My thoughts on the DELE C1 exam: Integrated skills. Listening comprehension and written expression and interaction

The third prueba tests on proficiency in written Spanish. This was actually my worst section (possibly due to lack of practice). I got a 15/25, or 60%, which is the minimum passing score for the DELE C1 exam. Overall, I believe this was most likely due to my lack of practice. I didn't practice writing any formal essays in the months preceding my exam (thinking that my writing was my strongest skill in Spanish), but I was definitely wrong. The DELE knows that people generally read and write better than they can speak and listen. As a result, they make the writing test more complex than the other sections. Don't get me wrong, the task and the writing prompts themselves are fairly simple. However, the grading rubric is pretty harsh. It's not enough to just write an essay that's coherent and correct. At the C1 level, you need to demonstrate sophistication in your writing style, using adequately complex vocabulary and sentence structures where they fit. I would say that the writing section in Spanish is probably similar to taking the SAT Writing section in the United States.

After the jump, I'll detail the couple of sections that I was given in this prueba.

My thoughts on the DELE C1 exam: Listening comprehension

The second prueba that I had in my exam was Comprensión auditiva y uso de la lengua, or listening comprehension and use of language. This consists of 4 tareas, or tasks with 30 questions total that you have to complete in 50 minutes. Below I've put down my thoughts on each of these tasks.

The big picture of this test is that the questions tend to be relatively complex, maybe about an NPR or news opinion-style interview. They speak at a normal conversation pace, but the audio quality can be questionable sometimes. I actually think that this is intentional, to see if your listening skills deteriorate if the recordings aren't given to you in perfect, sterilized Spanish. The conversation sections oftentimes have background noise that can disrupt your understanding (such as people talking, phones ringing, cars driving by, etc.). Sometimes the background noise will be so loud that you miss a word or two, and you need to use context to fill in what they probably said. Luckily, you listen to each recording twice. Some prep books tell you to just absorb the material the first time around and take notes the second time. But I think you should take notes the first time! And then use the second playback to fix your notes or add anything you missed.

After the jump, I've detailed my thoughts on the four tareas from this section.

My thoughts on the DELE C1 exam: Reading comprehension

Now that I've come down from the high that was passing the DELE C1 exam, I wanted to give my thoughts on the exam format, my performance, and how prospective test takers should approach the test.

The test is designed to test your skills across a variety of settings, both formal and informal. According to the Instituto Cervantes, passing the C1 level certifies that you are able to:

• Understand a wide variety of long, quite demanding texts, as well as recognize implicit meanings in them.
• Express themselves fluently and spontaneously, without any obvious effort to find the right words.
• Use the language flexibly and effectively for social, academic, and professional purposes.
• And be able to produce clear, well-structured, detailed texts on topics having a certain level of complexity, with correct use of mechanisms for organizing and articulating a cohesive text.

As such, the C1 level of this exam (and I can't speak for other levels) is divided into 4 sections, or pruebas. Each prueba contains 2-5 tasks, or tareas.

Because I have quite a bit to say, I'm going to split this up into 4 posts, each dedicated to a single prueba.

Prueba 1: Reading comprehension and use of language. 

Here, you have 90 minutes to answer 40 questions. As the DELE objectives mention, the texts are actually quite demanding (and boring, I'll add!). And, unlike in the B2 level, the questions associated with them are much more specific and detailed.

He aprobado el DELE! (I passed the DELE exam!)

Just wanted to share a bit of good news. I just found out this morning that I passed the DELE exam at the C1 level! If you are unfamiliar with DELE (or Diplomas de Español como Lengua Extranjera), it's a certification given by the Instituto Cervantes with the goal of spreading the Spanish language around the world, and is recognized by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of Spain.

I'm really excited that I passed. It was a hard test, and I had no expectations either way. What I was surprised by, though, were that my worst sections were in reading and writing (I thought my worst would be in speaking, but turned out to be my best section).

Just for the sake of completeness, I've shown my results below.

Basically, your exam score is broken out into two groups (group 1: reading+writing, group 2: speaking+listening). Each individual test is scored on a scale of 25. In order to get a score of Pass (or "Apto"), you need to get a combined score of 30/50 in each group. I got a 32.5 in group 1 and a 43.3 in group 2. So as you can see, my skills are definitely skewed.

My scores were as follows (in English):

• Written expression and interaction: 15/25 points. Barely passed.
• Reading comprehension: 17.5/25 points. Passed.
• Listening comprehension: 19.17/25 points. Comfortably passed.
• Oral expression and interaction: 24.13/25 points. Near perfect.

At some point I want to give an analysis of how I thought the exam went and compare it to my actual results. I also want to provide some helpful tips for DELE exam hopefuls!

Stay tuned.

First post

After years of trying, I decided to finally create a journal of sorts for the languages I want to learn. So before we get started, I thought I'd write a little about myself.

Who are you?
I'm a single guy in my late 20's who recently finished graduate school. I worked in business before graduate school, and studied science in college. I'm moving to Europe in a few weeks to start up my new job/life there, but I grew up a normal, boring kid from suburban Southern California.

What are you doing here?
I figured I'd use a blog to keep track of my progress and keep myself honest with what I've accomplished in learning languages. My goal is to learn 2-3 languages up to fluency, another 3-5 up to conversational level, and be familiar with many more!

Why are you trying to learn languages?
I was born to an ethnic family but never learned the language of my heritage. I had always thought of it as kind of a shame, and felt a tinge of guilt when I saw other ethnic Americans speaking their own language fluently. I loved learning Spanish in school and French in college. I realized recently that I can probably apply that passion to other languages too.

Growing up, I never traveled much, but in the last five years I went to dozens of countries. It was awesome, and I think that one of the best ways to enjoy the culture and integrate yourself in it is to learn the language. Local people definitely appreciate it for the most part, and it opens up your mind a lot more and helps you feel like less of an outsider (although this feeling doesn't entirely go away, more on that later).

Which languages?
I'd love to learn 5+ languages (mind you, not natively, but enough to read the news, watch TV, and discuss it competently with high school/college graduates). My current state of language proficiency is embarrassingly bad, but I'll post it below. Hopefully over the coming years it'll grow.

• English: Native
• Spanish: Proficient, some would say fluent (I just took the DELE C1 level. I get the results in a couple of weeks so I'll keep you posted). I understand maybe 80%-90% of normal TV shows and 50-60% of the news
• French: Basic. I was never officially tested on this, but let's call it A1

I'd like to get Spanish up to fluent/bilingual level (maybe a C2 in CEFR/DELE terms) as well as French up to maybe C1.

The languages I'd like to learn up to conversational level:

• Filipino/Tagalog
• Mandarin Chinese
• German

I'll definitely post when I get my DELE results, but probably before then.

Stay tuned.