Got stuck at C1 in English

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DaveBee
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Re: Got stuck at C1 in English

Postby DaveBee » Wed May 03, 2017 11:36 pm

reineke wrote:
DaveBee wrote:
Cavesa wrote: Awesome hard British English tv series: Sherlock, Doctor Who, Allo Allo. Practice with stuff like that and most natives will seem easy to understand (old people using a strange dialect, patients with dysarthria, and sobbing children are likely to stay incomprehensible). C2 comprehension is definitely possible to achieve. As far as non-fiction goes, you might profit from tv debates. Or unscripted comedy.
I'm surprised you've watched Allo, Allo! I would have thought that would be native speakers only.


Allo Allo was big in several countries along with shows like Blackadder, Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses. I am not sure that there are many English-language shows that are native speakers only. Not even the stuff like Shaka Zulu, Still Game and Round the Twist.
It's just that the whole thing is pronounced with non-native accents, and deliberately broken english. I thought it would be perversely hard, and not at all entertaining, for an L2 english speaker/learner.
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Re: Got stuck at C1 in English

Postby reineke » Thu May 04, 2017 12:52 am

Good moaning, I was just pissing by is darn funny but I don't think this type of humor is especially hard to understand. The show does not dub well and the translator must get creative with the subtitles. I think that Blackadder and Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett would be good shows for an aspiring C2 student but I also think that someone at this level can choose his own shows. I also don't think a few shows will make a difference.

Olga, have you considered sitting for a C1 exam? It should be cheap enough and it's the best way to test your skills. Also try the Dialang online diagnostic tool. Ittests up to C2 but it's no replacement for the real thing. You can also post some speech samples here.
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Re: Got stuck at C1 in English

Postby s_allard » Thu May 04, 2017 12:43 pm

Given the limited access to outside corrective interaction for the OP here for the development of productive skills, the standard advice is to get more input, usually in the form of watching more television. This is basically good advice but I think there is a caveat that should be mentioned. I believe there is a danger of watching too much and not studying enough.

I'm not saying input is not important. I'm saying that it's important to use the input wisely. To be more specific, there are two activities that can be interspersed in all the watching. The first is making transcripts of short segments of recordings that are particularly interesting. The act of having to carefully listen repeatedly to every detail of the recording is a great way to memorize and internalize the language. Then listen to the recording many times with and without the transcript.

The second thing is to systematically study the core elements of the spoken and written language. Remember that especially in the spoken language, a small number of elements are used over and over again. So, while you can be overwhelmed by the enormous amount of vocabulary that exists, remember that in real life, all this vocabulary revolves around a small number of grammatical structures.

Let me give a concrete example. In spoken North American English, like in all languages, there is a small number of verbs that are used very frequently. The interesting thing about English verbs, when compared to, say, the Romance language verbs is that English verbs are not highly conjugated. This means that a lot of the information is not in the verb form but more in the grammatical context. It also means that verb forms can have very many meanings.

So, when learning English, it's important to periodically return to studying those very common verbs and go into more depth and nuances rather than just adding more vocabulary.
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Re: Got stuck at C1 in English

Postby Cavesa » Thu May 04, 2017 5:02 pm

DaveBee wrote:
reineke wrote:
DaveBee wrote:
Cavesa wrote: Awesome hard British English tv series: Sherlock, Doctor Who, Allo Allo. Practice with stuff like that and most natives will seem easy to understand (old people using a strange dialect, patients with dysarthria, and sobbing children are likely to stay incomprehensible). C2 comprehension is definitely possible to achieve. As far as non-fiction goes, you might profit from tv debates. Or unscripted comedy.
I'm surprised you've watched Allo, Allo! I would have thought that would be native speakers only.


Allo Allo was big in several countries along with shows like Blackadder, Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses. I am not sure that there are many English-language shows that are native speakers only. Not even the stuff like Shaka Zulu, Still Game and Round the Twist.
It's just that the whole thing is pronounced with non-native accents, and deliberately broken english. I thought it would be perversely hard, and not at all entertaining, for an L2 english speaker/learner.


It was very popular and even got a high quality dubbing decades ago, taking into account all the accents and such stuff. It may have been the same translation team that dubbed the Red Dwarf. Nothing like today's crap dubbings. But the original is better of course.

Why should it be hard at all? Perhaps some young people may not appreciate the humour, as it requires some history knowledge. But the language is definitely not too hard. The non-native accents are an advantage, not a difficulty. Why do English natives assume this so often? Vast majority of English a learner encounters in real life is broken English with non-native accents. Sometimes, I have trouble due to being "too good", while some people around communicate without problems, as they share the same mistakes with the other learners. Allo Allo is definitely for advanced learners, but for other reasons than the accents and broken English.

[quote=s_allard]I believe there is a danger of watching too much and not studying enough.[/quote]
I agree with this, even though not with majority of the post. Yes, it is true that studying is being underestimated. For example a good advanced grammar book is a great tool.

But extensive watching works. And the whole idea about learning fewer words well rather than many more superficially, is absolutely not right at this level. Using the appropriate vocabulary is one of the things that are being judged at the CAE/CPE. And you cannot use the appropriate vocabulary, if you don't have a vast vocab pool to draw from. Extensive listening and reading helps a lot, but it is true that tools like SRS can be very useful.

At your level, you should already have no problem with the common vocabulary and verbs and with most nuances. You have to add more vocabulary, if you want to improve. After all, you are still more likely to need a rare word than to use a rare nuance of a common word.

Ольга wrote:
Cavesa wrote:
About writing: that was the only CAE part graded C2 in my case. How did I do it? Tons of free practice in a text based RPG multiplayer game, including fan fiction. The amount of practice had been extremely important.


Could you please give me a piece of advice, what kind of forums and fanfiction community did you use?
Most forums which I have found are dead.

wotmud.org, The Wheel of Time Multi User Dungeon. Text based, awesome, based strictly on the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I joined the most roleplay based guild and did quite a lot of writing during my apprenticeship. But these days, it is less common to write essays and roleplay stories.

It is sad so many fanfiction and roleplay forums are dead.

Ольга wrote:
s_allard wrote:Regardless of the current level, the main issue is how to improve and eventually pass the CPE. I won't go into any depth on this issue for now except to say that at some point one must recognize the need for outside help. I believe strongly that for high levels of proficiency corrective feedback is essential. You can't do this alone.

Unfortunately, I don't have money to hire a highly professional tutor or a native.
I have to improve my level on my own, whatever level it can be.
Now I use one method which I like a lot - listen to an audiobook and follow the lines in the book.
By the way, my most problematic skills are Use of English and Speaking.
Listening, Reading and Writing are ok, at least I had good results when I had passed the mock exams.


Don't hire just any native or just any tutor, even when you find money for this. Most tutors are absolutely useless, when it comes to advanced learners and the exams. It is much better to have no tutor than a bad one. Bad tutors are not only those teaching mistakes or not making you progress fast. The worst are those, who are not strict enough, who are too supportive, bordering lying about your abilities, who choose too easy tasks for you. You need to work harder than most tutors would make you.
You don't need the tutor, or at least not for the vast majority of the time between now and the moment you sit your exam. It may be useful to get one for a few months before it for corrections, but you don't need to waste time and money on it before.
As your native Russian is quite a popular foreign language, you should be able to find exchange partners for casual talking, but it's not worth paying just conversation, in my opinion.

Audiobooks and following lines in the book is a great activity....for a B1 learner. Audiobooks are usually too easy and too clear for advanced learners, at least when it comes to comprehension. But you could definitely use them, with the book or without, to practice your pronunciation and accent. Repeating after audio is very helpful. Audiobooks, tv series, radio, anything. Listen and repeat, try to be as precise as possible. Again. Pay attention to details, pretend being the actor playing the role, if it helps (it is fun sometimes, that's a nice bonus :-) ).

Use of English: Work further on your grammar. Advanced Grammar in Use by Hewings is an example of a useful resource. And learn lots and lots of new vocabulary, at least passively (that proved extremely useful in my CAE Use of English tasks). Extensive reading and listening will help, not the tiniest rarest nuances of basic words. You should have covered those in enough detail already.
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Re: Got stuck at C1 in English

Postby aaleks » Thu May 04, 2017 6:03 pm

What I’m about to write is just my subjective opinion. It can be wrong.
In case with listening, at C1 level many of language learners have problems not with vocabulary and/or grammar but with perception of fast speech. I don’t think that listening short segments of audio can really be of much help here. The same thing is with using transcripts. Subtitles, transcripts and any other thing like it are what we call костыли (crutches) which at some point you have to throw away if you want to climb up onto the next level.
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Re: Got stuck at C1 in English

Postby rdearman » Thu May 04, 2017 6:05 pm

Cavesa wrote:wotmud.org, The Wheel of Time Multi User Dungeon.

Or http://www.mudconnect.com/ will show you tons of different muds.
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Re: Got stuck at C1 in English

Postby Cavesa » Thu May 04, 2017 8:01 pm

aaleks wrote:What I’m about to write is just my subjective opinion. It can be wrong.
In case with listening, at C1 level many of language learners have problems not with vocabulary and/or grammar but with perception of fast speech. I don’t think that listening short segments of audio can really be of much help here. The same thing is with using transcripts. Subtitles, transcripts and any other thing like it are what we call костыли (crutches) which at some point you have to throw away if you want to climb up onto the next level.


I totally agree. Another thing learners around this level tend to find difficult are various kinds of speakers. It's not just about regions and the difference between the british and american (and australian etc.) English. Learners at this stage tend to understand clear speech fine and they read well. Speed is just one of the difficulties. The trouble comes with surprising situations. The language sounds different depending on the age of the speaker, the quality of voice, their social status and education, emotions, the light speech impediments you hear often. Even stuff like the background noise matters. All this can be learnt by devouring tons of input, not by analysing tiny bits of the language.

And the only way to get ready for that is practice. Huge amount of listening.

But if we talk about smaller bits as a tool to practice speaking by repetition, I am all for it. But it can be done in as intensive or as extensive way as you want. During a movie, or make a pause for it, or return to the useful stuff later.

One more thing: C2 implies full ability to function in the langauge in real life (isn't that the main reason for learning langauges afterall?). The exam stuff or the usually recommended media tend to cover a rather narrow selection of situations. Based on my real life experience using C2 French for half a year, I would recommend including less obvious kinds of input (youtube recommendations concerning housework, websites about playing your musical instrument, and so on) and lots of vocabulary. The vocabulary you know perfectly in your native Russian, but which won't ever make it to the frequency lists. Most of this won't be tested in the CPE, but what is the point of being officially at the C2 level, if you'd be struggling in the real life too much.
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Re: Got stuck at C1 in English

Postby aaleks » Thu May 04, 2017 9:36 pm

Cavesa wrote:But if we talk about smaller bits as a tool to practice speaking by repetition, I am all for it. But it can be done in as intensive or as extensive way as you want. During a movie, or make a pause for it, or return to the useful stuff later.

Yes, speaking is a different thing. I usually just repeat phrases after actors in the series I watch online. But I’m not going to take any language exam in the near future. Otherwise I'd probably have used a more intensive approach.
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Re: Got stuck at C1 in English

Postby tarvos » Fri May 05, 2017 7:58 pm

One thing I always do at this level is look up information I'd normally look up in my native tongue in my TL. At the C levels, you really need to do a few things:

- Broaden your vocabulary gaps. You will still have gaps, but they are small and you can work around them with a simple "I don't know what this word means, could you explain it to me?"

- You need to be aware of style, register, and dialectal variation beyond the very obvious. This means you need to deal with a wide range of particular texts. So when you're ordering your next product online, and there's an issue, order it from an English website and practice writing your complaints in English. Practice holding presentations on academic subjects in English, not Russian (tutors can help here because you need someone to point out the mistakes you miss in your language use, not your general presentation technique).

- Get an advanced grammar book. If you notice in your writing that people find certain constructions awkward, or if you notice other people saying/doing things strangely, look up what the issue is. You don't need to work through the entire thing - use it as a reference manual. Often it's going to be something particular.

- More input is always good, but it has to be varied input, new material. A lot of complex fiction always helps. But you have to read for pleasure as well, because the important thing is the volume - and stop thinking of it as English practice. I read Lolita in Russian, not because I wanted to practice Russian, but because I wanted to read Lolita. And since the translation is by Nabokov himself, I could read it in Russian. I wanted to read Anna Karenina because I wanted to, and yes, I could have read it in translation, but who really wants to do such a thing. Same with TV series, movies etc.
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