I am absolutely solid A2 in my reading skills for German and French. I plan to be at upper intermediate 2 after 7 months. I do 4 hours German, and 4 hours French, and I focus only on reading skill which is what is my goal here.
Is it possible to reach that stage after 7 months? Do I need to add more hours to my tight schedule?
Please give it to me straight, I do not want to be dreaming because it is unhealthy later on.
I gave a period of 7 months because I will not have the time available I have now.
Please do not look at my words count, I am absolutely solid A2
And please do not think I am just asking, I am working really hard since a few months.
“…Please give it to me straight, I do not want to be dreaming because it is unhealthy later on…”
I think you can go from A2 to a good solid intermediate level in 7 months - if you are genuinely spending several hours per day with the language.
However, I wouldn’t say that being at an intermediate level would necessarily imply being able to read very fluently - certainly not stuff like newspaper articles or popular fiction (much less highbrow literature.)
My own experience of living in Germany: after about 6 months one could understand regular spoken German to (let’s say) 97% or more.
But achieving a similar level of reading comprehension takes very much longer - in all honesty. The range of vocabulary used in written language is just so much greater.
Thank you Prinz. I appreciate that very much.
I did not get “certainly not stuff like newspaper articles or popular fiction (much less highbrow literature.)”
Do you mean I won’t be able to read and understand the newspaper Spiegel, for example?
It’s actually difficult to say where another learner will be after X number of months, Matt. I think we are all different to some degree regarding our active and passive vocabulary at any given point.
All I can say is that, when I was at intermediate level, I was not able to just pick up a newspaper or serious news magazine and read it extensively (i.e. reading at near-native speed and getting a very high comprehension without frequent dictionary use.)
But these things are also not entirely black-and-white. One can get a fairly strong gist of something without having the high (98% or 99%) level of comprehension needed for extensive reading. And there will most likely be some articles which will be much more transparent than others - depending on subject areas where your vocabulary may be relatively strong.
I would say that is possible, but you have to be clear that after that time you may understand but not read at the same level of your native language. I’m at B2 level in french, it took me about 9 months to reach that level (from 0) and I understand most of the thing I read. But it’s so slow. I’m very fast reading in Spanish and English. But with French is still kind of frustrating that it takes me a lot more time. A book I would finish in two or three days, in french can take more than a week or two without dictionary.
i know what you mean when i was studying spanish it seems like it was easier to read and took less time even though as and english speaker more french words look like english maybe it was because
i had to look up the prononciation and the meaning of the word too .unlike spanish you can look at the words and pronounce it right away
Yes, I can read those with not great problem, maybe some topics may be more difficult because of specialized vocabulary but not a big deal.
I went to intensive courses that were like 4 hours a day from Monday to Friday, that was the equivalent to your A2 level, my base. My teacher was great, he forced us to speak and listen french since day 1 even if we were wrong. I admit I didn’t study more time in a day or weekends because of college projects.
After 6 months like that I couldn’t continue intensive course because of my professional practice, so I started on Saturdays 12 hours for two months, and It was a big mistake, It was lost time and I didn’t have time to study during the week, I didn’t learn. I leave the language like that for almost a year. Yeah, shame on me. After that I retook French for an Intensive month, like I didn’t have a life. I just eat, sleep, did two college courses and study french that month. I had to take the Delf test so I didn’t have other option. I read any interesting book I could find, I did a lot of listening with transcriptions. I had to copy a lot of text from books, letters and exercises for writing. And I admit I almost didn’t practice speaking.
So if your goal is just reading in 7 months with daily study of 4 hours I believe its possible. I mean, if I had the discipline and time I wouldn’t have need that hell of a month (its my proud now, but It was hell). And I had to do the four areas for the test, you are focusing on reading. Just be constant and find reading material that you like, and if is something you read in your language normally it would be more easy because you already understand it.
You can read and try to just understand with context, writing or marking the words you don’t know the meaning. Search for them later and reread. I advice to change all your software and phone to the language, It really forces you to read the language and learn vocabulary too.
Spanish is my first language and I love to read so It was easy. I had a hard time with English, I learned it just by playing video games, I couldn’t play if I didn’t know English so after some years It became easy. But French, god It is still slow. I read paper books, so maybe the time for finding meanings it’s the problem but I really prefer paper.