the teacher!) and
that's helped a lot with reviewing everything and learning vocabulary too. She's one
of those language naturals who understands grammar explanations immediately and even
remembers vocabulary very quickly. We're planning to take exams together in November,
her B1.

OTHER

I've had a few Czech speaking classes with my wife and generally been chatting a lot in
both Spanish and Czech. She obviously wants to speak mainly Spanish and I'm happy to
join in, but when she's tired she turns to Czech, which also of course doesn't bother
me in the slightest! The only problem language wise is that we're in England with my
English family so obviously have to switch to English when with them. Luckily they
know we're language geeks and it doesn't bother them when we're chatting in other
languages.
2 persons have voted this message useful



stelingo
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5629 days ago

722 posts - 1076 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin

 
 Message 76 of 96
03 August 2013 at 2:07am | IP Logged 
Best of luck with your Czech exam. What is the exam called, I take it's set by the Czech government/ministry of education? I'd be interested in seeing what the level is like, pretty sure I'm not up to C1 standard though. I wonder how many other people take C1 language exams for fun? :-)
1 person has voted this message useful



hribecek
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5146 days ago

1243 posts - 1458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish
Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian

 
 Message 77 of 96
05 August 2013 at 12:47pm | IP Logged 
stelingo wrote:
Best of luck with your Czech exam. What is the exam called, I take
it's set by the Czech government/ministry of education? I'd be interested in seeing
what the level is like, pretty sure I'm not up to C1 standard though. I wonder how many
other people take C1 language exams for fun? :-)

I'm not sure about if it's an official ministry of education exam, but it's at Charles
University and it's recognised by companies in the Czech Republic. It's supposed to be
an official CEFR exam.

http://ujop.cuni.cz/cce/index_en.php is the address or type in UJOP CCE C1 on google
and it will appear.

They have a mock exam on that website for every level up to C1 so you can try them all.
The real exam was pretty much the same level of difficulty as the mock, except the
grammar part which seemed about 20% more difficult in the real exam.

I'm glad I did it whatever the result, although it wasn't as fun as I expected, because
I cared more than I thought I would. I've always enjoyed taking language tests.
1 person has voted this message useful



stelingo
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5629 days ago

722 posts - 1076 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin

 
 Message 78 of 96
06 August 2013 at 12:43am | IP Logged 
Thanks. I will take a look at that when I get time. Do you know whether there are any samples of the Czech tests foreigners have to take in order to gat residency? I have an American friend who has ruled out applying for residency because he's convinced he wouldn't be able to pass the language requirement.

Edited by stelingo on 06 August 2013 at 12:44am

1 person has voted this message useful



hribecek
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5146 days ago

1243 posts - 1458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish
Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian

 
 Message 79 of 96
06 August 2013 at 12:13pm | IP Logged 
The residency test is just A1 level, so very easy. The CEFR exam is the recognised one
to get residency, at least it was a few years ago.

The citizenship test is harder, maybe B1 or B2 level but I'm not sure if it's a CEFR
exam.


1 person has voted this message useful



hribecek
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5146 days ago

1243 posts - 1458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish
Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian

 
 Message 80 of 96
16 August 2013 at 1:11pm | IP Logged 
Well I've got my Czech C1 test results and they're a little different to how I
predicted!

READING 80% (I predicted 70%)

LISTENING 70% (I prediced 57%) - Very surprised to get so many as I was really
struggling to focus on the boring monologues and thought that at best I'd scrape a 60%
pass.

GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY 77% (I predicted 63%)

WRITING 90% (I predicted 70%) - I kind of expected it to be my best result, but I'm
very pleased with such a high score.

SPEAKING 87% (I predicted 50%) - Absolutely shocked by this result as I felt like I was
rambling on and on without structure and probably not answering the question, but I
guess this means I was rambling correctly.

Overall 81%! (60% was a pass)

So I passed and am very happy about it and pretty surprised by my result. Overall I
guess it shows my natural lack of self-confidence that my predictions were at least 10%
lower in every category and 37% lower in the case of speaking.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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