How would you describe your level after completing Advanced 2?
Are you able to understand everything you read and listen to?
How long did it take you?
Should LingQ add an Advanced 3?
Do you feel more superior over everyone else? ← (Lol im just kidding) 
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Since I post very often on these sort of posts you might already know what I am going to write but I have reached advanced level 2 in three languages (Spanish, French and German).
"Are you able to understand everything you read and listen to? "
If I were to take it literally (as with English) then no, but I can watch TV series in Spanish (Cuentame como pasó), French and German (Arte docu) without any difficulty. There are obviously words that I haven’t come across yet but these are for the most part decipherable from context.
In terms of reading it fluctuates there are lots of yellow words in my lessons but by and large I would be able to read books and understand the content without that much effort. I am super conservative when it comes to adding words from yellow to known.
I have not had much interaction with native speakers but I did speak with a family acquaintance (who my family has recently meet) in Spanish who is a native speaker. I was a little bit sheepish about my oral capabilities in Spanish but said that I understand and read more or less everything.
After a while he did say that my Spanish is very good and was impressed by my progress, he did say that I might struggle if he spoke really fast and I have heard him speak really fast and sort of slurring his words in a sort of way casual manner as most native speakers do when they speak with other natives speakers. It was a challenge at first but to my delight I could keep up with what he was saying.
" How long did it take you?"
To difficult for me to give an accurate answer but maybe 7 years (all languages) but, if I were actually organised and would listen more I’d probably achieve this level in maybe 3 or 4 years (doing one hour a day).
“Should LingQ add an Advanced 3?”
Archer - a little column A, a little column B - YouTube
Do you feel more superior over everyone else?
Yes, but that applies to all things in life that are worth being good at, except for sport (joking).
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My current Russian level is listed as advanced 6: I’m sooooooo superior! 
Even now I can’t understand everything. I can communicate in Russian, which is the goal. This summer I spent a couple of weeks in Russian, visiting St. Petersburg (not for the first time) and then went on a group kayaking trip on lake Ladoga. I was traveling with those incredible Russian people the Russian way: we helped cook, split wood and so on, setting up a new camp every night and so on and I was the only foreigner there, so people were curious and asked me about my life, how I learned Russian and so on, … I could “survive” understand what they told me and could communicate, someone even recorded a video of me speaking Russian and uploaded it to VKontakte.
As it always happens with such experiences, there were moments when I felt pretty fluent in the language and moments in which I was too tired or distracted and my level dropped. I have experienced the same effect in different countries and at different times. I’m very happy with the results and I think this is what you must realistically expect. Besides this, I’m reading (very slowly) “War and Peace” but I still need to look up words. That’s why I still prefer to use Lingq for that. I suppose I could get the gist of it without dictionary but I may get lost rather often. I also watch videos in Russian on a regular basis. I can understand most of them but I may get lost in some films, e.g. if they use a lot of idioms/slang, etc
I don’t even remember when I reached advanced 2. Besides, the word threshold for it has changed since I reached it. I suppose it took me about two years. After that I could already communicate but I had more trouble understanding videos, for example and I struggled to find words in some cases. But I could already communicate comfortably enough.
Update:
The current word count criterion for advanced 2 in Russian seems to be 35,550 known words. It was a bit higher when I reached it. According to my statistics, I got to 35,550 known words around November 2016, whereas I signed up on Lingq in June 2015
However, I had already been studying Russian before that (to a very beginning level). I spent some time just dabbling in the language, then I tried different books, etc before settling on Assimil, which I studied for 3 months. My main feeling back then is that I knew a bit about the language but I was mostly lost and couldn’t remember even basic vocabulary. Lingq was a real breakthrough. So, all in all I still think that it took me about two years of serious work to reach advanced 2.
My Polish is ‘Advanced 7’, you may now bow to my superiority.
Jokes aside, just keep going until you feel like you’ve reached a point where you are comfortable with your language skills.
I don’t know exactly how long it took to get to Advanced 2, my best guess would be like 3 years.
From personal experience I can say that going from ‘Intermediate 1 to Advanced 1’ has been more challenging than ‘Advanced 1 to Advanced 7’.
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Where can you find your level? Since no one else is asking this question, I have to wonder whether it is hiding in plain sight somewhere. It used to be much more prominently displayed, and therefore more motivational, but now I cannot even find it. On my profile page under the “Achievements” tab (right column) it shows My Level as Beginner 2, which definitely does not sound right for almost 64k words (Russian; morphology inflates that number compared to many other languages). But if I select “Show all” it shows a badge for “Advanced 2” between badges for 35k and 36k words, which is in line with what ftornay noted. That came about a year and a half after getting more serious on Lingq, but a whole lot longer after I had built a solid foundation in the grammar in school
Anyway, assuming Advanced 2+, no I cannot understand everything that I read and listen to. But I can understand a lot of it. Some YT channels I can watch and understand fully, even some that talk politics. I’ll sometimes even speed them up to 125% to get to the gist faster. News websites, though, really seem to use a different register, as well as certain other YT channels, and it’s not as clear w/o looking some things up. I am currently trying to translate into English the book written about Chernobyl by A. S. Dyatlov, the shift supervisor that fateful night. (I’d like to give it to my nephew with a PhD in nuclear engineering to see what he thinks about it.) That is going very slowly, but the fact that I can consider the attempt tells me something about how far I’ve come.
The Russian language has plenty of ammo to keep my ego in check, though, and that’s on both ends of the spectrum – formal and specialized language as well as idioms and idiomatic expressions. Furthermore, unlike ftornay, I have not sought out any opportunities to speak, so my level there is much, much lower.
Given how long it’s been since I (apparently) got to Advanced 2, and how I plainly have farther to go, if there are not levels beyond that, there ought to be if the intent is to motivate by noting progress.
Edit: Thanks to niek1337 (below) I found: Your Avatar Level: Advanced 5; To next level 4649 Known Words. That avatar is not as prominently displayed as it used to be, and I rarely give it a glance.
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Hi khardy, if you go to the ‘avatar shop’ you should see more or less something like this below your avatar:
Your current level is…
Known words until next level…
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It took me about 5 years of work on LingQ to become Advanced 2. This is in addition to previous school work and a college French course. I can catch most of a newscast, but not conversation on TV shows. I can understand French spoken slowly, and can make myself understood. No, I don’t feel superior. I think I need an immersion French experience to really know French.
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I think the level shown in the ‘avatar shop’ is wrong. It seems to be showing a level up.
I am saying this because I have 24,000 known English words and according to this page:
Avatar Help My level is advanced 1 which ranges from 20,750 to 30,250 words.
But when I look at the ‘avatar shop’ page, it says my level is advanced 2 and also shows an advanced 2 avatar image.
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I LITERALLY just completed this in Korean!! I joined LingQ in Sept 2017, while I was still living the Korea. I had been there for almost a year, but despite being surrounded by things in the language and people that couldn’t communicate with me outside of Korean, I managed to learn VERY LITTLE because I effectively created my own English environment unless I was getting things like groceries or intentionally going to a “Language Class.” I’ve been using LingQ very consistently with some lulls and some periods of LOTS of reading/listening. Lets say the whole process took me about 2 years and 6 months, but it would take less if I had spent my time better while in country
What I can understand: READING: Young Adult books are difficult to read with full comprehension. I’d say on average I know 80-95% of the words, which sounds GREAT, but really not knowing every 1/5 or 1/10 words makes a HUGE difference. I find that I actually acquire TONS of vocabulary by rereading things that I know 98% or more of the vocabulary. It also feels great to read Webtoons because pictures help fill in the blanks for those 1/10 or 1/15 words that I’m missing and can’t figure out based on context.
LISTENING: I’d say I can follow most news, but it really depends on WHAT they’re discussing. Most native speakers don’t seem to speak too fast, as I often hear language learners mention, but I have spent most of my time listening. Using just the LingQ APP I have logged just over 1000 hours of listening time, but I’ve watched and rewatched many tv shows, heard many conversations, and listened to absurd amounts of korean music as well. I can often hear exactly what someone says, but have no comprehension of their meaning. Idioms and colloquial phrases can be very confusing, but I know I’ll get there with more exposure. Overall, I’ve probably spent several thousand hours completely immersed in the language
SPEAKING: I’m less certain here because I don’t do it often. I used to dabble more back when I had a lot fewer words (around 5000-12000), but I noticed that my speaking was getting better based on input anyway. I use A LOT of circumlocution because I simply don’t have the words to describe situations with specific terms. I think that my speaking process is fairly fluid, meaning I don’t have to really think about what I’m saying until I find I don’t know a word which makes me have to stop and think. I’d love to get more conversations both for listening skills and to use the language, but I have never had anyone tell me that my speaking in difficult to understand based on accent or awkward phrasing. There are some exceptions in which I will speak, realize I’m saying nonsense, and then have to collect my thoughts.
FEELING: I feel very intermediate. hahaha. I know I have a lot more to learn, but everything is fun, interesting, or clearly something I don’t like so I can move on. I just read and listen to what I enjoy, but don’t spend time on things I don’t like. Just like everyone does in their native language. To put it in perspective, my phone and computer are still in my target language. I read almost exclusively in my target language. These are web toons on my way to and from work (1 hour). I tend to read on lingq for 30 mins to an hour after work, often reviewing things I’ve already done, which helps me find grammar patterns I don’t comprehend or use with full success. I also tend to read atleast 1 chapter of a young adult book per day. These can be 7-8 pages or 30 pages, but I read them without lingq probably with about 85-98% comprehension depending on the text. While around my house, walking to work, in cars, etc I tend to have some sort of podcast or story playing for about 1-2 hours a day as well. A lot of the time I also have on Korean music. I also probably watch 2-3 hours of tv shows per week. It may sound strange, but it’s just included in everything I do and it’s fun, which prevents any loss of motivation.
I really have no idea how long it will take me to understand almost everything I listen to and watch, but I can tell you I do not fully comprehend almost any show yet, even ones I’ve watch 5+ times from start to finish, but it’s quite fun to get the scripts from those. Those probably inflate my “known words” quite a bit though because I have seen so many of them so many times before actually reading them with LingQ.
I like that people have such good stories to post!! Thanks to everyone else who posted. It was a great read. There sure do seem to be a lot of Russian learners
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Think of the levels as grades in school, you’re in 1st grade until you complete it, then you’re in second grade. So you would be in “A2” grade with 24k until you complete it at 30k.
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Well, that is a possibility. I just find it a bit unclear.