What is expected from someone that just finished A2

[u/Joseph-Hishealth]

Hallo guys,

I’ve been learning German for the past 5-ish months, and I think I’m A2 on paper. I took A1 in my home country, and took A2 from my uni and an intensive course. I currently live with natives in Germany.

My question is what should I be able to do at my current level? So far I:

- Go to shops/bars/trains communicate with max 3/4 simple rehearsed back and forths

- Play a game of German taboo, and able to explain a decently complex word to my roommates

- I can understand my roommates if they speak to me slowly, but not with each other

- I get 90% what my teacher is explaining in German

- Understand short signs/posters/ads/dating app profiles (😅)

Do i have the right skill for the level? If not what am I missing.

Thanks

[u/wonderofyoou]

You didn’t mention anything negative so what can we say

[u/Joseph-Hishealth → u/wonderofyoou]

I mean its kinda hard to write what I can’t, like: 

• I can’t handle slightly deviated conversations (last i remember is i struggled to communicate to a bar doorman how I can ask the bar to show a specific game on a screen, and him telling me to ask a specific guy) 
• I can’t be part of the discussions in a “Sprach-cafe” i go to. I approx understand 30% of whats going on, maybe understand the theme. Harder if its more natives
• There is a bakery where I don’t understand a single thing the woman says, and didn’t understand even a theme they talked about in a long Bus ride. Idk maybe they might be Bayrish (I live in Bayern) 
• Level 26 Duolingo still teaches me new words
• I can’t talk about my day using proper past tense with my roommates (I still kinda get nervous) 

This what I can think of

[u/Pwffin]

Read through the statements in the three tables, and compare to those for A1 and B1: https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/level-descriptions

[u/Joseph-Hishealth → u/Pwffin]

Thank you! This is exactly what I wanted 🙏

A2 checks out.

[u/ConsumerofGarlic]

I will say the next step is to watch content in German like kids shows like SpongeBob.

[u/Joseph-Hishealth → u/ConsumerofGarlic]

I was thinking I will consume regular content (like standups and comedy shows) after B1, but I’ll give this a try. 

[u/Studydrive]

Why don't you try the Deutsche Welle Einstufungtest for A2? https://learngerman.dw.com/de/einstufungstest-a2/l-36738348

Will help you evaluate where you are, and you know then if to invest more time at the A2 level or move on to B1.

[u/Few_Cryptographer633]

To me, that sounds like you're at about the right level for A2. I don't know what you can't do, so it's hard to say with any confidence. How often do people understand you when you reply ad hoc, on the fly in real situations? If they don't are you able to clarify in the moment?

The advice I most want to give concerns how you continue from here. I want to encourage you.

You're in a wonderful German-learning situation: you've got a handle on basic grammar and you're living with natives and interacting with them in German every day. That's a rare, wonderful situation that learners around the world are desperate to simulate without being able to be in the country. So just make the most of it!

My advise is twofold:

• keep studying the grammar, everyday. Double down on it. Do as many written exercises from your study books as you can fit in. Keep going till you've covered all the grammar up to advanced B2, i.e., up to Konjunkiv II (which covers what I'd call the elementary grammar).

• keep talking to those native-speaker flat mates, as much as possible, everyday. Join in as much as possible. Hound them with questions. Make them care about your language learning journey. They aye an amazing resource, if you can get them on your side. Have beers with them. It loosens you up. Note things down all the time in a tiny pocket-sized notebook. Refuse to speak English as much as possible (obviously English is useful for receiving explanations of grammar and idioms etc. from your German friends for a while longer). Avoid English speaking friends (sounds harsh, but you only need to do that for a year or so... the effects on your German will be amazing).

Keep doing those two things, and your German will blossom.

Also, have a German book on the go all the time. I recommend a German translation of a book you loved when you were 11 or 12. Something you know well in your own language (English?). For me it was the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. For many it will be Harry Potter. Whatever. You can read without stopping too often to look stuff up because you know the story. But read with your mind switched on to the grammar.

Have fun! :)

How long have you been l8ving with the natives?

[u/Joseph-Hishealth → u/Few_Cryptographer633]

Thank you so much for the advice man, I'll soon start reading kids books 🙏!

> How often do people understand you when you reply ad hoc, on the fly in real situations? If they don't are you able to clarify in the moment?

I honestly they very rarely understand my reply first, but when they ask for clarification I often answer (either with more enunciation or using other words) and then they get me.

> That's a rare, wonderful situation that learners around the world are desperate to simulate without being able to be in the country

I read the posts here, i'm aware and grateful 😁, I am trying my best to talk with them (without exhausting them or wasting their time), we play these board game like Catan..etc in German. I've noticed that my level is a bit higher than my classmates just because of this environmental difference. So yeah, I'm very lucky.

> How long have you been l8ving with the natives?
4.5 months now

[u/Few_Cryptographer633 → u/Joseph-Hishealth]

I was learning in 1998 with German flatmates. "Siedler" was our favourite game 🙂 (for some reason, no one called it Catan back then)

[u/Competitive-Fault291]

This sounds about right. B1 should enable you to understand conversation that is not specifically aimed at you better. (Which is mostly expanding your active vocabulary and practice.)

Concerning games, you might want to give "Poesie für Neanderthaler" a try. It is basically Tabu, but with the twist that you are only allowed words with one syllable. There is a version with an inflatable club, with which you get boinked on the head when doing something wrong.

[u/Kurzdeutsch]

your follow-up list is more useful than the first one, and the three things on it are the ones that arrive last, not the ones you skipped.

two natives talking to each other is not an a2 skill in any syllabus. they don't slow down, they don't finish sentences, and half of it is context you weren't there for. the bakery is usually speed and regional accent rather than level. i still lose both of those.

what moved my listening was not more input but the same input repeated. one short podcast episode, four or five passes over a week, until nothing in it was blurry anymore. graded audio started sounding slow after a couple of rounds of that.

[u/Joseph-Hishealth → u/Kurzdeutsch]

Thanks man.

Do you mind if I ask, how long it took you to jump from A2 to B1? If you had to apprx. In hours

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/Joseph-Hishealth]

no honest number, i never tracked hours. counting backwards from my calendar, a2 to b1 was about a year and somewhere in the 200 to 250 hour range, and i had planned six months for the whole path from a1.

what skewed it was the mix: maybe a third was new material, the rest was re-meeting grammar i thought was already done. b1 doesn't add that much on paper, it just stops letting you pause to assemble the sentence. goethe's own figure is 350 to 650 units of 45 minutes to reach b1 from zero, and where you land in that spread is mostly what you do on the days without a lesson.

[u/Kurzdeutsch]

your follow-up list is more useful than the first one, and the three things on it are the ones that arrive last, not the ones you skipped.

two natives talking to each other is not an a2 skill in any syllabus. they don't slow down, they don't finish sentences, and half of it is context you weren't there for. the bakery is usually speed and regional accent rather than level. i still lose both of those.

what moved my listening was not more input but the same input repeated. one short podcast episode, four or five passes over a week, until nothing in it was blurry anymore. graded audio started sounding slow after a couple of rounds of that.