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mikemike18 wrote:The good thing about the CEFR levels is that they are all pretty distinct and over time, it becomes easier to measure where you fall on the scale.
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Antea wrote:Thank you for your answer. For me it's difficult to find out the my level, because although maybe my reading comprehension and listening understanding of a language I think may be B1, then my speaking rears ("rears" doesn't make any sense here; did you mean "lowers"?) the level. So globally it's difficult to say where I am, and where would a native speaker would put me when he listens to me
mikemike18 wrote:I really hope this helped!
dEhiN wrote:From what I understand the CEFR standard is meant for self-evaulation.
dEhiN wrote:mikemike18 wrote:The good thing about the CEFR levels is that they are all pretty distinct and over time, it becomes easier to measure where you fall on the scale.
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Thanks Michael for that breakdown. The interesting thing for me in Spanish and Portuguese is that I have the vocabulary of probably a B1 level, but certain parts of my grammar suck. The biggest part is that I'm only really good with the present tense. I have not yet sat down and properly learnt/memorized the 2 different past tenses, nor the future, etc. Yet I know words and can form sentences that would fall under a B1 level. I don't know if others who do a lot of self-study find this. So because of this I'm never sure what level to put myself at. And this lack of grammar knowledge affects all 4 categories - reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
Antea wrote:Thank you for your answer. For me it's difficult to find out the level, because although maybe my reading comprehension and listening understanding of a language I think may be B1, then my speaking is not in the same the level. So globally it's difficult to say were I am, and where would a native speaker put me when he listens to me
voron wrote:If you are a self-learner, why do you need to assess yourself in some standard scale anyway? I am personally satisfied with the "happy with my progress/unhappy with my progress" scale. Observing your own progress should also be quite transparent: your skill evolves from "a month ago I couldn't understand a news article at all" to "now I understand the gist of it" to "now I understand all the details". Same with speaking/listening/writing.
(The only time when I have to assess my level is when I put starts in my language profile on Unilang. )
voron wrote:mikemike18 wrote:I really hope this helped!
You broke it down very nicely Mike. And wow, you reached C1 in a year, that's remarkable, whether the language is close or not.
As for the Arabic, are you studying the MSA only, or a dialect too? With my years of dabbling in Arabic, I am getting an impression that the only correct way is to study both of them simultaneously. If you study the MSA only, you sooner or later get bored because of its artificiality and the lack of 'real life' materials, and disappointed because you can't naturally talk to natives. I recently started Syrian or more generally Levantine Arabic and it feels like a fresh breath that I can finally use facebooks posts and songs as my learning media.dEhiN wrote:From what I understand the CEFR standard is meant for self-evaulation.
No, I think it's not what CEFR is about. The rationale behind CEFR is to introduce a common scale so that a language certificate that you get from one certifying institution in one country is valid for the acceptance to a university or a job in another country.
If you are a self-learner, why do you need to assess yourself in some standard scale anyway? I am personally satisfied with the "happy with my progress/unhappy with my progress" scale. Observing your own progress should also be quite transparent: your skill evolves from "a month ago I couldn't understand a news article at all" to "now I understand the gist of it" to "now I understand all the details". Same with speaking/listening/writing.
(The only time when I have to assess my level is when I put starts in my language profile on Unilang. )
mikemike18 wrote:In that case, I would do what you did in your signature and leave it at A2/B1 for now. For B1, a lot of it really goes back to if you're able to express yourself (doesn't have to be amazingly) in most situations. I would say the imperfect and simple past are the most important tenses aside from the present and you need them both to comfortable express yourself in most situations. It would be hard to say you're B1 unless you're a little bit comfortable with these. If you're already comfortable with the present, you should be in a great position to go over the rules and start using these. Just go over the rules for a little bit, conjugate some verbs on your own, and as you read/watch/speak, it'll grow more natural. This goes for Spanish and Portuguese.. however, maybe do it with one language at a time because the past tenses of both of these languages are so similar you might confuse them if you learn them all at once.
mikemike18 wrote:Thankfully, the future isn't hard at all to express in either language. You'll find people using the shortcut way ("ir" in portuguese, and "ir a" in Spanish) a lot more than the actual future tense itself. Although some situations DO require the actual tense, it's less common.
vijayjohn wrote:Honestly, my understanding of these levels completely comes from these tests.
dEhiN wrote:From what I understand the CEFR standard is meant for self-evaulation. It specifies at each level roughly what a person should be able to do and understand in the language. You can read the about the levels here on Wikipedia.
księżycowy wrote:Great link. Thanks Leopejo! I'll have to bookmark that for later.
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