Listening Skills - C2 Level

[issemiyaki]

So sorry to hear about the issues with HTLAL - we all have such fond memories of that page.

Can someone tell me the difference between a student's LISTENING SKILLS at a B2 level versus a C2 level? Are there things one cannot understand at a B2 level, versus a C2 level?"

I ask because I'm under the impression that most daily conversations, even the more complex ones, happen at a B1, or maybe even a B2 level. I was just at the AT&T cell phone store to upgrade my cell phone, and I was ease dropping on a conversation.

The sales clerk said: "You'll need to accept this offer if you want to reduce your monthly payments. You can make payments directly from your checking or savings account." Then the sales clerk said: "This is a better model phone anyway. It's sleek and there are more features. Had I not just updated my phone, I would have purchased this one myself." And the the customer said; "What about the fine print. I need to know about any hidden fees, taxes, etc." While the conversation was happening a very quick pace, even in English, the vocabulary was very basic. Tax, fees, update my phone. And the verbs were basically "to be" and "to have." While there were some hypotheticals, those are reviewed during B1 levels, generally.

Also, when President Obama addresses the nation, would you say he's speaking at a B2 level? After all, people without college degrees can understand exactly what he's saying.

Dying to get your feed back on this.

Thx a million!

[basica]

IIRC the criteria states something along the lines that you can understand speech even in a busy or crowded environment, understand non standard accents and basically understand virtually everything said in a variety of contexts, being able to distinguish between fine shades of meaning.

[emk]

Here's a semi-official document from the Council of Europe laying out criteria for each CEFR level. But please note: This document seems to be intended for self-assessment by students who inflate their skills. If you tend to be harsh in assessing your skills, it's certainly possible to pass a relatively challenging B2 test without meeting all the criteria in this document. Still, it's a good starting place for getting an idea about what each level should be able to do.

[issemiyaki]

Excellent.

Now, with that being said ... would you say that presidential speeches are given at a B2 level? or C2 level?

I think many assume just because it's a presidential speech, it's automatically a C2 - but I'm not so convinced of that.

What's your take?

Thx again.

[Serpent]

Depends on the president/country? Some public speeches are more sophisticated than others.

[issemiyaki]

I wonder if there are some ways that we can determine if what we're listening to is on the B or C level?

[daegga]

From a pure listening skill perspective, a public speech is more likely at the B2 level than at the C2 level. But on the vocabulary or grammar level, it can certainly be above. Also keep in mind that some native speaker ghetto kid probably has a higher passive vocabulary than your average C2 learner, albeit it does not necessarily have to be a superset of it. The logic of "everybody should understand it therefore it must be a lower level" is thus invalid. But Mr. President will not likely cite poetry our medical journals if this is your understanding of C2.

Anyway, from a pure listening skill level, this can be qualified.
B level: clear standard speech
C level: fast, slurry, bad quality (like a weak signal on your mobile phone), slang, dialect, ...

By the way ... if you need a C level to understand somebody, this somebody does not necessarily speak on a C level. These are two different things. And native speakers speak on a native level, which is outside of the scope of the CEFR.

[issemiyaki]

@daegga - great answer.

I'm in the midst of learning German and Russian.

While I'm fluent in Spanish now, it was a rocky road to this point because a) I didn't know about great websites like this one (youth is so wasted on the young!); and b) I spent virtually NO time working on my listening skills, which is why I was always saying: "what?" I doesn't help that native speakers tend to slur their words in any language. But I didn't do my part. I didn't work on those listening skills.

This time, things will be different.

[emk]

Yeah, for a European language, it's expected that you can follow most formal, clear speech by B2, as long as it doesn't make really heavy use of specialized jargon. C2 is for things like stand-up comedy, teenagers talking with each other, movies with highly casual language, heavy regional accents, and other stuff like that.

If you can read pretty well, but your listening is still weak, there's a fun way to fix it: Watch entire DVD box sets / television series straight through.

For this to work, you need to:

1. Understand at least some of one TV series. Understanding around 40% or so of the dialog is fine, as long as you can still have fun watching.
2. Have stronger reading than listening skills.

When I tried this, I went from 40% to 70% comprehension within about one season, and I reached 95% comprehension within 3 or 4 seasons. Then I started over again with another box set, and another, and after watching about 5 series, I could channel surf on French TV and understand the majority of people that I met in Montreal without too much trouble, despite not spending any time working on the Quebec accent.

TV series work well, because the pictures provide lots of hints, and because you only need to deal with a limited set of actors and topics at one time.

Other HTLAL members have had similar experiences.

[issemiyaki]

@EMK

You're on to something. There's a French series that I like called "CLEM."

I can pretty much follow what's going on because I understand about 50%. There was one scene where a woman was crying, and she said something about being divorced is not the end of the world. So with just a few words I was able to follow the scene by guessing.

I was also able to decipher tons of phrases just through context:

C'est quoi ça - what on earth is that?;
t'as raison (here I was happy to have understood despite the elision);
j'arrive tout de suite - I'll be right there
aucune idée.

So, I have purchased a region free DVD, so now I'll go ahead and purchase that DVD series and watch as many of them as I can.

Thanks for the feedback.