Comments on: C2 exam results and analysis

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 01:31:00 +0000

I’ve written in great detail about getting over issues with German grammar here: http://fi3m.com/why-german-is-easy/
Otherwise you really have to keep at it. A negative attitude accompanied with those frowny faces is probably a big contributor to you not being able to speak!!
I’ll get to Chinese some time soon.

By: aliascrazy

aliascrazy — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 20:21:00 +0000

Being a fluent speaker of German myself (and not being a native) I am really proud of you! And I’m definitely agreeing with your conclusion of passive listening not being enough… I tutored two San Francisco State German 101 students a few years back, specifically on pronunciation techniques. One of them did really well because she actually spoke German outside of class, outside of our tutoring sessions – and she would playback the audio files her class used and take notes on any words or phrases she didn’t understand. She was constantly listening to things actively. Of course, she would also recognize when she was getting tired of it & take a break. Active listening is a skill, a muscle you have to exercise. But not all day every day! —Liz in SF

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:08:00 +0000

Yes, I was an English teacher for several years and taught many kids the communicative approach to English – it’s pretty standard in TEFL circles.

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:07:00 +0000

My first experience with tests like these was the French B2. I found it too easy, so I’ll only do C2s in future. Keep in mind that I don’t need these for employment, whereas if you need a C1 to enter university or whatever, it’s better to do that rather than the C2.

By: Aniko

Aniko — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:18:00 +0000

that is so weird, in my whole exam (although I only have a C1, so it might be a little different) the listening was the part where I got 100%…

By: Aniko

Aniko — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:11:00 +0000

hey, you’re next mission is Hungarian? for real?

do you think your methods can be used by little kids too? (5 and 7 years old)
not for exam preparation, but for general purposes. (My 2 boys were born in the US and they don’t speak Hungarian yet. We moved here 4 months ago and I want them to remove the language barriers that keep them from socializing with their local friends…
Thanks!

By: Aniko

Aniko — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:06:00 +0000

I have a question. Have you ever tried C1 exams? or you don’t bother with those?

the reason I’m asking is that I have a C1 in English and I want to know how does the C1 compare to the C2. Thanks for your reply in advance.

By: Aniko

Aniko — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:06:00 +0000

I have a question. Have you ever tried C1 exams? or you don’t bother with those?

the reason I’m asking is that I have a C1 in English and I want to know how does the C1 compare to the C2. Thanks for your reply in advance.

By: Aniko

Aniko — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:03:00 +0000

that is so true! and let’s not forget that we are talking about the C2 exam (that would be the highest level available in Euro exams = “Mastery”) … not just some “alibi” B level…

Congrats Benny!!

By: Great teacher Steve

Great teacher Steve — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:22:00 +0000

The winner is….
Steve Kaufmann!!!!
Ah Ah Ah

By: Great teacher Steve

Great teacher Steve — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:22:00 +0000

The winner is….
Steve Kaufmann!!!!
Ah Ah Ah

By: Benny the language hacker

Benny the language hacker — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:12:00 +0000

Please read my blog posts from now (October) on. I’ll be talking about maintaining languages when not in the country since that is my current mission.

By: brianfrommaine

brianfrommaine — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:52:19 +0000

Wow.

That is really impressive Benny, even though you didn't “pass”. I think most people that study German for years never get to the level you achieved in 3 months!!

By: Benny the language hacker

Benny the language hacker — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:05:36 +0000

I already said in this article that I am happy I focused on the exam part of the mission. It would have been too hard to do that AND try to eliminate my accent since they involve focusing on opposite aspects of learning (social and antisocial).
I'll upload a video soon that I made myself entirely in German, and I think I'm getting interviewed in German next week and I can link to that video too.
I'll always write blog articles. That will have no reflection on the success of my missions. I'm trying to support myself from this blog at the moment. Unless you have a trust fund you are willing to give me, I plan to continue writing regularly here (in English) no matter what language mission I may have

By: Wirtshaus Im Spessart

Wirtshaus Im Spessart — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:58:03 +0000

Benny, when do you show us that you have become a real “Berliner”? I doubt it, but I am happy to believe if you do a nice video with a few conversations in Deutsch!
I think you worked too much on your book, wrote too many English blog articles, etc, etc. So you failed in your C2 exam because you listened not enough, spoke not enough Deutsch.

By: Jane

Jane — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 07:30:14 +0000

Congrats! That was certainly a tough goal and your attempt is really inspiring.
Although I have to disagree with you on your opinion about passive listening..
I think even without giving the audio (whether that is radio, or tv, or music, etc) in the foreign language which you are learning your complete attention, and without engaging in it, you are still improving your level in the language significantly. This is because as you listen, your ear becomes more adapted to recognizing certain sounds and picking up the speech patterns, and the overall tone of the language becomes more familiar to your ear. This has been my experience with learning those languages which have sounds that aren't even present in Western languages.. sort of like the “r” in the romanized Japanese language. It's like a mix of “r” and “l”. But I learned to form that sound by listening to CD's in Japanese, actually every night just as I was going to sleep. So I think I can safely say that my attention was not fully engaged when I was listening to the language And yet I still improved my level in Japanese, just by learning how to pronounce the language better. So this is just my opinion, but overall I do agree with you on all your language hacks and I enjoy following your language-learning adventures..

By: Cainntear

Cainntear — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:01:26 +0000

The usual suspects… should I be including myself in that…?

Cos, like, I agree with *everything* you say about how these exams work (as previously discussed).

A good result anyway… well done.

By: KK J

KK J — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:11:27 +0000

"It's more a reflection on them, their mindset, and their insecurities than anything else. "
Absolutely.

"BTW, it's funny how Herr Kaufmann seems to have a hate on for academic linguists"
Well, he has to, otherwise he'll have to change the names of his company: the "LINGUIST" institute, his blog: the "LINGUIST" on language. WHAT linguist? If he's a linguist then I'm no less than an astronaut! He's no linguist and it's silly to try to negate the whole science of linguistics instead of recognizing his own little mistake. To me it looks like trying to paint all donkeys in the world to prove they are zebras. What a ludicrous old man.

"but praises one particular linguist (Stephen Krashen) because that his ideas mesh with Kaufmann's own"
Pardon me, but you're SO wrong. He just MAKES his ideas look similar to Krashen's hypothesis by misinterpreting them. You can present them to the professor by yourself if you want to, I'm sure that he'll have a good laugh.

"Strange that you can't find any information about the languages that Krashen learned with his own method ... "
Actually he did, French and German (very good), but that's completely irrelevant. As a linguist his mission is research and popularizing language acquisition. You can find evidence about whole classes and even schools who did it that way in his research papers.

By: David Winters

David Winters — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 06:37:30 +0000

The Kaufmänner … like that one! There are people in this world who find fault in everything, no matter what. It's more a reflection on them, their mindset, and their insecurities than anything else.

Dude, you have the right attitude — water + the duck's back. Let people like you-know-who sit around all day watching DVDs and listening to podcasts (not that there's anything wrong with that) instead of getting out there and doing something and actually having fun while using the language.

BTW, it's funny how Herr Kaufmann seems to have a hate on for academic linguists (and a lot of others, too) but praises one particular linguist (Stephen Krashen) because that his ideas mesh with Kaufmann's own. Strange that you can't find any information about the languages that Krashen learned with his own method …

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 02:02:23 +0000

Thanks! It's important for everyone to see my own struggles and realisations. I'm on a journey too – still learning as all my readers are