I add a quarter, because most people leave out the experimental phase, when they tell you how long it took them to learn a language.
I’ve been “experimenting” with French for I don’t know a month or two…
LingQ
Duolingo
Movies
TV shows
Memorizing and listening to song lyrics
Reading
I call it experimenting, because I haven’t settled onto a “routine” in which I can measure progress and set actual goals. I call it experimenting, because I haven’t created my “path” yet. I’m just trying out different routines.
For most people, they don’t count their experimenting. Why? Because in the experimental phase they don’t have any goals to measure their progress, so they assume they didn’t learn anything in their experimental phase. Another reason is the experimental phase is ineffective…we don’t learn much about how to use the language, but we do learn how to learn the language.
So if I said it only took me a year to get C2 in French…then I won’t count the 3 months I was playing around with the language, not keeping track of my days or my progress.
I arrived at the conclusion that I’m allowed to experiment with the language as much as possible. But I still need to set small mini goals that achievable, so that I’m actually AWARE that I’m progressing.
These goals could be a certain number of words
Or phrases
So 1 hour of study would be dedicated to my goals
And another hour would just be having “fun” trying different techniques. Experimenting and playing around with different techniques.
I will import techniques I discover experimenting into my goals, but I won’t abandon my goals.
Great!
The number of the learned words or phrases is a valid measure of progress. But there is an important issue I would like to draw your attention at. After learning a lot of new words and phrases, we face the surprise of forgetting much of them them after a while (especially when we learn them fast). How are you going to handle it, Cehralina?
I take it always very ironically if someone tells me that he/she knows the language at the stage C2.
Maybe I am too strong in my estimation, but I believe that 80% of native speakers don’t speak their native language at the level C2, mostly only B2 and some educated people at the level C1.
It depends not on somerone’s ability of reading. It depends on the ability of speaking, discussing and wrtiting by using more than 20,000 words.
For example, I study French and I can read any French book making new lingqs etc. But if I retell this book, I would use only 500 words though I undersdtand passively about 30,000 wiords in the context.
That’s why I estimate my French knowledge only as A2, not more.
All this C2, B1 etc is kind of misleasleading imo. I heard an American guy on a podcast talking about when he took a level exam in Arabic (he was learning through the military). He had a native Arabic speaking friend who also took the test. He said he got C2 but the native speaker failed to. The guy said the native speaker was MILES more fluent than him, so much so that he admitted he couldn’t say some quite basic things. He said it was only because the military had taught him a lot of higher end vocabulary that he was able to pass a C2.
I’ve read things in English written by a non-native speaker before, where they’re using words I not only don’t use, but sometimes words I don’t even understand and I have to look them up. However, I do notice sentences that sound a little stilted, or even some that use syntax that a native just wouldn’t. It’s written well, but somehow you just instinctively know it’s not a native speaker. There are exceptions, I can’t tell on occasions, but that is rare.
I think a foreigner with a really high level like C2 or whatever will often translate big words from their own language and use them in their 2nd language. I think that simply means they have a bigger vocabulary in their native language than you do in yours. You could say they have a superior vocabulary than you do in your own language, that may be the case, but I feel like fluency is so much more than that.
I always think a native speaker would be able to write or speak a simple sentence many, many different ways vs a non-native who might be limited to only a few ways. They’ll likely understand all of your sentences but they’d struggle to construct so many of them. Again, their are exceptions, but to pass a C2 exam isn’t an indication that you have a deeper understanding than a native speaker.
Then, of course, there are accents, slang, etc etc. Their are accents in my own country (and I’m sure it’s the same worldwide) that I’d be shocked if a foreigner at C2 could understand unless they had lived in said country for decades, even then they might still struggle.
I am a language teacher, however, I think that all these exams and language tests are close to the profanation!.. They never show your real proficiency in a language - all these B1, B2, C1, C2!.. Forget all these stages and just feel comfortable in your Language or in your languages!
Maybe only if you are a student, you have to pass them.
Every language study is a constant action. It has its start, but never has its finish. It ends only with our death. We are living in a language, not only in our native language, but also in every foreign language which we are learning seriously.
The language study isn’t always easy, but it’s like a journey, and every new meeting with the language brings you new big or little discoveries.
That’s why it’s very interesting in spite of some difficulties or even temporary disappointments.
as long as you continue listening and reading, it doesn’t matter if you forget worries since you will soon relearn them and know them better than ever. Learning a language is a process of learning and forgetting repeated many many times.
if a person has a large vocabulary of relatively low frequency words, and if this vocabulary has been acquired through massive reading and listening, it usually means that this person also has a solid grip on the most common vocabulary. In my experience it is a good indicator of their overall level of comprehension, even if they are unable to express some basic concepts which they have not yet come across. I do agree however that the common European framework categories are not always an accurate indicator of a person’s fluency.
Yes, that’s a good point Steve. I see what you’re saying, but there’s ‘massive’ and then there’s lifetime from birth. I still think you could say the same thing in English many more different ways than a C2 foreigner with a larger vocab. Unless by ‘massive’ we’re talking decades.Though I’m not sure if that means mastery exactly.
For me, its not really a word thing, more a mastery of the patterns in the language. Words are essential for understanding though for sure, especially for a 2nd language, as having a mastery of patterns probably means a native speaker can deal more easily with meaning, even if they don’t have the words. So yes, I agree, I think some people misunderstand these level tests and interpret C2 as the end point.
