Time from B2 to C1/C2? (frustrated somewhat- seeking some feedback pls)

[smallwhite]

I still can't remember what verlan is, I have googled it a dozen times already and I'm giving up

Or you could go old school and look up a dictionary instead:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verlan#French

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verlan#English

"A type of backslang used in France, in which the order of the syllables or sounds of words is changed."

[Elenia]

I will once again link to sctroyenne's post on what she did before sitting the C2 exam for French. It's nice and detailed and also super motivational.

[smallwhite]

1. Could I reach C2 by March 2017 if I'm already currently a B2?
2. If above seems a stretch- Could I reach C2 by November 2017 if I'm already currently a B2?

I don't know what C2 is like so I can't say. I believe you could pass C1 by March 2017.

3. What would this entail (grammar study, speaking, reading) in your opinion?
3a) How many hours?
3b) What should I focus on?

It would entail you working towards the test instead of working on what you like to work on.
As in:
cannot understand a mock C1 reading paragraph -> study that paragraph
and not:
cannot understand a mock C1 reading paragraph -> redo Assimil hoping the skills would transfer to understanding said paragraph.

My aim was to sit the B2 in May 2017 for French (originally I thought I could reach C1/C2 in a year or even less with hard study- idiot!!!).

If I were you I'd sit the C1 in May 2017.

4. Should I leave Dutch alone for now?

What level certificate do you need - officially - for your nursing &/ emigration stuff?

[PeterMollenburg]

The main points I can gather from this thread in which numerous people have taken the time to provide some really decent feedback (thank you all), are:

1 I will not introduce Dutch yet. I would be tempted to study it more seriously than my French could afford. And I think I need to stay focused on one language. If I can't get my shit together after 3000 hours of French study/exposure in 4 years, then I need to continue to attempt to address the problems. Pronunciation I believe has cost me a lot of time, and I am happy I took the time with French pronunciation to perfect it as best I could, but as iguanamon has stated with reference to my own words, my methods have been out of balance and that's clearly where most of my time has gone as well as going over similar level courses by different publishers. Still, I had to do what I had to do, since i'm me, but now that i'm here, it's clear changes are needed. Thus, I'm best off addressing these issues before introducing another language in which I could make similar mistakes.

Still, I must say that, I seriously cannot comprehend how people out there can theoretically go from zero to C1 or C2 in the hours specified by FSI, even if those figures were doubled, and one took a more balanced approach. Maybe I will change my tune with a few more languages under my belt. And FSI do use courses as well. I mean, in my defense, it's not like i've been sitting around staring at the cover of course books (although pre 2013 I may have done a lot of that ), I have actually done a lot of work over the last 4 years including more than 1500 hours of course work, 400 hours of televsion and 280 hours of reading and then other activities as well- SRS, podcasts etc. I've been learning the whole time.... But, very little speaking. Still I can't stop now, I've come too far- I'm not investing 3000 hours and throwing it away, I'll just simply have to adapt and accept that my methods are not sufficiently synergistic. I guess I'm like the body builder with a massive chest, smallish arms, a few abs and puny stick-thin legs.

2 It wouldn't hurt to have my level assessed more accurately. Serpent mentioned Dialang and one DFI. Cavesa mentions having an organistion assess it. Smallwhite had previously mentioned sitting the TCF to get a true formal assessment of my level. I'm considering all options. I could very well be below a B2, I don't believe I am, but who knows, I could be well beyond it. Perhaps I ought to consider smallwhite's suggestion indeed, as spending money for a formal assessment is likely to be the most accurate one would assume. And an accurate assessment might indeed assist with some useful feedback and help fathom what is ahead of me.

3 I need to work on my weaknesses as a priority.
I believe in order of most deficient to least deficient (or less of a priority)

Speaking.
Listening.
Reading.
Writing

The above need to take priority.

4 Any course I use must be suitably advanced and materials geared towards actually passing the French exams should also be deemed very important

So now i'm attempting to devise a study plan focusing on my weaknesses in particular. It's a four hour rotation of hour blocks of study.


Hour one
60 minutes of speaking or writing
With an aim to consistently speak (ie not to avoid it, but actually commit to a number of sessions a week). When not speaking (tutor, conversational exchange) then I must write (with a real person feeding directly back in real time or with delays correcting down the track).

Hour two
15min SRS + 45min listening practise (likely to be a series with transcripts or accurate subs)

Hour three
60 min Extensive reading

Hour four
15min SRS + 45min of one of these (each time I do this hour I change activity):
* advanced course study or course for exam prep.
* Intensive reading
* Intensive listening

[Systematiker]

I think your rotating schedule looks good!

I'm glad you made this thread, I've gained a lot from it as well.

And for what it's worth, you mentioned FSI numbers - I think those are classroom hours, with something like 3-5 hours of independent study daily, perhaps five or six days per week, across the month total listed for the languages in question. All for C1 (ideally).

[Finny]

Lots of good advice already. As someone who's never taken a CEFR test but who is pretty sure he's at the C1 level in Spanish, here's my take on your latest post, Peter.

There are many ways up the mountain, but my preferred path involves native media, whenever possible. I've read enough of your posts to know that you're a big fan of the program approach, but I do think you might get where you're going sooner if you spend as little time as possible with anything made for people learning French, and as much time as possible with anything made for people who already speak French.

My story in a nutshell involved taking Spanish throughout high school but never learning to speak it and barely learning to write or read it. Reading a few novels and trying a bunch of courses some years later helped, but I'd still have rated my abilities at around A1/2 until I absolutely decided to learn the language in Dec '12. From then on, I started reading, reading, reading...books for preschoolers all the way through books for adults, with a preference for books for elementary-aged kids and teenagers. I started listening, listening, listening to the radio in Spanish every time I was in the car (a habit I still engage in to this day). I started watching telenovelas (soap operas), and got through two or three series. In a little over a year, I took the state proficiency test and passed it; I was probably C1 by that point.

Leading up to the test, I spoke to myself in the shower to figure out what I could and couldn't say, and I read my books aloud to get myself used to producing the language. Before the test, I had a job for a short while where I spoke to a shy preschooler who only spoke Spanish; that also got me to look up a lot of things I didn't know how to say, and I also helped interpret conversations among parents and teachers. But the vast majority of my learning came from turning my free time and commuting time into a Spanish immersion environment.

I don't think the trip from A/B-whatever to C1 takes years in an FSI level 1 language if you have a fortunate mixture of time, motivation, effective (for you) learning methods, and aptitude. However, the less you have of any of those, the longer it's going to take. Right now, I'm learning French in a pretty similar way to how I learned Spanish, but I have a lot less time to do so. When I learned Spanish, I was married and working full time and going to school full time, but until close to the end, we didn't have kids. Now we have two. I'm no longer in school, but my only study time is after the kids are in bed, and I'm often too mentally drained to do much by then. Also, I don't have radio stations in my car to listen to in French, and even if I did, I probably wouldn't use them because I still listen to Spanish radio whenever driving. But this just means the trip will take longer; as others have noted, having done this once (or more) successfully gives you the self-efficacy (confidence) to know you can do it again and again and again.

Oh, and regarding motivation--I wanted to teach bilingual preschool and teach the language to my kids. I do both now. My motivation for French is to add it as a 3rd language for the kids, and these days, I split each week by speaking to them in Spanish for half of the week and French for the other half. I'd like to think my aptitude has gone up due to experience. My learning methods are probably about as effective, if not more; the limiting factor is time. I'll add that my motivation isn't as strong because I don't need French for my dream job, which was the case with Spanish.

So in conclusion, I think you've gotten lots of good ideas here, and you're clearly thinking about it all. I'd just suggest thinking more about living French and less about learning French.

[iguanamon]

Some online tests are better than others. The US Defense Language Institute has an Online Diagnostic Assessment test for French and 17 other languages. It tests reading and listening comprehension. You do have to register but it's free and well worth the time. There are also sample DELF/DALF tests here and here. Dialang also has a diagnostic test.

What is diagnostic assessment?
Diagnostic assessment is an instructive tool that determines a student's strengths and weaknesses in a particular language skill and provides him or her with feedback specific to that area. It is an educational tool, and it is not used for any administrative purpose.
How long does the assessment take?
The Online Diagnostic Assessment (ODA) system is semi-adaptive, which means the number of passages and questions you get will depend on your performance. If you perform well at an advanced level of content, you will most likely go through more passages and questions than someone who performs well at an intermediate or lower level. At the very least, you will go through three sets of passages (for a total of nine passages).
The ODA will take anywhere from one to two hours per skill, depending on your speed and performance. Early completion, however, does not necessarily indicate a high level of performance.
What kind of questions will I get?
You will encounter content questions, which require you to examine the meaning of a text. You will also be given questions on the grammatical, discourse, and lexical (vocabulary) features of a text.
Many questions are open-ended, which means that you have to type in your answer. All open-ended questions in ODA should be answered in English. You will also see some multiple choice questions.
In the reading assessment, some questions will ask you to identify a linguistic element in the text, such as the subject or the object. To answer these questions, you will need to select the correct linguistic element, and then use the onscreen "Paste" button. The item you selected will appear in the answer field.
In the listening assessment, you will be able listen to each passage twice (using the "Repeat" button) for the first two to three comprehension questions. Some levels will offer an additional modified version of the authentic recording. Listen to the modified version ONLY if you cannot understand the authentic version.
What kind of feedback will I get? Will I get a score?
The feedback you will get comes in the form of a diagnostic profile. The results of your assessment are used to create this individualized profile. It will provide detailed and specific information about the linguistic tasks you are able to perform, and more importantly, it tells you what content and linguistic areas are the most difficult for you.
How can the computer evaluate my answers?
In order for the computer to judge your answers correctly, open-ended questions are constructed so that only one specific response is possible. Each of your answers is evaluated against a set of answer "protocols," or possible alternates of the correct answer.
Actual answers from users are regularly checked by ODA specialists monitoring the performance of the answer protocols. If they encounter an alternative correct answer that was not included in the protocol, the new alternate is added and uploaded to the system.

[PeterMollenburg]

1. Could I reach C2 by March 2017 if I'm already currently a B2?
2. If above seems a stretch- Could I reach C2 by November 2017 if I'm already currently a B2?

I don't know what C2 is like so I can't say. I believe you could pass C1 by March 2017.

3. What would this entail (grammar study, speaking, reading) in your opinion?
3a) How many hours?
3b) What should I focus on?

It would entail you working towards the test instead of working on what you like to work on.
As in:
cannot understand a mock C1 reading paragraph -> study that paragraph
and not:
cannot understand a mock C1 reading paragraph -> redo Assimil hoping the skills would transfer to understanding said paragraph.

My aim was to sit the B2 in May 2017 for French (originally I thought I could reach C1/C2 in a year or even less with hard study- idiot!!!).

If I were you I'd sit the C1 in May 2017.

4. Should I leave Dutch alone for now?

What level certificate do you need - officially - for your nursing &/ emigration stuff?

Your post is to the point smallwhite. Work on what needs to be worked on, ie that which is completely relevant, and it makes a lot of sense. Thus when I do any coursework I will endeavour to include exam prep courses. Do note that I'm not just wanting to pass the exam as the be all and end all. I want to pass the exam and actually really be at that level (ie not just fast trick with a series of 'cheat's' where i cover the skeleton framework of the test to try to pass without actually having any flesh on the bones). I say this as I'm not exactly sure if I made that clear and whether you might have thought I just want the certificate however I can do it. As i'm wanting to accomplish this sooner rather than later, i may have been inviting that kind of response- to get there as fast as possible while still having a lot of holes in my French in reality with regards to the level in question. But, I also want to say, i'm not necessarily assuming that is where you're coming from either. I don't know, as your post is succinct and like many others great posts you have made I still find it a little tricky to gauge your angle exactly, thus that's why I wanted to clarify the above. More than likely I think there's no angle, you're just being your efficient self and telling me how it is, and your points are absolutely valid and worth taking into consideration.

For nursing I understand I need a B2 at minimum, but of course C1 would probably help more so for landing a position I'd imagine. Dutch can wait- French is the priority, even if I went to Belgium I'd imagine not having great Dutch wouldn't matter too much if I focused on Brussels or even more so, Wallonia. Of course it would be advantageous, but not necessarily relevant to the main priority, that of advancing my French sufficiently. So I think a higher level of French is probably more advantageous than introducing Dutch just yet, but were I to attempt nursing in an area in which clientele often were of Flemish ethnicity, then of course, Dutch would play a bigger role again.

I think your rotating schedule looks good!

I'm glad you made this thread, I've gained a lot from it as well.

And for what it's worth, you mentioned FSI numbers - I think those are classroom hours, with something like 3-5 hours of independent study daily, perhaps five or six days per week, across the month total listed for the languages in question. All for C1 (ideally).

Glad someone else is getting something useful out of this thread Yeah you're right, those FSI hours are meant to include hours outside of class which are not counted in the scales, and therefore too often ignored. They ought to rewrite them with the 'real' total hours, and throw the old ones in the trash. Still, I'm sure they were originally provided based only on the class hours for a reason, and that's likely to be for those wishing to study in their institute(s).

[DaveBee]

Glad someone else is getting something useful out of this thread Yeah you're right, those FSI hours are meant to include hours outside of class which are not counted in the scales, and therefore too often ignored. They ought to rewrite them with the 'real' total hours, and throw the old ones in the trash. Still, I'm sure they were originally provided based only on the class hours for a reason, and that's likely to be for those wishing to study in their institute(s).

There's a paper on Mr Krashen's website (very small sample size) that suggests 1,200 hours of independent reading for 9,000 word vocabulary.

On the basis of a corpus analysis, Nation (2014) estimated that readers can move from elementary levels of vocabulary knowledge in a second language (knowledge of 2000 word families) to a very high level (knowledge of 9000 word families) after a total 1,223 hours of reading, about one hour a day over three years. Nation concluded that a "vocabulary size of 9,000 words or more is a sensible long-term goal for unassisted reading of unsimplified texts" as it will "provide coverage of over 98% of the running words in a wide range of texts"

[smallwhite]

I want to pass the exam and actually really be at that level

I know that. My idea which I didn't explicity say was:
Step 1: pass any exam necessary for your nursing & emigration stuff, B2 in this case
Step 2: restart Dutch, continue onto C1 French, drink, party, surf, ...

I'm pretty sure everyone on this forum knows you want perfect French