37
DIALANG is a free language diagnosis system available from Lancaster University. It reports your level of skill against the Common European Framework (CEFR) for language learning. DIALANG languages are Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Irish-gaelic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. DIALANG has instructions ...
26
It looks like there is no current internationally recognized method to describe language fluency. If it is helpful though, you can view a list of language proficiency tests for each language.
Check the table below to convert your proficiency results to different regional test scores:
20
Pronunciation is indeed evaluated in the CEFRL tests. The specific criteria are available, and are reproduced for C1 below:
Is intelligible
Intonation is appropriate
Sentence and word stress is accurately placed.
Individual sounds are articulated clearly
A sample assessment sheet shows what an evaluator might identify regarding the last ...
14
The CEFRL scale is a way of describing a language user's proficiency with that language.
There are three level groups: A (basic), B (independent/intermediate), and C (proficient). Each level group has two levels, for a total of 6 different categories of proficiency.
Note: these are rough generalizations of the levels, not exact specifications.
A
A level ...
14
I haven't found any official source to answer your question, but several members of online forums have explained their methods in estimating what they believe to be the number of vocabulary words you need to know for each CEFR level. The most prominent online resource is the research paper you referenced in your question, so I have excluded that from the ...
13
There is at least one language test that I have taken that maps its own levels to CEFR levels and that defines the number of words you need to know, namely Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK). HSK is a standardised test for Standard Chinese. Hanban, which administers the test for the Chinese Ministry of Education published a mapping between the 6 HSK levels and the ...
12
The approach I would take is to find coursebooks teaching the language at the various levels, look through them, and estimate my level based on that. Once you have an idea of where you might be - for instance, either B1 or B2 - check a few cours books by other publishers in that range - that should help you narrow it down.
Typically a lot of research goes ...
9
Vocabulary size and CEFR levels in English based on Vocabulary size and the common European framework of reference for languages by James Milton, Thomaï Alexiou, 2009:
A1 <1500
A2 1500–2500
B1 2750–3250
B2 3250–3750
C1 3750–4500
C2 4500–5000
They checked vocabulary of students that passed Cambridge exams at different levels so their results are ...
8
How long it takes to reach the CEFRL levels in Spanish depends to some extent on your native language; I assume it would take a bit longer for people whose native language is not related to Spanish or who have never learnt a Romance language before.
Some language schools provide information about how many hours of instruction it takes to reach specific ...
8
The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) is the international standard used outside the U.S. It has six levels, ranging from A1 to C2. The U.S. Interagency Language Roundtable ILR is scaled from 0 to 5, with intermediate ranges of 0+, 1+, 2+, 3+ and 4+. Call them from 0.5 to 4.5.
The CEFR C2 level, specifically excludes ILR's 5.0 or "native," so ...
7
One of the simplest options is to find a native speaker and start conversing. An advantage to this particular strategy is that if you have discipline-specific vocabulary you want to test, you can try to find a native speaker in that discipline to speak with.
If a native speaker isn't readily available, websites like italki offer 1-on-1 video lessons with ...
7
In addition to @Laure's answer, DIALANG is also available on a website under the subdomain of Lancaster University's official site. The web application requires cookies, JavaScript, and popups to be enabled. Chrome is recommended.
6
Just so you know where my opinion is coming from, I've been designing and teaching materials design using frequency-based vocabulary since 2008 and have given Nation's and similar levels tests to hundreds of students in several countries from true beginners to PhDs teaching EFL. I helped devise the bilingual Gujarati test that is on Nation's website and set ...
6
As stated in the linked question, it is the
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment,abbreviated in English as CEFR or CEF or CEFRL (compared to the German abbreviations GeR or GeRS, the French abbreviation CECR, the Italian QCER, or the Spanish MCER), is ...
6
At the moment, there seems to be no internationally recognised way of describing language proficiency if "international" is interpreted as "worldwide". The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) is your best bet in Europe, but even in Europe, not all employers may be familiar with it.
Note that the CEFR was created by the Council of Europe (CoE), ...
5
Yes, as long as it is not "unintelligble."
There are four competencies, reading, writing, listening, speaking, each weighted 25%. To pass C1, or any other level, you need a total of 60%, with at least 5% in each category.
I'm going to assume that the basis for your C1 evaluation is reading, and either writing or listening, and that speaking is your worst ...
5
Depending on the language you are learning, there could be training sets for the official language tests.
For German, for example, the Goethe Institut offers practice sets that are roughly equal in difficulty to the actual language test.
It might take you two hours or so to finish but afterwards you should have a good idea of how your overall language ...
4
CEFR "is a guideline used to describe achievements of learners of foreign languages" (from Wikipedia). By definition it applies to L2 only.
You can obviously estimate levels of native speakers but this is not what the framework was designed to do.
One could argue, and many clearly do, that most adult natives don't reach C2 level, and many poorly educated ...
4
The Centrum voor Levende Talen (CLT) in Leuven, Belgium offers two types of German language courses: (1) for native speakers of Dutch, Afrikaans, Danish, Norwegian or Swedish and (2) for native speakers of other languages. The first category of learners can follow the "fast track", with 70 (classroom) hours per course, up to level B1. The other category of ...
4
The descriptions of the CEFR levels are not based on vocabulary size or grammar, but on "can-do statements". You can find a lot of information about the CEFR on the website of the Council of Europe, which developed the framework. For example, for the lowest level, A1, Global scale provides the following description:
Can understand and use familiar ...
4
In the 2001 version of CEFR, the descriptor for "phonological control" for level C1 simply read,
Can vary intonation and place sentence stress correctly in order to express finer shades of meaning.
Of course, a learner at level C1 has also passed the lower levels. The descriptor for level B1 says,
Pronunciation is clearly intelligible even if a ...
3
I would characterize a C2 has someone who has a "complete," but not "perfect" command of a language. That s/he knows most of what an educated native speaker would know, but will make occasional mistakes of accent, grammar, or idiom that will mark one as a non-native speaker. In the language of chess or other games, I would call this person a "master," with a ...
3
You can find the definitions and a self-assesment grid at Council of Europe's website: https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/level-descriptions
See the website for the definitions in other languages.
Definitions
C2 Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read. Can summarise information from different ...
2
You can describe your language proficiency using the ILR system, the ACTFL system or the CEFR system. ILR and ACTFL were developed in the United States, while the CEFR by the Council of Europe.
However, over the last years, it seems that the CEFR has become the most used system: not only all the EU countries use it, but also a lot of non European ...
2
Paul Nation is the first scholarly name that comes to mind when discussing vocabulary frequency and learning the language, yet I don't recall him dividing frequency into CEFR scales.
Another source as has been mentioned is the English Profile project and you could literally go download their lists at each level and count the words that students can actually ...
2
The table cited in the answer from @gavenkoa from Milton & Alexiou is a revised one from Milton & Meara 2003, but with no explanation for the revision (in the revised text). It is non-contiguous (note the gap between A2 and B1). The original was instead:
A1 0-2000
A2 2000-2750
B1 2750–3250
B2 3250–3750
C1 3750–4500
C2 4500–5000
This is based on ...
2
If you compare the hours indicated above with the hours of instruction provided by Cervantes institute it becomes obvious something is fishy. For example, A1 course at Cervantes lasts only 60 hours. A2 is 60 hours again. Only B1 and B2 demand more time (120 hours), but not outrageous 280 hours as per above.
I did not do Spanish specifically, but I took a ...
2
This does not seem to be a very interesting exercise, since even for level A1, you need to know more than 100 words (see What are estimates of vocabulary size for each CEFR level?, where the answers indicate that even for level A1, the estimated required vocabulary size varies a lot). You can't possibly pass tests for CEFR A2 or higher if at each level you ...
2
In 2018, the Council of Europe (CoE) published Common European Framewok of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Compation Volume with New Descriptors. This is the first official version of the CEFR documentation that includes descriptors for sign language. Page 59 says,
Ever since the CEFR for spoken languages was introduced, there has ...
2
Perhaps some of this may be relevant in relation to your request for suggestions for calculating CEFR difficulty.
Duolingo has created a CEFR checker. https://cefr.duolingo.com/
Rather than rely on "syllable count and uniqueness" that you note FK relies on, Duolingo in its checker is using multilingual word embeddings (MWEs) and corpus frequencies ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
