DELE group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
Vero
White Belt
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:13 pm
Languages: Czech (N), Spanish (C2), English (C1), Catalan (A1), German, French, Italian (passive and mostly forgotten)
x 116

DELE C2 results

Postby Vero » Thu Jan 17, 2019 1:10 pm

Finally! I got my DELE C2 results. The overall result is... APTO 8-)

The detailed results are:

Prueba 1 Uso de la lengua, comprensión de lectura y auditiva: 30.77 / 33.33
Prueba 2 Destrezas integradas: comprensión auditiva, comprensión de lectura y expresión e interacción escritas: 20 / 33.33
Prueba 3 Destrezas integradas: comprensión de lectura y expresión e interacción orales: 33.34 / 33.34

To be frank, I didn't expect to pass the written part so por los pelos, but I take it - it was really difficult. On the other hand, I have been more than recompensed by the results from the oral part. So, I'm totally happy.

Good luck to all of you for your next DELE exam ;)
19 x

NoManches
Blue Belt
Posts: 654
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 2:21 pm
Location: Estados Unidos (near the Mexican border)
Languages: English - (N)
Spanish - B2 +
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7942
x 1459

Re: DELE group

Postby NoManches » Thu Jan 17, 2019 2:46 pm

Vero wrote:Hi NoManches,

First of all, good luck at the exam! I hope you'll be enjoying the preparation.

I passed DELE C1 in november 2016. I'm not 100 % sure if it already was the new format of the exam but I think so. I can confirm that at C1 you'll encounter a lot of Spanish (= originating from Spain) idioms and informal expressions. As far as I know and remember, you should have it covered if you go through this: https://www.amazon.es/Las-expresiones-c ... 8497783204
I found it quite useful and there's also a lot of Spanish idioms in the vocabulary of Preparacion al DELE C1.
With respect to the geographical aspect of the exams, I would say that the emphasis is put on European Spanish. I've met one Mexican audio at C1, the rest (as far as I remember) were European accents. And, what has already been mentioned, it's the case for the vocabulary as well.

Based on my experience, it's not important if your Preparacion al DELE C1 is not the latest version, it's more a manual for acquiring new vocabulary and practicing specific exam skills than a reference for how the real tests look like. On the other side, Cronometro gives you a precise idea of how the exam really is and I personally think that's the most useful source for preparation from all.

And I'm still waiting for my results from DELE C2 :evil:


Wow, thanks for all the advice! I just purchased that book on Amazon and look forward to working with it.

In terms of preparation for the C1 (specifically reading and lsitening), what do you recommend I work with? I've been reading a lot of novels but think since the test seems to be based off of relatively short articles, that I should just spend a lot of my time reading advanced articles in the paper?

And for a somewhat silly question (because it doesn't mention it in my book), do you recall if you were able to first review the questions in the audio and reading portions so you had an idea of what to look for ? Or do you have to do the reading/listening and blindly answer the questions afterwards. Also not being explained in the book, is whether you are allowed to answer the questions while doing the reading or the listening....or at least answer them when you have that little gap between the first and second listen.

Thanks in advance if you are able to clear any of these questions up.


Vero wrote:Finally! I got my DELE C2 results. The overall result is... APTO 8-)

The detailed results are:

Prueba 1 Uso de la lengua, comprensión de lectura y auditiva: 30.77 / 33.33
Prueba 2 Destrezas integradas: comprensión auditiva, comprensión de lectura y expresión e interacción escritas: 20 / 33.33
Prueba 3 Destrezas integradas: comprensión de lectura y expresión e interacción orales: 33.34 / 33.34

To be frank, I didn't expect to pass the written part so por los pelos, but I take it - it was really difficult. On the other hand, I have been more than recompensed by the results from the oral part. So, I'm totally happy.

Good luck to all of you for your next DELE exam ;)



Congratulations!!! Super glad to hear you got the magic words: APTO
2 x
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Vero
White Belt
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:13 pm
Languages: Czech (N), Spanish (C2), English (C1), Catalan (A1), German, French, Italian (passive and mostly forgotten)
x 116

Re: DELE group

Postby Vero » Thu Jan 17, 2019 3:23 pm

NoManches wrote:
In terms of preparation for the C1 (specifically reading and lsitening), what do you recommend I work with? I've been reading a lot of novels but think since the test seems to be based off of relatively short articles, that I should just spend a lot of my time reading advanced articles in the paper?

And for a somewhat silly question (because it doesn't mention it in my book), do you recall if you were able to first review the questions in the audio and reading portions so you had an idea of what to look for ? Or do you have to do the reading/listening and blindly answer the questions afterwards. Also not being explained in the book, is whether you are allowed to answer the questions while doing the reading or the listening....or at least answer them when you have that little gap between the first and second listen.

Thanks in advance if you are able to clear any of these questions up.


Thanks! I'm really happy to see that the work has paid off :)

To your questions:
Reading: I only did read a lot of newspaper articles. I can recall just one book that I read before the exam and that helped me with the vocabulary because it fitted perfectly in the C1 level. It's called Cómo ser mujer y no morir en el intento and it's a good example of European Spanish as well. But, I really think I didn't do more.

Listening: Except the audios from the manuals, I watched Spanish movies, practically all the production of Pedro Almodóvar and many others (Lucía y el sexo, Mi gran noche, Palmeras en la nieve, Los últimos de Filipinas...) I saw a couple of Argentinian and Mexican movies to get used a little bit to American accents but that's not my strength.

Listening questions: For most of the listening tasks, there's some time at the beginning of the task (1 minute) to check the questions first. There's one task (the last one) with no time in advance, in order to add an extra difficulty to it. The reading and listening tasks used to be in one block - that means also in one workbook. If you have a little time at the end of the reading part, use it to check the listening questions before the next part starts ;)
5 x

NoManches
Blue Belt
Posts: 654
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 2:21 pm
Location: Estados Unidos (near the Mexican border)
Languages: English - (N)
Spanish - B2 +
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7942
x 1459

Re: DELE group

Postby NoManches » Thu Jan 17, 2019 8:00 pm

Vero wrote:
NoManches wrote:
In terms of preparation for the C1 (specifically reading and lsitening), what do you recommend I work with? I've been reading a lot of novels but think since the test seems to be based off of relatively short articles, that I should just spend a lot of my time reading advanced articles in the paper?

And for a somewhat silly question (because it doesn't mention it in my book), do you recall if you were able to first review the questions in the audio and reading portions so you had an idea of what to look for ? Or do you have to do the reading/listening and blindly answer the questions afterwards. Also not being explained in the book, is whether you are allowed to answer the questions while doing the reading or the listening....or at least answer them when you have that little gap between the first and second listen.

Thanks in advance if you are able to clear any of these questions up.


Thanks! I'm really happy to see that the work has paid off :)

To your questions:
Reading: I only did read a lot of newspaper articles. I can recall just one book that I read before the exam and that helped me with the vocabulary because it fitted perfectly in the C1 level. It's called Cómo ser mujer y no morir en el intento and it's a good example of European Spanish as well. But, I really think I didn't do more.

Listening: Except the audios from the manuals, I watched Spanish movies, practically all the production of Pedro Almodóvar and many others (Lucía y el sexo, Mi gran noche, Palmeras en la nieve, Los últimos de Filipinas...) I saw a couple of Argentinian and Mexican movies to get used a little bit to American accents but that's not my strength.

Listening questions: For most of the listening tasks, there's some time at the beginning of the task (1 minute) to check the questions first. There's one task (the last one) with no time in advance, in order to add an extra difficulty to it. The reading and listening tasks used to be in one block - that means also in one workbook. If you have a little time at the end of the reading part, use it to check the listening questions before the next part starts ;)



Thanks, once again this was incredibly helpful for me
1 x
DOUBLE Super Challenge
Spanish Movies
: 10795 / 18000

Spanish Books
: 4415 / 10000

Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4957
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
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Re: DELE C2 9-10.11.2018

Postby Cavesa » Sun Jan 20, 2019 9:39 pm

Vero wrote:Written part
This one is tough because it takes 5 hours to get it done, with one short break of 30 minutes in between. The difficulty corresponds more or less to what I expected, with absolutely no surprise in reading comprehension. The first text was about quantum computing. The second one (with some paragraphs extracted from the main text) was an article written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez about Julio Cortazar. The third task contained texts about son and danzon (Caribbean dances).
The listening comprehension was a bit more difficult. Apart from the fact that the recordings are played on a common computer using regular speakers, one of the recordings was extremely hard to understand because of the background noise and there was another one with music on the background (intentionally :D)
Almost all of the recordings, except one, had Latin American accents. I'm used to European Spanish but it wasn't a big deal.
As for the written production, this was definitely the most demanding task. It tests the ability to process various inputs (texts, audio) and produce three texts. In my test, specifically, the following ones were required:
- newspaper article about sustainable tourism (400 - 450 words),
- press release about literary contest (150 - 250 words)
- article about after-school activities of the children (200 - 250 words).
That's a lot of output, lot of handwriting (legible! :lol:) and a lot of stress. After all the previous parts, I was quite tired and personally I think that this was the most difficult part for all of us.

Preparation
I used Preparacion al DELE C2 for acquiring the advanced vocabulary and get familiar with the exam format. In the last four months I used Cronometro C2 that focuses on the specific skills tested in the exam.
I also went through all the texts I wrote together with my tutor, which is something I really recommend. There's no need to practice the reading and listening comprehension with somebody, in my opinion, but have the texts checked and practice the oral output with a native tutor is extremely useful.

And now... let's wait for 2 months to get the results :roll:


Congratulations! You are awesome!

A few questions from someone still far from C2 Spanish, but with experience with the French equivalent DALF C2:

When it comes to writing, were the preparatory books and courses doing a good job? I really struggled with the French ones, as I believe they weren't explaining the formal requirements well enough (formal writing in French is something really different than in English or Czech and just translated) and even a native tutor was far from a perfect solution despite being definitely helpful. Fitting within a genre and guessing how much I was supposed to deviate from the original texts and what was too much (like in that czech fairy tale "běda tobě, Jiříku, jestli nedoleješ nebo přeleješ") was very hard. Had the Spanish preparatory sources given you all such information?

Would you have any tips of resources on writing in Spanish?

Was there anything surprising in the exam?

Did you find the time sufficient for the tasks? The last third of my exam writing really suffered due to the time running seemingly too fast. Did you find the writing time for DELE comfortable or was it a lot of pressure?

Did you find Cronometro sufficient, as far as the amount of practice went, or would you recommend learners to get more than one book of such model exams?
4 x

Vero
White Belt
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:13 pm
Languages: Czech (N), Spanish (C2), English (C1), Catalan (A1), German, French, Italian (passive and mostly forgotten)
x 116

Re: DELE C2 9-10.11.2018

Postby Vero » Mon Jan 21, 2019 12:20 pm

Cavesa wrote:
Congratulations! You are awesome!

A few questions from someone still far from C2 Spanish, but with experience with the French equivalent DALF C2:

When it comes to writing, were the preparatory books and courses doing a good job? I really struggled with the French ones, as I believe they weren't explaining the formal requirements well enough (formal writing in French is something really different than in English or Czech and just translated) and even a native tutor was far from a perfect solution despite being definitely helpful. Fitting within a genre and guessing how much I was supposed to deviate from the original texts and what was too much (like in that czech fairy tale "běda tobě, Jiříku, jestli nedoleješ nebo přeleješ") was very hard. Had the Spanish preparatory sources given you all such information?

Would you have any tips of resources on writing in Spanish?

Was there anything surprising in the exam?

Did you find the time sufficient for the tasks? The last third of my exam writing really suffered due to the time running seemingly too fast. Did you find the writing time for DELE comfortable or was it a lot of pressure?

Did you find Cronometro sufficient, as far as the amount of practice went, or would you recommend learners to get more than one book of such model exams?


Thanks!

Hmmm, what do you think? :D Correct, it's exactly the same for Spanish. I've searched the Internet up and down and there's nothing like an absolutely reliable guide to the formats of writing production. Cronometro and Preparacion al DELE give you a certain idea. I think you can rely on them 100 % if speaking about formal letters but the rest... this is all up to you. You can encounter absolutely everything - a record from a meeting, a press release, an article... My native tutor struggled in the same way as I did. I was pretty well prepared for writing formal letters and articles and the press release that I had to write in the exam surprised me a lot. In the end, it's always possible to write it somehow, I did my best but I would have appreciated more information about that.

Resources - I didn't use anything special. Besides Cronometro and Preparacion al DELE, I used Nuevo Prisma C2 because its workbook has a plenty of exercises centered on writing tasks. They require a bit easier and shorter things than in real C2 exam but for preparation purposes it's fine.

I've already told you about the surprise :mrgreen: I didn't expect the press release task at all.

Time - Altogether it's 2.5 hours. For me it was fine but after a lot of practice. I can remember that at the beginning it was hard for me to complete the tasks within the given time. Just before the exam I used to spend around 1 h 10 min on Task 1 and 30 - 40 mins on Task 2 and 3 (each :)) The girl that sat the exam with me told me that she hadn't had enough time to finish the writing part but she also hadn't practiced finishing it within the time limit.

Resources - There's nothing more than Cronometro, Preparacion al DELE and Nuevo Prisma C2. Only the first two mentioned contain exam models and only Cronometro has the real ones. But it's enough. Nuevo Prisma C2 is full of exercises that are exam-like so it's a great tool to start with.

Good luck! I admire your dedication! Having already the C2 level in French... I really don't know if I could do that again in another language :D
7 x

Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4957
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
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Re: DELE group

Postby Cavesa » Mon Jan 21, 2019 2:04 pm

Thanks for lots of info!

I am definitely really far from DELE C2 now. I could get my reading and listening to that level and be almost certain of passing those sections very fast (either a few months at a reasonable pace or an intensive month, focused mostly on regional variants I don't know and on practice exams). But my active skills are still more around B2 and I don't even know that for sure and they will take time (which I don't have).

But I am sure I'll revisit the thread, when I am much closer to DELE and read again your fresh impressions, thanks for them :-)

The lack of writing guidance is weird anyways. There are tons of resources on everything except this.
But I definitely agree that practicing writing the model exams within the time limit is extremely valuable. 2.5 hours are not too much.

I definitely lacked such practice in my dalf as I hadn't had time for all that before my exam (they are organised only twice a year and always at the same time as most university exams. The DELE and SIELE seem to offer more options, so that one can actually focus on them more fully even while being a university student).

I got to C2 exam in a related language, that changes a lot, and I also don't have a time limit. And I genuinely love Spanish, so that is a huge part of the motivation, even though I no longer consider moving to the country (I would need a C1 DELE). So, who knows when will I finally get to any exam, let alone C2 :-D The silver lining of being so slow: my retirement won't be boring.
6 x

Skynet
Green Belt
Posts: 310
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2018 6:37 pm
Location: San Francisco
Languages: English (N)
Shona (N)
French (DELF B2)
German (Goethe-Zertifikat B2)
Spanish (DELE B2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8686
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Re: DELE group

Postby Skynet » Fri Feb 19, 2021 7:09 pm

I wanted to share the courses that I used to study for the DELE B2 between Mar 2019 and May 2020.

Beginner: (no active waves)
Assimil: Spanish Without Toil (1957)
Assimil: Le nouvel espagnol sans peine (1981)

Intermediate: (no active waves)
Linguaphone Advanced-Expert (19??)
Living Language Ultimate Advanced (1999)
Assimil: La Pratique de l'espagnol (1962)
Assimil: Perfectionnement Espagnol (1988)
Assimil: L'espagnol des affaires (1997)

B2:
Prismas B2 (2001)
News in Slow Spanish*
News in Slow Latin American Spanish*
Coffee Break Spanish*
News in Slow Spanish (Advanced)*

*Available on TuneIn.
6 x

learner192014
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:27 pm
Languages: English and learning Spanish.
x 1

Re: DELE group

Postby learner192014 » Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:31 pm

It seems there are no many resources online for DELE Exam preparation. I mean with model exercises for the DELE Exam.
I've only found Some samples at Instituto Cervantes and some paid at smallheadbigwisdom.

Does anyone know some other resources online for DELE Exam specifically?
1 x

BeaP
Green Belt
Posts: 405
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2021 8:18 am
Languages: Hungarian (N), English, German, Spanish, French, Italian
x 1990

Re: DELE group

Postby BeaP » Wed Oct 20, 2021 8:07 am

As far as I know, there is no other free resource online. If you search DELE+your level on youtube, you can get a lot of useful material, and even some freebies after registering to websites. You can buy the pdf+mp3 version of the book by Ramón Diez Galán and also the one by David Giménez Folqués from various websites. They are significantly cheaper than the printed book+CD options, but they don't give any extra help for the oral and written tasks, they only give you the mock exam. However, the former is really good, and it's muck more up-to date than the printed ones.
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