From Italian A1 to B2 in three weeks, nearly made it!

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s_allard
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From Italian A1 to B2 in three weeks, nearly made it!

Postby s_allard » Thu Jun 08, 2023 11:52 pm

Today, June 8, I wrote the Official B2 exam for the University of Siena. I don’t think I passed because of a simple time management mistake but it was a very interesting experience and very useful for future test preparation.

The whole adventure started with my interest in fast language learning which I have discussed ad nauseam around this thread. So I decided to challenge myself and put the proverbial money where my mouth is. On the last day April 16 and 160 CAD laterI signed up for the Italian B2 test on June 8 at the local Istituto italiano di cultura here in Montreal.

After signing up I realized that I really didn’t have much time to devote to studying because of prior commitments till around mid-May. So I switched into high gear only around May 15. I must add that I had taken two Italian university courses some 20 years ago but hadn't touched any Italian since. I therefore wasn’t a beginner but very very rusty.

In the meantime I had concentrated on Spanish right up to passing the C2 exam in 2017 and I have been using it regularly since. This was going to be a problem as we’ll see later.

So I marshalled all the learning resources I had lying around including my old materials form uni days. But now things are much different. All the online resources and now ChatGPT have changed the world of language learning.

I didn’t use a tutor – or at least someone familiar with the exam format but I did look at some previous exam materials. So I did know pretty much what to expect. Now the idea was to put it about 4 hours a day on the basics of grammar, vocabulary and speaking. I did a bit of everything including studying with two grammar books, reading about 20 pages of a novel, watching hours of Youtube videos of all kinds, making flash cards, using ChatGPT to develop questions and answers and using Audacity to record myself. I think I averaged only around 2 hours a day

The key here was lots of repetition : listening to things at least 5 times and recording myself over and over.

As to be expected, the big problem was the interference of Spanish. There was not much I could do about it. I nearly stopped speaking Spanish for the three weeks but that was not enough. This was a huge problem with speaking Italian. Every time I opened my mouth, even at the exam, Spanish wanted to come out. In a way it was a good sign ; I was having the problems of a Spanish-speaker learning Italian.

What I realized that not only did I have to acquire a lot of Italian, I also had to learn to keep the Italian separate from my Spanish. Not easy.

The exam itself was what I expected more or less but for one unpleasant surprise. There were two oral comprehension tests : listen to a recording twice and answer some multi-choice questions. Then two reading comprehension tests : read a short text and answer some multi-choice questions.

Then the tricky part : a test of grammar and vocabulary that consists of four parts where you have to 1) fill in the blanks of a text with the right words ; 2) fill in the right verbs forms when given the infinitive form in a text. I don’t clearly remember the two other parts right now because that’s where I made a big mistake.

I didn’t realize that there were four parts. The exam proctor did not mention it – a lacking I believe. So I just took my time and it was only when we told that we had 5 minutes left in that section that I realized that I still had two parts to do. What I should have done was just fill in the answers randomly. That’s better than nothing.

Then on to two writing tests. Write at least 80 words in a letter thanking a professor for correcting your doctoral thesis and then at least 120 words on why children should learn from adults to avoid making mistakes in life. I was quite prepared for this.

Then the speaking test consisted of a 2-minute conversation and a 2-minute presentation with the examiner in front of a witness. This was recorded to be sent to Italy. No surprise here but my nervousness caused the Spanish to keep wanting to come out.

So I don’t think I passed the test but the good news is that I will only have to retake the parts that I will have failed. The other thing is that I was pleasantly surprised by how much progress I made in three weeks. There’s nothing like an exam to put fire in your belly. And just as I expected, there is basically a small number of key structures and vocabulary that can carry you a long way. There is much of the language that you simply don’t have to know – at least at the B2 level.

Knowing what I know now, I believe that I could have a go at C1 or even C2 next year if I want to keep working on Italian instead of repeating parts of B2. There a couple of things I would do differently. First of all, I would get a tutor and then a conversation partner to practice. Second, practice writing specifically for the test. Third, read at least an entire book, fiction or non-fiction. Fourth, listen repeatedly to a variety of videos. Fifth, get used to recording and listening to your voice.

Finally, do not wait to the last minute. I felt that 3 weeks to B2 is doable but I had something of a base. Learning a language takes a lot of time on task. Cramming at the last minute is risky at best. So in three months I'll let everyone know how it went.
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Re: From Italian A1 to B2 in three weeks, nearly made it!

Postby iguanamon » Fri Jun 09, 2023 1:45 pm

Well done, s_allard! As someone with a few Romance languages learned as second languages, I know what hard work this encompasses. It's a big deal.

As similar as Spanish and Catalan are, I came in with certain built-in advantages being a second language speaker of Spanish, Portuguese, Ladino, and even Haitian Creole while learning Catalan. I jumped immediately into reading and fairly quickly into listening, but I don't think I would've ever dared to take a B2 test in three weeks. So, my hat's off to you, regardless of your score. You put in a lot of hard work on a daily basis. That being said, of course there's no denying that you had certain advantages in having a high level of Spanish and also being a native-speaker of French.

You don't really mention how much your French helped with your learning Italian. Do you think you gained more advantage with Italian from your Spanish than from your French? Did your previous German mission help you with planning this Italian experience? Did you incorporate your philosophy of mastering core language vocabulary which you have advocated in the past?

Again, thanks for sharing this with us. Regardless of the advantages you have, it still represents a lot of effort and diligence on your part. I know how hard it is to keep similar languages separate from my experience with Spanish and Portuguese. I'm much more comfortable with them staying in their own lanes nowadays.
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Re: From Italian A1 to B2 in three weeks, nearly made it!

Postby tastyonions » Fri Jun 09, 2023 1:59 pm

Vocab overlap between French and Italian is huge, almost 90%. I’m not even a native speaker of French and it made learning Italian so much easier.
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Re: From Italian A1 to B2 in three weeks, nearly made it!

Postby s_allard » Fri Jun 09, 2023 2:58 pm

iguanamon wrote:

You don't really mention how much your French helped with your learning Italian. Do you think you gained more advantage with Italian from your Spanish than from your French? Did your previous German mission help you with planning this Italian experience? Did you incorporate your philosophy of mastering core language vocabulary which you have advocated in the past?

Again, thanks for sharing this with us. Regardless of the advantages you have, it still represents a lot of effort and diligence on your part. I know how hard it is to keep similar languages separate from my experience with Spanish and Portuguese. I'm much more comfortable with them staying in their own lanes nowadays.


Thanks for the kind words. The more I think about the whole experience, the more I believe I was a bit crazy to even attempt this. I had even toyed with the idea of not showing up at the test rather than going to make a fool of myself but I was curious to see and experience the whole thing. Plus I had paid all that good money.

To answer the question about the value of knowing French, I would say that being a Romance language, like Spanish, it provided a certain common framework that is shared with Italian. That was certainly very helpful, unlike English or German.

The real problem I found was the superficial resemblances that masked major grammatical differences. For example I had a hell of a time with the Italian se meaning if, totally different from the Spanish or French si. And Italian does have the pronoun si. So I had to keep saying to myself that every time I see se in Italian, it’s really si and when I see si, it’s the third person pronoun. All very confusing when speaking.

There was a similar problem with verb tense endings. The system in the three languages is basically the same but the details are in the individual endings. At the exam I realized that I had completely forgotten how to form the future tense. Or rather I wasn’t sure any more because I was mixing things up with Spanish.

I would agree think that at high levels of proficiency one can keep the languages on separate tracks quite easily. At lower levels it’s so easy to lapse into the other language. Just the other day when speaking with a Cuban friend I spontaneously said aspettava instead of esperaba, all to amusement of my friend.
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Re: From Italian A1 to B2 in three weeks, nearly made it!

Postby Axon » Fri Jun 09, 2023 10:45 pm

This was fascinating to read, thank you! I see you've updated your profile with the German B2 certificate - a very belated congratulations there! Did you pass German B2 at the conclusion of this thread, or some other time? https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7475
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Re: From Italian A1 to B2 in three weeks, nearly made it!

Postby s_allard » Sat Jun 10, 2023 11:13 am

Axon wrote:This was fascinating to read, thank you! I see you've updated your profile with the German B2 certificate - a very belated congratulations there! Did you pass German B2 at the conclusion of this thread, or some other time? https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7475

I did the German B2 exam in 2019 after taking a preparation class at the local Goethe Institut. I didn't find it particularly difficult because the class was very good. I had always been interested in the language because of my interest in German history and especially World War II. Studying for the exam was really the push that I needed to take my German up a notch. I rarely use it today except for watching Youtube and movies.
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Re: From Italian A1 to B2 in three weeks, nearly made it!

Postby s_allard » Tue Sep 05, 2023 12:27 pm

For those who might be interested, I just received the results for the B2 test that I wrote in June this year. They are exactly what I anticipated. All scores are out of 20:


ESAMI SOSTENUTI
Data esame Livello Asc. Let. Met. Scr. Ora. Esito Doc.
08/06/2023 B2 12 15 6 10 12 L'esame è superato parzialmente. Le abilità non superate possono essere ripetute entro 18 mesi dal primo esame sostenuto.

I passed three out of the five tests: Listening (12), Reading (15) and Speaking (12)
I failed two tests: Method - I'm not sure what this is - (6) and Writing (10)
I only have to rewrite the two failed tests within 18 months.

Overall, I'm very happy with these results for three weeks of study. Had I not made that time management mistake I discussed earlier I think I would have passed. So the decision is to either retake the two B2 tests or maybe attempt the C1 now that i have lots of time.

I encourage everyone to take a test like this because it really puts a fire in your belly.
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Re: From Italian A1 to B2 in three weeks, nearly made it!

Postby s_allard » Wed Sep 06, 2023 6:40 pm

There's a little detail in the test that I think warrants attention. All the tests have the same weighting. This means that the speaking test is just as important as the writing test. The speaking test consists of a two-minute conversation and a two-minute presentation on a subject. That's not a lot of speaking; in fact I didn't speak for two minutes straight in each test. It was really quick.

So, obviously, the examiners are extrapolating their assessment from a very tiny sample of the candidate's speech. As the old-timers around here know, this is a topic dear to my heart.
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mattmo
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Re: From Italian A1 to B2 in three weeks, nearly made it!

Postby mattmo » Wed Sep 20, 2023 7:53 pm

Wow well done! I think that it is not easy to get to B2 in any language; the timespan of few weeks makes even more impressive!
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