> CEFR: THE EUROPEAN YARDSTICK
When someone tells you they're "A2" or "B1", this is the thing they're referring to: the Common European Framework, or CEFR. Six levels, three bands:
A1–A2 (Basic). Survival stuff. Introductions, shopping, saying what you did today. You can get through predictable situations as long as the person you're talking to plays along.
B1–B2 (Independent). This is where it starts paying off. At B1 you can hold everyday conversations and sort out travel problems. At B2 you can argue a point, keep up with native-speed talk, and actually work in the language — with effort, but still.
C1–C2 (Proficient). Flexible, precise, idiomatic. C1 is professional-grade fluency. C2 is near-native, and honestly, most native speakers would never formally test at C2 either.
> JLPT, DELE, AND ACTFL
JLPT (Japanese) goes from N5, the easiest, up to N1. Fair warning: it only tests reading and listening. No speaking, no writing. Roughly, N5 ≈ A1–A2, N4 ≈ A2, N3 ≈ B1, N2 ≈ B2, N1 ≈ C1. If you want a job in Japan, N2 is the certificate employers expect to see.
DELE (Spanish) is the official diploma from the Cervantes Institute. It maps straight onto CEFR A1–C2 and, unlike JLPT, it tests all four skills — yes, including speaking. ACTFL, the US system, uses its own labels: Novice / Intermediate / Advanced / Superior / Distinguished. Their "Advanced Low" is roughly B2.
> HOW LONG EACH LEVEL TAKES
It depends — mostly on how far the language sits from English, and how many hours a week you actually put in. But you deserve real numbers, so here's what I'd plan on as an English speaker studying seriously, call it 7–10 hours a week:
Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, French: The friendly ones. B1 in 6–9 months, B2 in 1.5–2 years.
German, Finnish: A step harder. B1 in 9–12 months, B2 in 2–2.5 years.
Japanese, Korean, Arabic: B1 in 1.5–2 years, B2 in 3–4 years. The writing system alone eats a chunk of that, and the grammar is just far from English. Ask me how I know.
Anyone promising fluency in 30 days is selling something.
> HOW TO CLIMB FROM ONE LEVEL TO THE NEXT
A1 → A2: Volume. Lots of high-frequency vocabulary with spaced repetition, simple daily chats, and if your language has a new writing system, get it down early.
A2 → B1: This is the plateau where most people stall out. The way through is production: regular conversation where you're forced to actually form sentences, with corrections, plus grammar work aimed at your real mistakes — not whatever chapter comes next in a textbook.
B1 → B2: Input, and lots of it — but stuff you actually care about. Music, podcasts, articles, mined for vocabulary in context. This is where music study really earns its keep.
B2 → C1: Precision work. Nuance, register, idioms, the vocabulary of your field. You build this in long conversations about things that genuinely matter to you.
Not sure where you're starting from? Take the language aptitude quiz — it maps how your brain handles the skills each level demands. Allomorpheus then sets conversation difficulty to match where you actually are.
START AT YOUR LEVEL. CLIMB ON SCHEDULE.
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