After looking at eugrus’s link I would say I’m probably at about A2 in most areas of my Japanese ability. Some of my listening and speaking (interaction and production) abilities might fall under B1, partly because less vocabulary seems to be required for speaking but regardless I’m not quite there.
Unaided by a dictionary or LingQ I would say my reading ability might be closer to A1 than A2. When I can use LingQ or I’m given time to look up words I don’t know my reading level improves significantly because I think I understand quite a bit of the grammar. Its the unknown Kanji that gives me much of my problems when reading.
Whats got you so down lately? Your self reported abilities don’t appear to be that much different from what most people posted in their reported languages. Your not comparing yourself to Steve now are you?
Look at my self-assessment above. I’ve been studying Japanese seriously for about 2 years. It hasn’t all been on this site but I do feel I’ve been working my butt off at it. Outside of LingQ I have been taking classes at a university with a native Japanese instructor. About 90% of the class is held entirely in Japanese. During the school semester I also meet with a tutor (who is also a native speaker) about once a week for an hour for conversation practice.
So I’ve been studying hard for about 2 years and I believe I have access to better learning resources than you and yet I’m at “A2” in Japanese. You’re studying two more languages than me and from what I can tell have very limited access to resources outside of LingQ yet you seem to be picking them up faster than I’m picking up my one language.
I’m really not sure what to make of this. I have no idea why you think you’re falling short of everyone else. I just don’t see it.
I think that the gaps between all of the levels gradually increase in that way. Similarly to how the levels here at Lingq increase. Getting to the first couple is easy, the third takes a little more work but isn’t too challenging if you work at it consistently. The next two are more challenging…beyond that is forever.
I’ve just recently passed the 12500 mark for Dutch (making it to advanced 1), and I can understand (text or audio) over 90% of everything I look at now (bar specialist topics). Still: 8800 known words till the next level. It’s like WOW! But almost a week later and I’m at 13120…so, things are going well.
The thing is, once I get to that 22,000 mark, I’ll still be learning many words. I won’t be satisfied with Dutch until I have at least 50,000 words. I mean - completely satisfied. There are little satisfactions along the way.
For Russian, I think that the numbers could be perhaps doubled. For the kind of level I’m after in Dutch, I mean. Skyblueteapot, I really hope you can push past where you are and get to that B2 level.
We shouldn’t forget that the first language is (in a way) the hardest.
I’ve updated my estimates because I had a tough(er) time speaking Spanish tonight with my friend than I thought I would. And I’m basing these on what I think would be my ability to pass the equivalent test, not necessarily fulfilling the criteria for each level.
French - B2/C1 (only because I think I would be able to pass a C1 test after a couple of months of study).
Spanish - B2 (at times it feels equal to / better than my French, but at other times it’s simply not).
Finnish - C1 (I can only assume it’s around this level, because it’s definitely better than my French).
Depending on what my work / study arrangements are this year, I might try to take a C1 test for French (in a few months) and a C1 test for Spanish (later this year). Anyone else up for a motivational challenge? I don’t know about the prices in your countries, but here the French DALF C1 exam only costs $150. This could be a good way to capitalise on the 1,000 (ish) hours of listening we did last year!
Spanish - B2 / C1 (I recently took the C1 test and haven’t gotten the results back yet, but I don’t think I passed. I thought the test would be motivating for me, but in fact it wasn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact.).
Some days I feel great about my level, and other days I feel that I am so stupid, and I should be much further along for the amount of time I’ve been studying the language.
I agree with Steve - I think some people are being too hard on themselves. For example, Makacenko’s written English is definitely much better than level B1, in my opinion.
As for Imyirtseshem’s problems with Dutch, I’ll be honest: I reckon you’ve gotten up to a level where you now need to have regular contact with native speakers - and alas that may not be easy to achieve.
I’ve heard stories about people actually living in Holland, and yet still finding it very hard to get into using the language! The problem is, 99% of Dutch people speak English very well; therefore it can be tough to get any kind of break in speaking Dutch, especially if you don’t have any strong contacts on the ground there (i.e.close friends or family.)
Yiddish, on the other hand, has a pretty strong ‘niche interest factor’, doesn’t it? I’m guessing that it must be quite easy to find online groups in Israel, Europe, and North America, who are very enthusiastic about this language?
Maybe you need to blow off Dutch and focus on Yiddish…?
If you can’t get Yiddish to work in LingQ, try “Learning with texts”. It’s a little program you can google. Kinda like “LingQ Light”.
LingQ has a lot of content tho for the language I’m learning. Not everything’s interesting, and a day only has 24 hours. I’m kinda beat after all my other activities.
I’d say I’m somewhere between B2/C1 in English (there was some test on the net, and my vocab should be at roughly 15.500 words).
I also learn Japanese, and there my skills vary greatly, from A2 reading/speaking to B1 writing/listening comprehension.
P.S.: Today’s one of my bad days. Neither English, nor Japanese work out.
@Skyblueteapot: I agree with you… There is a HUGE gap between B1 and B2 and it scares me =p.
Base on Eugrus’s link mine are as Follow
English ( my second language although I learned it more or less at the same time as my mother tongue…) : C2 all around. But I do have a slight slight slight french accent on certain words when speaking English =).
French ( mother tongue ) C2 for reading and listening however I would say I’m at C1 for Speaking and perhaps B2+/C1 for Writing which i guess is odd since this is my first language… Reason behind this is because I haven’t had to use french to write anything other than simple emails/letters since the age of 17 ( I’m now 28 ). I went to real french schools up till i was 17 after that I did my college studies all in English and my work environment / general environment has all been in English since. As for speaking, I speak to my family in french a few times a month so there’s no issues there HOWEVER if i were to be put in a professional setting and have to discuss things related to the specifics/technicalities of my work or discuss about anything overly technical I would have some issues finding the specific words I need since I’m so used to those kind of Terms in English and never had to use them in french. If i were to spend a month surrounded by french and lots of reading I’m confident I could bring my writing and french speaking up to a C2 NO PROBLEM. In my present situation there’s just no need or time for it…
Korean ( the language I’m Currently Learning ): I started learning korean Seriously in late 2010 BUT i did have a basic understanding of korean before that. Forexample I learned to read and write hangeul in 2006 and I did know some really basic grammar and a handful of words ASWELL as having visited Korea perhaps 3-5 times between 2006-2010 . I now live in Korea ( 10 months so far) and I’m A2+ for writing and speaking , A2+/B1 for readings and B1 for listening. I would love to reach a B1+/B2 level overall. That seems to be a good spot to be in in most languages and I look forward to it. It’s going to be ALOT ALOT ALOT of work… I have a serious gap in my vocabulary and I know EXACTLY what i need to do to step up my Korean. It’s just easier said than done =).
Research indicates that vocabulary size is a very good measurement of language proficiency. For people learning English I strongly recommend you take this test: http://my.vocabularysize.com/.
For people learning other languages I strongly recommend you find frequency lists of the most commonly used 20 000 dictionary words, import them as LingQ lessons (maybe 2 000 at a time) and see how many you know.
I think these grades are pretty much pointless unless you are wanting to do tests. I know of people who do really poorly on the tests, but can live quite happily in the language (Grammar may not be perfect, but they speak without hesitation).
I originally went through course books for my language, i.e. A1, A2, B1, etc… I also had several books for the B1 level and the difficulties of each varied considerably. However, I would say I currently have the following levels:
English: C2 (Native)
Polish: B2 (Although speaking level is lower, around A2)
Spanish: A1
My girlfriend also has the coursebooks for English at levels A1 and A2, and I’d say they are considerably harder than the equivelant course books and levels in Polish or Spanish. It’s almost like more is demanded from English learners at this level than in other languages.
This is a really old thread, but I would like to make a comment on Steve’s Portuguese (which happens to be my native language). I’ve only watched a single youtube video where he speaks Portuguese, and while I would agree that he is a B1 on his way to a B2, with a certain frequency he will make use of certain language patterns that are way above that level. By that I mean expressions that only adult native speakers would use, since they imply knowledge of all the nouance that comes with the expression.
Not sure whether he will return to this thread to comment, but I also watched another of his videos where he mentioned that he tends to pay attention to “patterns” more than to what we formally know as grammar. While Steve mentioned this in the context of Chinese learning (where patterns are absolutely essential), this concept probably explains why his Portuguese is so “uneven” (I mean this is as a compliment, not as a criticism).
Anyway, this is all to say that the concept of “language fluency levels” is not only heterogeneous in terms of the four abilities (speaking, reading, writing, and listening), but our vocabulary itself is often fairly uneven. My English is probably the perfect example since I can use a fairly technical language in some conversations, while I probably couldn’t describe anything in my own bathroom in any language other than Portuguese. There seems to be some fascinating research on this topic: Can you lose your native language? - BBC Future
