What Is Your Language Level?

I’ve been working in a garage with Mexican and Puerto Rican coworkers for about five years and I’ve learned more Spanish from them than I ever did in school! It’s funny, at one point I would have to field the Spanish-speaking customers for my Hispanic manager who didn’t speak hardly any Spanish at all

once I wrote a poem and it goes like:
Morning
Deep from within the gentle slumber
voiced by sounds of sawing lumber
awful force is coming over
no-one will succeed to shoulder.
Going from the east to west
a march of soldiers on a quest.
Someone's knocking on the gates of hell!
Our hero won't be feeling well!
Trying to resist the pain
but the struggle is in vain!
The mountain's raising from its resting place
moving somewhere with a steady pace!
Speeding bullet's passing by
but how far it has to fly?
The throne is calling!
The beasts are coming!
Who will be to win the war?
The end is near or is it far?
The king reaches to top of the throne
and whispers "the cargo is thrown".
Returning to fortress unwillingly left
but sun was shining over his head!
Preparation for the day has commenced
because the sleep no-one will mend!

As someone who learned Spanish while living in Argentina, my experience was:
A1: understanding teachers if they spoke slowly
A2: understanding news casters, radio hosts, young adults and supermarket clerks
B1: understanding cartoons, taxi drivers, public figures, doctors, bankers, cumbia music, and most adult speakers
B2: understanding most tv shows, older adults, young children, regional dialects, rock music, "Tinchos," and news articles
C1: understanding teenagers, series, movies, drunks, sarcasm and Argentina humor
C2: understanding tango, folclore, "Turros", and Chileans

I’m definitely A1 when it comes to German and Spanish, given I just started learning German so that’s to be expected. 😅

I feel confident that I’m in the B1 catagory. My target language is Armenian and i’m currently in Armenia now, and the part about ‘clarity’ is absolutely spot on. Where I am, the native dialect is borderline indecipherable. But when spoken to slower, clearer, and in the ‘correct’ way, I get a heck of a lot more and can actually manage a conversation.

I heard several polyglots say that C2 level is above the native level since not all natives achieve academic and professional knowledge of the language in a specific professional area. As a native speaker, I probably know much less about medical terminology and vocabulary than a foreign medical professional.

I am all of the levels and none of them at once

The examples of people speaking at different levels were kind of weak. The b2 was like b1, c1 like b2

Today I learned that Im only at C1 level in my own native language. 😭

Very interesting video. As a native speaker of German and not a great student in learning foreign languages, I struggled with English for all my school years.
Today I think I am between C1 and C2 when listening or reading English, but I don't have lots of possibilities to speak or write English. (And my grammar tends to be a bit too German). So I think I am between B2 and C1 when speaking or writing.

I consider myself B1 or maybe B2 in English and C2 in Portuguese

Why don't you make multiple versions of your videos in the different languages you say you speak. That would help us learn by watching and maybe even watch multiple times so it could be good for your views. And since you have already gone through so much effort creating a script and finding visuals them you are getting extra mileage from that work

This helped me a lot! I've been struggling for months to figure out what level I'm at in my target language. I think I can say with some confidence that I'm probably below A1 now.

When the language you’re learning doesn’t have tenses 😌

I am c2 in Italian (speaking it every day)

I tested myself in russian language by your test, actually I’m a native speaker, bilingual, spoke it for 13 years (stopped in January 2022, since that, using only for contacting with a few people). Strangely got B2, maybe because haven’t taken any grammar lessons, due to not living in a country where learning it is compulsory.

But some questions are quite unnaturally formulated, like “i’ve done it…. …..friends” (obviously hard to translate without a word inserted)
I’d rather say not “thanking to my friends’ help”, but “due to/by/with my friends’ help”.

I know that the first option might be used in literature or movies. But more commonly used one is “i’ve done it well with (here it means both with and due to) my friends’ help”

Speaking I’m like A1-2…reading I’m more a B1…I do not get myself lol. BUT IF YOU DONT USE IT YOU LOSE IT- KEEP UP WITH YOUR LANGUAGES.

I'm learning Scottish Gaelic, and thought I was doing pretty well. I have about a 500-word vocabulary and struggling reading a simple Gaelic book, but I am getting through it. I 'm also, learning grammar and writing. I thought I was doing pretty well, and was in the intermediate level, until I watched this video. I am definitely at the A1 level, but this won't discourage me I will keep on learning. David Mc Donald

Wait, I'm confused. I express myself as a B2, but I consume content as you describe a C2... Wth?

I learned French 44 Years ago and until now haven't studied it since .... but I'm just about to go back to school - yes, I must have been B2+

"how many language do you speak"
for this question,
can i count if the level is more then b1? or at least b2?
a2 shouldn't be counted... right?

C2 but with strong accent since i havent spoken in ebglish in forever. 😂 but i would call myself billingualy raised due to the fact i learned in an billingual household and was raised with both english and german from age 10 upwards 😂

I have purchased many of Ollie's story learning courses and it's hard work indeed. The 30-day challenges give you the structure you need because you do one 15-20 minute lesson a day, which includes a short textual episode of the story both in audio and print. You can listen without the text as many times as you like, then read along with the audio. This is followed by a 5-6 minute teaching lecture by an instructor whose face you can see, making it feel like a personal tutoring session. Finally, there is a 5-question quiz, not too hard, to reinforce what was just covered. After all of that, there is a private Facebook group where you can communicate in real time with that same teacher and/or other students doing the course at the same time as you. There are no lists of verbs to memorize; there are no conjugation tables or sticking self-adhesive word labels on pictures. When the course is finished, you own it for life. You can go back and do it again repeatedly. A 30-day course is really doable in under 8 hours if you want to accelerate and compress all the lessons into one marathon sitting.

Penelope Cruz is sooo wall-eyed!

Dang, I’m realizing that with 4 years of high school Spanish 20 years ago, and 1 year so far of Duolingo, I’m only at A2 in Spanish.

I speak 4 languages

Thanks, I’ve been wondering about what these levels mean! Now I know that moving to the UK (from Norway) to study illustration bumped my English up from C1 to a solid C2 in just a few weeks. :) And in German I feel like my conversational skills are B1, even though the part where I didn’t forget the language after seven years might mean I was at B2 while still in school. Thinking about moving to Germany now to truly learn the language!

Based on your descriptions, I under-evaluate my skills. But I am positive that if I were to take a formal test, I would still be a C1. I would have to work very hard for that C2. But that would be quite a waste of precious time. Interesting video, had fun watching.

The CEFR levels always seemed nebulous to me, even with the detailed descriptions I read about them. Your video provides a more ascertainable view of each, especially including examples of people speaking English at the different levels. Much clearer now. Thank you for that!

I’m not at A-1 even though I have been studying Portuguese for 9 years now and I’ve visited Brasil 18 times and I’ve been practicing every day with my girlfriend who only speaks Portuguese for 6 years now but I still haven’t had a conversation yet and I still can’t read. I have to translate everything into English to understand but I can’t translate fast enough to converse and I don’t know which meanings to use when I’m reading. It’s very frustrating. My son can converse and he’s never studied Portuguese. He just picked it up when we visited Brasil.

This was so helpful! I am I currently learning Brazilian Portuguese (and previously studied French and German). I totally agree with the B2 level which is where I was in French and I still remember so much! I also teach English as a Second Language and the examples of students speaking at each level were invaluable. I plan to share with my students when they ask "how do I speak like a native speaker?"
Thanks!

You cant achieve A1 spanish in 1 month… the whole video was great by the way.

I’m German and this is really interesting, I feel I‘m at a mixture of C1 and C2 when it comes to English. I‘ve got English friends I converse with casually when we meet up (the pub test), I listen to English content for hours at a time per day (usually all day) without major problems understanding it and currently am listening to an audio book about postmodernism and pretty much understand everything apart from a few words or when the reader is mumbling or talks in some kind of breathless voice, and I write comments like this without thinking about it. However I still feel sometimes not fluent enough when it comes to speaking 🤔 Probably still the lack of possibilities to practice actually speaking?

Recently some online test said I was B1, I‘m not sure why though… probably got some grammar or prepositions wrong 🤔 🤷🏼‍♀️
Next I wanted to reactivate my French, which is abysmally bad in comparison and I can’t bring myself to watch content for the same amount of time I watch English content, because I‘m used to watching my English channels all the time 😅

C2 french B2 english B1 germann

C2 is actually better than most natives lol

What level is the one where you begin to dream in another language?

My wife always gets an A but I think she's between B2-C1 purely because her vocabulary and grammar when I hear her speaking to NNESs in Europe she's as fluent as them and sometimes moreso. She is Burmese- another crazy hard language. That said, her humour is waifer thin. She likes slapstick. I will try and get her into audio books. Has anybody tried this? Or any other useful methods. I'm a teacher so it does cause, to borrow 'lost in translation', difficulties for her.

I don't think "months" are a good measure. I'd rather say it in hours of study.

how much is your courses?

I went to school in San German, Puerto Rico and there was a class for non-native speakers that involved helping native Spanish speakers learn the grammar, etc. It was really funny because I and one other girl were the only non-native speakers in the class but got the best grades in the class, perhaps because we didn't have to overcome preconceived ideas about spelling etc.

I usually score c1 in english in tests, but I don't need subtitles anymore, and I can read books and scientific articles in english. My problem might be grammar...

A1 can’t be 700 words and be easily covered in a couple of months. Most people can handle about 40 words per week, which would be about 400 words in two months. More than that and likely you’ll quickly forget what you’ve learned. I think the A1 example also sounded too good - specifically in the vocabulary. “Near” was a strong vocab word in that context. I feel like everything else in A1 makes sense, but if 500-700 words are required, it isn’t something most people can do in 2 months.

Another thing I found odd, I’m sorry I don’t mean to nitpick — I did find the video informative and interesting, .. but I noticed almost zero errors except for pauses through B1. I mean all the examples were always accurate. I think even native speakers make mistakes, and they must be far more frequent early on! The examples show people “at their best“ at these levels, and it is almost worth highlighting that.

The first thing you need to do in order to learn a foreign language is to learn how to express yourself well in your mother language.

I think quite a bit of native speakers use incorrect grammar themselves. Though their probably less often called out for it. Or at least if your for instance a native English speaker, your not made to feel foreign for making such grieve mistakes. Its interesting that you brought it up actually cause like it got me thinking yo. Alot of people probably dont think enough about that point, by the way. Judging "non native speakers" as being non native speakers based on their grammar mistakes to me is like a case of "its okay when we do it, but not really when they do it" and so they question where "non native" speakers are from and such. Granted this type of thinking is likely the case with every language out there. It got me thinking, if both "native" and "non native" speakers of a language make mistakes in the language, then what really makes one native and the other not? If we are to go by the first language one learns than cool, if we're determining it based on whom eat the most french fries, than that's cool to. If however its based on grammar mistakes, than that seems utterly bonkers to me. Unless theyre specific mistakes that "non native" speakers make though which aren't made by "native" speakers.

I'm a French native speaker, and I'd say I'm C1 or so in english? I can read and hear it without problems, and I can follow movies and videos without subtitles, although I prefer to have english subs on, in case I miss or don't know a word.
But the thing is I don't have much speaking practice, so I can't tell if someone else would actually manage to pick up anything I'm saying 😂 So that probably jeopardizes the whole fluency thing, huh.

I passed my C2 exam in English with an A score, above any expectations I previously had. I would pass C2 for Dutch with ease too. But in my native language (Hebrew), I probably wouldn’t even pass B2, because I left the country when I was 8 and my grammar and writing skills suck big time.
In German I can speak, listen and read on at
Least a B1-B2 level, but wouldn’t pass a writing exam at that level either. And I hardly remember any French even though I had 4 years of lessons in school. Language learning is very strange indeed.

Salma Hayek has her own way to express herself but nothing special in the level of her language knowledge....at least at that time when the clip has been filmed....she was very far from level C2