Possible to be B2/C1 for 2 to 3 non-native languages?

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kiwiuser12
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Possible to be B2/C1 for 2 to 3 non-native languages?

Postby kiwiuser12 » 2015-04-20, 8:02

Hi all,

I have a dilemma regarding learning German. I'm doing French right now and have a medium term goal of being able to read French books on cuisine and read popular history books or novels like Arsene Lupin. Am thinking wanting to achieve B2 proficiency at least or even C1.

This means that German would have been my 5th language. Does anyone who have had experience speaking down to 4th or 5th language that you can achieve B2+ proficiency for your 3rd and 4th languages? I guess I'm C1 in English (am able to respond to professional and colloquial usages), and I have no intention to advance on my low-intermediate Mandarin, and am keen to achieve B2+ in French. I guess for me I'll be very happy if I can achieve B1 just to be able to survive in Germany, but wouldn't mind it if I could achieve same fluency in German one day as my French at the time.

Any comment will be much appreciated.

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Re: Possible to be B2/C1 for 2 to 3 non-native languages?

Postby melski » 2015-04-20, 20:29

Hello, yes it's totally possible to achieve those levels of fluency, provided you dedicate enough time to learning the language. Some polyglots like Luca Lampariello or Steve Kaufmann, Loki, etc (there are many of them on Youtube, I let you google them) have achieved C1 fluency in 7, 8 languages, sometimes even more.
However, you have to be consistent in your learning process and it's better if you do one language at a time rather than all at the same time. Once you have achieved a good level in this language, you can move on to another one.

I speak "8" languages, ranging from fluency (French, English, Italian) to intermediate level (German, Catalan) to convesational (Spanish, Portuguese) and beginner (Wallisian). Now that I live in Barcelona, my Portuguese and my German have become quite rusty, and even my Italian has started to deteriorate. However, Even if you are immersed in the language, there is a real risk to be stuck at the intermediate stage.
................Native: French (fr) French
................Fluent: English (en) English , Italian (it) Italian
.........Intermediate: German (de) German, Brazilian Portuguese (pt-br) Portuguese
.........Conversational: Catalan (ca) Catalan, Spanish (es) Spanish
....................Learning: [flag=Wallisian (East Uvean / faka'uvea)]wls[/flag] Wallisian (topic here)

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Re: Possible to be B2/C1 for 2 to 3 non-native languages?

Postby Levike » 2015-04-20, 20:42

You can reach B2/C1 in a lot of languages. It just depends on how much time you're willing to sacrifice.

I can sort of speak 3 foreign languages:

My English was rated C1, even though my accent really sucks.

My Spanish is kind of okay, maybe like a B2, I can communicate in it and understand it with ease.
But I'm sure I say a lot of unnatural-sounding stuff.

And my German was rated B1/B2, so it's at a "maybe I could survive in Germany" level.

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Re: Possible to be B2/C1 for 2 to 3 non-native languages?

Postby voron » 2015-04-21, 8:01

melski wrote:However, even if you are immersed in the language, there is a real risk to be stuck at the intermediate stage.

That is an interesting argument. Why do you think it may happen?

I have this problem with my Turkish that despite using it both at work and at home, I feel like I cannot get it from B2 to C1. And I blame it on the fact that I read very little.

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Re: Possible to be B2/C1 for 2 to 3 non-native languages?

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-04-21, 14:53

voron wrote:
melski wrote:However, even if you are immersed in the language, there is a real risk to be stuck at the intermediate stage.

That is an interesting argument. Why do you think it may happen?

I could've sworn somebody here said something about this not too long ago, but I forgot when and in which thread.

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Re: Possible to be B2/C1 for 2 to 3 non-native languages?

Postby Marah » 2015-04-21, 16:33

I guess you can end up stuck at the intermediate level when there is no real incentive for you to go higher than that. That is, people understand you anyway, even though you make basic mistakes, even though you have a clear foreign accent, etc.
Par exemple, l'enfant croit au Père Noël. L'adulte non. L'adulte ne croit pas au Père Noël. Il vote.

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Re: Possible to be B2/C1 for 2 to 3 non-native languages?

Postby Kenny » 2015-04-21, 23:59

I've plateaud the hell out of whatever level I'm stuck at in both English and French.
I use them both daily, but no matter what I do I feel like there is a gaping hole of ignorance smack in the middle of where my brain should be. It's kind of aggravating.
On the other hand, with Catalan and Spanish I'm just kind of breezing along and not caring. Works better, even if I speak both of those languages way worse than I do French and English.

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Re: Possible to be B2/C1 for 2 to 3 non-native languages?

Postby Meera » 2015-04-27, 21:28

I think it is possible but it takes a lot of hard work.
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Re: Possible to be B2/C1 for 2 to 3 non-native languages?

Postby Antea » 2016-08-06, 9:38

I think that happens when you don't have the opportunity to get enough practice with the language. You can have a good formal gramatical level, but if you don't live in the country orif you can't have any conversational practice at all, then it's hard to progress.

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Re: Possible to be B2/C1 for 2 to 3 non-native languages?

Postby Meera » 2016-08-18, 15:59

melski wrote: However, Even if you are immersed in the language, there is a real risk to be stuck at the intermediate stage.


I agree with this. I think everyone learns differently but I don't think immersion works for everyone. If you are dropped off in your target language's country but don't want to put work into you will learn very little. Also I noticed with me for example, in an intermediate level when I am talking to someone I can get around saying certain words because I can talk around it which doesn't really help learn new vocabulary. I have family members that have lived in the US for over 12 years now and their English is still poor despite being immersed in it.
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Re: Possible to be B2/C1 for 2 to 3 non-native languages?

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-08-19, 0:25

Meera wrote:I agree with this. I think everyone learns differently but I don't think immersion works for everyone. If you are dropped off in your target language's country but don't want to put work into you will learn very little.

Or even nothing at all!


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