Sam's Spanish Log

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samfrances
Orange Belt
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Location: United Kingdom
Languages: Native: British English
Learning: Spanish (B1/B2)
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Sam's Spanish Log

Postby samfrances » Thu Jun 16, 2016 10:00 am

Having "sort of" achieved my goal of reaching B2 in Spanish by 31st June (in that my italki tutor placed me at a B2 level after carrying out a mock speaking exam), I'm now on a mission to prove it! I have more or less five months to study for the B2 DELE exam at the end of November 2016.

Any tips from previous DELE candidates would be great!
Last edited by samfrances on Wed Oct 03, 2018 11:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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: 156 / 156 : Schaum's grammar, Fluent Forever
: 642 / 1000 : Learn / make flashcards for 1000 most frequent Spanish words

Sam's Spanish Log
Sam's Year of Reading Only Spanish
Dipping my toe into Latin

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MamaPata
Brown Belt
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Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
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Re: Spanish: Pass B2 DELE exam in November 2016

Postby MamaPata » Wed Jun 22, 2016 9:01 am

Good luck! Fingers crossed for you! How are you feeling about it? How are you planning to get there? It must be very useful to have that specific timeframe as motivation.
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Corrections appreciated.

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samfrances
Orange Belt
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Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 2:41 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: Native: British English
Learning: Spanish (B1/B2)
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Re: Spanish: Pass B2 DELE exam in November 2016

Postby samfrances » Thu Jun 23, 2016 10:42 am

MamaPata wrote:Good luck! Fingers crossed for you! How are you feeling about it? How are you planning to get there? It must be very useful to have that specific timeframe as motivation.


Thanks. I'm a bit nervous about it, not having done an exam in many years, but hopeful. Five months is a long time.

I'm not planning on studying directly for the exam for a while. For the most part, I'm just going to continue with my previous course of study, which I outlined here: http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=787#p1672. However, I have also told my italki tutors about my DELE plans, so I'll probably do some mock exams with them.

After a while I may get a DELE focussed book like El Cronometro B2 and work through that.

I need to do more to improve my listening comprehension though, which is definitely my weakest skill.
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: 156 / 156 : Schaum's grammar, Fluent Forever
: 642 / 1000 : Learn / make flashcards for 1000 most frequent Spanish words

Sam's Spanish Log
Sam's Year of Reading Only Spanish
Dipping my toe into Latin

Snow
Orange Belt
Posts: 120
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2016 7:23 am
Languages: Tagalog (native), English (advanced), Spanish (intermediate), Korean (upper beginner)
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Re: Spanish: Pass B2 DELE exam in November 2016

Postby Snow » Thu Jun 23, 2016 12:07 pm

Hola, samfrances!

I took the B2 exam in 2011 and miraculously passed. :lol: For preparation, I just downloaded sample exams from the official DELE website. I familiarized myself with the exam structure and instructions. I didn't have the time to study for it as I was working back then. Fine, I was lazy, too.

If you're already familiar with Spanish grammar all the way up to pretérito pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo, I suggest you review concordancia de tiempos. The grammar part is full of questions like that. For example, "No creo que ella me (querer)_____". What to use: indicativo or subjuntivo?

For the listening part, we listened to a long recording and answered some questions related to it. For the speaking part, this one I can't remember well because I was so nervous.. but I remember being shown a story picture and asked to make up a story about it. Then, I had a dialogue with the proctor about a certain situation (mine was to rent an apartment).

Try answering some sample exams first. Those are free, anyway. If you feel like you need more preparation, I guess going through a DELE book with your tutor would help.

Good luck!
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KHB
White Belt
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2016 1:36 pm
Languages: English (N), Italian (~A2+), French (studies on hold for now), Japanese (on hold; still recovering from bad school teachers)

dandt on HTLAL
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Re: Spanish: Pass B2 DELE exam in November 2016

Postby KHB » Thu Jun 23, 2016 12:23 pm

Oooh how exciting! It must feel really good to have something solid and concrete to be working towards! I have zero actual advice since I haven't done one of these exams, but do sit lots of non-language exams and would guess that being familiar with the format/structure of the exam, like Snow said, is probably going to be the most helpful thing. Continuing with your current course of study for now is probably wise... it's clearly working for you!
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samfrances
Orange Belt
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Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 2:41 pm
Location: United Kingdom
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Learning: Spanish (B1/B2)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2967
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Re: Spanish: Pass B2 DELE exam in November 2016

Postby samfrances » Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:17 pm

I'm closing this log, although I may start a new one at some point.

Needless to say, I didn't pass (or indeed take) the DELE exam. A new and very interesting job came along more or less two years ago, and Spanish went on the back-burner for a while, but I'm getting back into it now, and remember a surprising amount.
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: 156 / 156 : Schaum's grammar, Fluent Forever
: 642 / 1000 : Learn / make flashcards for 1000 most frequent Spanish words

Sam's Spanish Log
Sam's Year of Reading Only Spanish
Dipping my toe into Latin

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arthaey
Brown Belt
Posts: 1080
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Location: Seattle, WA, USA
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EN (native);
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DE (lapsed beg);
ASL (lapsed beg);
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3864&view=unread#unread
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Re: Spanish: Pass B2 DELE exam in November 2016

Postby arthaey » Wed Oct 03, 2018 12:19 am

Welcome back!

Feel free to start a new log if that's what you want. I just wanted to point out that you can also rename this thread to reflect reality, in case that's the primary reason you'd "close" this log.
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Posts in: FrenchGermanHungarianSpanish
NaNoWriMo: 10,000 words
Corrections welcome in any language; I prefer an informal register.

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Jaleel10
Blue Belt
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Re: Spanish: Pass B2 DELE exam in November 2016

Postby Jaleel10 » Wed Oct 03, 2018 5:49 am

Welcome back, Sam!

I'm aiming to take the B2 Exam around early-mid 2020 so I'll be eagerly following your progress.
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samfrances
Orange Belt
Posts: 201
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 2:41 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: Native: British English
Learning: Spanish (B1/B2)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2967
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Re: Spanish: Pass B2 DELE exam in November 2016

Postby samfrances » Wed Oct 03, 2018 7:17 pm

Thanks both :D
0 x
: 156 / 156 : Schaum's grammar, Fluent Forever
: 642 / 1000 : Learn / make flashcards for 1000 most frequent Spanish words

Sam's Spanish Log
Sam's Year of Reading Only Spanish
Dipping my toe into Latin

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iguanamon
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2352
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:14 am
Location: Virgin Islands
Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
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Re: Spanish: Pass B2 DELE exam in November 2016

Postby iguanamon » Wed Oct 03, 2018 9:12 pm

Good to see you back, Sam. To change the name of your log, you can simply edit the Subject in your first post.
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