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.
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reineke
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Re: DELE group

Postby reineke » Wed Oct 31, 2018 4:34 pm

Vero wrote:Hello all,

anybody to sit the DELE exam in November to share our thoughts and feelings? I'm taking the DELE C2 in Prague next week...


I see that you've already put "C2" in your profile :mrgreen:

Good luck! We mostly share our feelings here. Hopefully Herr Schulz will report soon from the front line.
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Vero
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Re: DELE group

Postby Vero » Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:30 pm

reineke wrote:
Vero wrote:Hello all,

anybody to sit the DELE exam in November to share our thoughts and feelings? I'm taking the DELE C2 in Prague next week...


I see that you've already put "C2" in your profile :mrgreen:

Good luck! We mostly share our feelings here. Hopefully Herr Schulz will report soon from the front line.


Well, when I need to wait two months to get the result :D At least I hope for that level :D

I’ve read the detailed report about DELE C2 from somebody here (s_alard?), it was really useful for me. But I guess C2 is something that you can’t easily prepare for :) I’ll definitely let you know about my exam.
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Vero
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DELE C2 9-10.11.2018

Postby Vero » Mon Nov 12, 2018 10:32 am

So... I took the exam last Friday and Saturday in Prague. I was lucky to have the possibility of realizing the oral part on Friday and the written part on Saturday. There were 4 candidates for C2, two of us with the exam split in two days (me and another girl) and the rest had to continue with the oral after the written part, which I consider a real massacre... :shock:

Oral part
I was surprised that this part wasn't difficult at all (of course, that's a personal feeling...). In comparison to C1 that I passed two years ago, I couldn't spot many differences, especially in the dialogue. First task was to take the source material (two articles and two statistics), read it and prepare a presentation of 8 minutes covering four points given in the instructions. My topic was free time, social aspects of how we pass it nowadays and if we know how to make use of it. During the presentation, only the candidate speaks and the examiner remains silent (as well as the assessor that doesn't enter the conversation at all). Afterwards, some questions regarding the topic are discussed. Here comes the surprise, because during C1 the examiner was much more 'aggressive', trying to oppose and change my mind. But as I said, that's my personal feeling and it's possible that I simply manage the conversation with more confidence than 2 years ago.
The last task is to comment on some newspaper titles. This task cannot be prepared in advance but you don't have to go deep into the topic and what is wanted basically is that you say if you agree or disagree especially with some of the titles and why.
And that's it! There's no time to think deeply about what you are saying and how pretty is your vocabulary. The whole thing is over quite quickly. What I'd recommend is to get familiar with speech connectors (primeramente, como he dicho anteriormente, por consiguiente, en suma...) to be able to use them without thinking too much during your speech.
Another thing that I did and I found it very useful, was to train presentations. My tutor insisted that I recorded myself, firstly because it raises the stress level and therefore it simulates the real stress you have during the real exam; and, secondly, to be able to listen to the recording afterwords and analyze it. It was the best advice I could have obtained, to be frank, and I could notice a significant progress after four recordings (that's all I did).
It's difficult for me to assess my chances to pass this part of the exam. I definitely can manage all real situations that require advanced speaking ability and I hardly commit errors but I can't say if it's 'enough' for C2 level because, on the other hand, my speaking production is nothing close to academic language.

Stay tuned, I'll get back to you 8-)
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Vero
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DELE C2 9-10.11.2018

Postby Vero » Mon Nov 12, 2018 3:27 pm

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:
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Jaleel10
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Re: DELE group

Postby Jaleel10 » Fri Nov 30, 2018 11:56 am

There's an awesome Youtuber called Spanish with Vicente who gives great tips and advice about the DELE exams at each level

B1 - B2
C1 - C2
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Chmury
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Re: DELE group

Postby Chmury » Fri Nov 30, 2018 11:22 pm

Jaleel10 wrote:There's an awesome Youtuber called Spanish with Vicente who gives great tips and advice about the DELE exams at each level

B1 - B2
C1 - C2


I just found his channel a few days ago! Love Vicente and his videos are awesome. Super helpful and a great way to learn the finer details of Spanish and some cool frases and things unique to Spain.
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NoManches
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Re: DELE group

Postby NoManches » Thu Jan 10, 2019 12:19 am

I'm all signed up and paid me fees! I'll be taking the exam in November so I'll have plenty of time to prepare. Planned on taking the exam sooner but the dates I wanted were already filled up.

I should mention that I'll be taking the C1 exam.

To prepare I will be using the following books: El Cronómetro B2 and El Cronómetro C1. I will also be using: Preparación DELE C1. I bought the B2 as a recommendation from one of my iTalki tutors and really like the books so far. What I'm wondering is if I should sit down and do each "modelo" as if it were the exam, or if I should take some time and focus on each "prueba" or "tarea".

Any tips or advice would be great....although in the end I know this will just come down to lot's of hard work and effort.
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NoManches
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Re: DELE group

Postby NoManches » Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:22 am

I'm curious to see if anybody knows what the differences are between the old DELE exam and the "new" exam.

I purchased the book Preparación al Diploma de Español C1 a while back. After talking with my tutor who is familiar with the DELE exam, I purchased El Cronómetro C1. Supposedly El Cronómetro is newer (the one I have was published in 2017, while Preparación al C1 Is from 2012).

I ask because there was an audio section from the Preparación book that was almost exclusively made up of Castilian Spanish idioms which I have NEVER heard of. Maybe they are well known Spanish idioms in every country that I've never encountered yet??

Somewhere else I thought I read that they no longer include the portion with random Spanish idioms but I might be wrong since I thought I read that a long time ago and now I can't find the website or forum post where I read that. I was just listening to a section from El Cronómetro where they used another expression I've never heard of "pagar el pato"....so maybe I just really need to work on idioms.

I'd like to point out that even if the Preparación book is outdated, it is LOADED with tons of great Spanish exercises. The answer book (which you have to buy separate) comes with a transcript of the audio. Fortunately I was able to understand the audio 100% but this is a great resource if you are looking for extra practice. As a matter of fact, I just bought the B2 book as well to squeeze some extra exercises in (and boost my self confidence a little).
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Vero
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Re: DELE group

Postby Vero » Thu Jan 17, 2019 9:58 am

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:
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Vero
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Re: DELE group

Postby Vero » Thu Jan 17, 2019 10:18 am

NoManches wrote:
What I'm wondering is if I should sit down and do each "modelo" as if it were the exam, or if I should take some time and focus on each "prueba" or "tarea".



I did that (= sit down and complete the task as if it was the real exam) for the written part. For me it was important for getting used to write all the written tasks at once and in hand.
But I didn't do that with the rest of the parts. I have never tried to go through the whole exam at once.
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