Reaching an advanced level

I am currently learning Spanish. Based on the self-evaluation table, I would consider myself at a B1 level. My main sources for learning are Lingq and speaking once a week to my exchange partner. If I continue my progress I am confident I can reach B2, but beyond that seems very challenging. Steve says you usually need to live in the country, but Im wondering if any of you have had a different experience. Have any of you reached an advanced level (C1-C2) without living in the country? I realize it would take more time than I am doing and probably reading some literature as well.

2 Likes

I’m not sure what the context of Steve’s comments were in this case, but from experience I say yes, you can definitely reach an advanced level from a B1 if you read and listen a lot and especially if you speak once a week on top of it.

The process will of course be a lot quicker and the results more solid if you happen to live the country – no argument there. But you can do very well without moving there.

One caveat is that people get wrapped on in the whole idea of being a “C2” and I’ve ranted about that before here in on the forum. For the purpose of this post, I’ll just say this: You can definitely get to a C2 level of reading and listening just by sitting at home and doing LingQ – I’ve done that. I did a C2 level reading exam as a test with German a while back and did well enough on it to pass it. Getting to a C2 level speaking is a little trickier. It’s a question of regular speaking practice – don’t ask me how long but I’d say once a week may not be enough for that. But the thing is, to be considered a “C-2” you’d need to write at a C-2 level as well, that’s just a lot of hard core studying and practice that I myself would not be interested in unless I was living in country.

A C-2 level of comprehension is a very useful thing to have, and it’s completely achievable… A C-2 level of speaking is a nice goal to have, but is really only necessity for professional, academic, or in country living needs – and in all three of those scenarios a solid B-2 or C-1 speaker would become a C-2 fairly easily if dropped into the field.

EDIT:
When I say “C-2” speaking, I think it’s a little beyond the regular conversational fluency that we were just discussing on some of the other threads, it would need more finesse and practice.

And another thing I mean to add, you say “probably reading some literature as well.” No, not probably, definitely, you need to read books to do what I described above. I don’t mean “high literature” or classics – those are more for down the line – but I mean contemporary fiction novels. Reading and listening to those will be an absolute necessity if you wanna do this without moving to Spain. ( And you get extra polyglot credits if you do this without reading any of Harry Potter :slight_smile:

6 Likes

I remember Steve saying that I do remember the context. And although I don’t remember where, I’ve nevertheless quoted it and thought abotu it to myself on several occasions. It jives with what t_harangi mentioned here, which I agree with, not only in principle, but even based on my own, though much more limited, experience with Spanish.

That a “C-2 level of comprehension is a very useful thing to have, and it’s completely achievable” make sense becuase, while I consider myself a strong B2 overall based on the self evaluation, at 1500 hours of Spanish, I can feel myself touching C1 in a lot of the reading areas. Online tests, including the DELE diagnostic has me at the C level. And if I keep reading and listening, especially to harder and harder content like fiction, it would make sense for me to keep improving. I think Steve has said this or similiar also.

It’s the output side of things that might “require” you to be in-country. Not necessarily because immersion is needed, but becuase that level of output participation and practice would require lots of opportunites to engage educated native speakers. Granted you can probably watch a lot of movies, listen to a lot of podcasts, and do all of your reading in Spanish, but you’d probably have to seriously rearrange your life simulate immersion for output purposes.

In other words, “that’s just a lot of hard core studying and practice that I myself would not be interested in unless I was living in country.” And since I’ve already reached a level where I can do everything I set out to do in Spanish and then some, I’m confident enough to “finish” Spanish soon and that I “would become a C-2 fairly easily if dropped into the field.”

2 Likes

Wow - you are on a roll. You really understand what it takes to learn a language.
t_harangi, did you take an official exam conducted by Goethe Institute or an online exam in German?

1 Like

I see. If Steve was talking specifically about how “speaking at a C-2 level” would likely require moving to a country, then yes, that’s hard to argue against, and for most people that’s probably the case. But of course there is a difference between “Advanced level” of language usage vs. “speaking at a C-2,” which is a specific skill.

On a side note, I did meet one person who I felt spoke at C-2 level without living in country, it was Sun Hyunwoo the head of Talk To Me In Korean, who I met at a K-Con event a few years ago, and as we were talking he mentioned that was his first time in an English speaking country which surprised me because having watched his videos I could’ve swore that he studied in the US at some point. But of course he’s a language teacher, and he lives in Korea, and the language was English which he was using professionally for YouTube every day, so all that adds up to a perfect storm of speaking at a C-2 without leaving home.

3 Likes

Thanks, Asad. Yeah, the German reading test I took was from an actual C-2 test from the Goethe Institute. I wrote a post about it at the time. Here is a link to that to explain the details and my methodology: My New Experiment Comparing Lingq Levels Vs. Cefr Tests -...

2 Likes

When you passed C2 level reading exam, do you remember at that point how many words did you read on LingQ and what was your word count? You mentioned Advanced 2 level. I know it is already high. I am interested in knowing your reading and word count statistics.

Just a side question, did you use subtitles while watching Television series in German in the beginning and ditch it off later on? You said you could watch TV series without subs?
I am sure listening to audiobooks really helped with that?

I think my German was 45K known words when I did this test. Words read was probably 1.5 million.

Yes, I did use English subtitles for German for quite a while, and then I switched to German subs when I was more comfortable, and then no subs. And yes, audiobooks were a huge help with that. (The people who push for “no subs” or “TL subs only” at the beginning phases are full of it, in my opinion. I watch TV to learn while relaxing, and not as an exercise in linguistic masochism. You can learn a lot at the beginning by watching TV with NL subtitles. And no, I don’t do notebooks while watching or any of that. Books with audio are for learning and TV and movies are for enjoying what I’ve learned. )

5 Likes

Agreed. I can’t imagine starting to watch Spanish Netflix with Spanish subtitles from the very beginning. Granted, that was all I did when I started watching Spanish shows, but that was after I had read over 1 million words, had over 10,000 or so known words, had beenTo Spain, and already had a sizable vocabulary. I was reading the Spanish subtitles and listening to the audio as I was watching the shows merely to allow my listening to “catch up” with my reading/vocabulary abilities.

4 Likes

Thanks. I suppose I wasn’t clear in my original post but it is not my goal to obtain C2. I’d be very happy with B2, and maybe go for C1. For example, I imigrated to Israel about 14 years ago and I would consider myself C1 in Hebrew. C2 is a level higher than the less educated native speakers, but I was curious.

I think a good technique when watching something is first time with NL subs, then again with TL subs, and try a third time with no subs. I think if you are at least at B1 level, one can handle this

1 Like