Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

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reineke
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby reineke » Wed Aug 31, 2016 1:41 pm

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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby Cavesa » Wed Aug 31, 2016 1:49 pm

Marais wrote:Well ok, let's say you can pass the exam in 3 months, but you won't be 'real' B1 level. You might be certified but you still wouldn't be anything close to comfortable in the language.
As soon as you go on the street you will be bamboozled.

The OP is not required to go on the street in three months. He (or she) needs to pass the exam, therefore have at least the bare minimum of B1 level, and than they will continue and can get the true B1 during the next months, or half a year or whatever timeframe they've got.

Don't forget that there is another good reason why one might consider taking a language exam prematurely, when in hurry. You don't get the results right immediately, especially the Spanish exams take longer than some others from what I've read on the offiicial site. So, I can easily imagine he is taking the exam now in November, to have the certificate sometime like April or May. By then, he totally can be solid B1 :-)

And i don't believe it's possible to get 'real' B1 listening in a month. Recorded, sterile, rehearsed, textbook conversations can be done in a month, but on very narrow topics like the time, taking the train and all that fake stuff. It's not possible. The brain needs time, and a month isn't long enough. Unless of course it's something like Spanish-Portuguese, Italian-Spanish or Norwegian-Swedish.

With the real language you still wouldn't cut it. Plenty of kids in the UK have A* GCSE/A-Level in a language and can't even order firewood over the phone, give directions or return an unwanted item in their TL in real life. FWIW, i think GCSE is A2/B1.

And if he needs the language for his degree i'm assuming he will come a cropper if he's only passed an exam and doesn't really know the language too well?

:-D Why do you believe it is not possible? After my preparation and arrival to Spain, I was not being exposed to sterile recorded textbook conversations. After a few days of getting used to the situation (and with lots of preparation, mostly with tv series, behind me during the month or six weeks before, not more due to my exams), I was completely comfortable with the conversations in the lab (including the situations in which people were not talking to me, therefore had no reason to dumb things down), in the daily situations at home or in the town, in individual and group conversations on various topics with the natives from the northern Spain (my speaking was much worse, but I could understand almost everything). My only comprehension problems were individual unknown words, some of the southern spaniards (truth be told, they were not always easy to understand even to the other natives), the moments in which several people were speaking at once, or when the discussion got really really fast and included "cultural" stuff I couldn't have known (such as the types of final exams of spanish medicine students). I dare say that my listening was well above B1 by then, despite the other skills lagging behind.

So, if I could do it, I can't see any reason why an even more motivated person couldn't.

GSCE means nothing, just like most state organized exams in the mainstream public education. They just need to have some labels. Unification of our maturita, based on foreign examples, is a a proof. I've seen the "B1" tests and videos of passing students' oral exams. No education system will admit to the taxpayers the real results of the langauge education that takes so many years. And no education system can afford to make an oblicatory exam most taxpayers' children wouldn't pass.
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby garyb » Wed Aug 31, 2016 1:51 pm

Marais wrote:Well ok, let's say you can pass the exam in 3 months, but you won't be 'real' B1 level. You might be certified but you still wouldn't be anything close to comfortable in the language.

As soon as you go on the street you will be bamboozled.


I agree, but in this case I'd say focus on the exam and then fill in the gaps afterwards. November is just the date for the exam because these exams can only be taken a few times a year and that's the last sitting before the University application deadline. I don't think the OP has mentioned when this deadline is or when the course would actually begin, but we could easily be talking another couple of months or more since academic sessions usually begin in January and September. That would be some time to build upon what they learnt for the exam and reach a more solid B1 level.

(edit: Cavesa beat me to it and made quite the same points)
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby emk » Wed Aug 31, 2016 2:57 pm

Cavesa wrote:
Marais wrote:You can learn to read Spanish in 3 months, you could learn passable spoken skills in 3 months, but there's no way you can do that and hear the language at native spoken speed unless you're an experienced language learner and/or have very closely related languages already.

You don't need to understand at the natural speed at level B1, or to really non-standard language. Actually, the listening tasks at this level are not supposed to be that hard. Ad for the purposes of the exam, there are usually several kinds of tasks that get used over and over and the preparatory books are a great lead in this area.

But still, it is possible to get such high listening skills in a month by the way, even with other skills at A1-A2, which is what I had done a few years ago before a student exchange. Listening won't be the main trouble, I'd say writing could be.

I agree, you can absolutely develop B1 listening skills in 3 months if you're willing to spend all your free time studying. First of all, most language schools only estimate 300 to 400 "guided learning hours" to reach B1, which—if you assume FSI-style intensive study—takes less than 10 weeks. Since FSI needs to get their French students all the way to ILR 3/3 in roughly 22 weeks, and ILR 3/3 is roughly equivalent to C1, then they need to get their students to B1 in well under 22 weeks, especially since the gaps between B1 and B2 and B2 and C1 are larger than the gaps between lower levels.

Second, B1 speaking skills only require you to understand slow, clearly-articulated speech in the standard dialect. Here's a description from an older official document describing the CEFR levels in detail:

  • I can follow clearly articulated speech directed at me in everyday conversation, though I sometimes have to ask for
    repetition of particular words and phrases.
  • I can generally follow the main points of extended discussion around me, provided speech is clearly articulated in
    standard dialect.
  • I can listen to a short narrative and form hypotheses about what will happen next.
  • I can understand the main points of radio news bulletins and simpler recorded material on topics of personal interest
    delivered relatively slowly and clearly.
  • I can catch the main points in TV programmes on familiar topics when the delivery is relatively slow and clear.
  • I can understand simple technical information, such as operating instructions for everyday equipment.

Third, it's possible to get surprisingly good listening comprehension in short period of time, provided that you actually focus on it and study effectively. After 100 hours of working on Spanish, I could enjoy watching a single children's TV series and follow the plot. Admittedly, I couldn't do anything else with my Spanish, because I'd focused on that one skill to the exclusion of all else. But listening doesn't have to be your weakest skill. One of my Spanish-speaking co-workers thinks it's hilarious that I have to read Spanish aloud to understand it, because the spoken form is easier for me than the written form.

The main reason that people think listening is a ridiculously hard skill is because they spend most of their time either reading or listening to unnaturally slow and clear audio. Once you actually start working on listening, it's possible to rapidly strengthen it to more-or-less match your other skills.

Of course, this won't help you if you get stuck in an extremely fast, slurred conversation between two natives who know each other well and who have regional accents. But nobody expects you to handle that at B1.
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby Cainntear » Wed Aug 31, 2016 4:25 pm

Marais wrote:Well ok, let's say you can pass the exam in 3 months, but you won't be 'real' B1 level. You might be certified but you still wouldn't be anything close to comfortable in the language.

As soon as you go on the street you will be bamboozled.

Look again at the OP's requirements. The goal is to be allowed on to a university course, and that means fulfilling the prerequisites.

There's two important things to remember here: as a highly motivated learner, the OP should quickly overtake most of the "yeah, language sounds, like, cool" students; and the other students' previous exams may well be less rigourous than the DELE anyway.

Any decent teacher would love to have the sort of student in the class that can go out and pass an exam like that from zero in a matter of months.
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby reineke » Tue Mar 28, 2017 2:30 pm

Aprender wrote:The B1 DELE exam dates are very late November, 14 weeks away. I started to learn Spanish a month ago, I've invested 20 hours+ so far I haven't really kept track. Learning Spanish is a fun project! I've completed quite a few Assimil lessons and I'm almost on CD number 6 of the Foundation Course of Michel Thomas and I will complete the advanced course as well. Without going in to detail, in order to fulfil a language requirement for university I would like to attend, I have to pass the B1 exam, quite urgently. November would be the latest test date I could book in order to fulfil the requirement before the deadline. I initially thought I would have a longer period of time and thought I'd be able to spend time in Spain but that is no longer the case. I have lots of free time each day available to learn Spanish and the cost of the resources are not too much of an issue, provided they are not astronomically expensive. My question is. Is it feasible for a first time foreign language learner? I have the time available and I'm fortunate enough to have the funds but don't know where to start. I'm incredibly motivated because I have a lot at stake. I'm sorry if this is in the wrong subsection!


So, what happened?
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby jeffers » Tue Mar 28, 2017 3:14 pm

reineke wrote:So, what happened?


The OP got scared away by 6 pages of advice and debate about what they should be doing? Their first post on this thread was their last ever post on these forums.
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby reineke » Tue Mar 28, 2017 3:27 pm

It's not the first time and certainly not the last. I doubt we're so scary. Some language learners cross post on a number of forums and then disappear. For some advice seekers, posting here is kind of like posting on the Windows annoyances forum. Iguanamon and Tommus would like them to state their OS (mother tongue) and other software.Believe it or not some people find language learning (and the related theories ) a rather boring and tedious affair.
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby PeterMollenburg » Wed Mar 29, 2017 2:55 am

reineke wrote:.Believe it or not some people find language learning (and the related theories ) a rather boring and tedious affair.


I certainly used to
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby Xenops » Wed Mar 29, 2017 3:35 am

reineke wrote:It's not the first time and certainly not the last. I doubt we're so scary. Some language learners cross post on a number of forums and then disappear. For some advice seekers, posting here is kind of like posting on the Windows annoyances forum. Iguanamon and Tommus would like them to state their OS (mother tongue) and other software.Believe it or not some people find language learning (and the related theories ) a rather boring and tedious affair.


I think language learning is like many goals: people like the idea of having it accomplished, but not the work involved.
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