French language exam at Level B2 - within 5 months

[moimoi]

Hi,

I am really curious whether it is doable to pass the French Language exam at Level B2 with 5 month study. I could spend 2-3 hours a day on it for 5 months. I need to pass it in 6 months at most.

I just wonder if that is realistic or how should I go about it. I speak English and Hungarian and know only very very very basic vocabulary/grammar in French.

[ZephyrusX]

It might be.

In order to work in some government positions in Canada, you have to speak both English and French, so my aunt had to take a 6 month crash course in learning French to a fairly fluent level. She was able to do it.

I guess it really depends on how quickly you pick languages up and to what level you immerse your self in the language.

Learning French

[JoeDRL]

Consider that french is a more dificult language than english (I'm natively french-speaking).
The syntax and the grammar is harder because it has a lot of subtleties.

I in no way mean to discourage you, it can be done i you are ready to put the efforts into it!
Please tell us how it goes if you decide to continue

Good luck!

[OptimistPrime]

Originally Posted by JoeDRL

Consider that french is a more dificult language than english (I'm natively french-speaking).

It's funny; you're the second native French speaker I've heard make this claim, yet whenever I do language exchanges with Francophones, I tend to feel like English is the more difficult language of the two.

I wonder if people are naturally biased toward thinking that their native language is more complex than one that they're learning.

[JoeDRL]

@OptimistPrime:
No I am not biaised because I'm talking from experience.
I did intensive english (all afternoons we were talking exclusively in english) at fifth grade up to high school. My english was pretty good after that, I could have a complete and fluid conversation with a native english person without problem and mistakes. Compare that to learning the same "level" of grammar in french, it's nothing.

The thing that will always make us seem like we don't speak english well is the accent we keep

Anyway, not to make a language warfare here, but grammaticality, french is much more complex, in my opinion, than english. With the differentiation of genders and all the exceptions, even we have difficulty writing good french!

Have a wonderful day!

[aelle]

If the OP is a native speaker of English, I don't think it's very useful to them to compare the difficulties of learning French or English as a foreign language. I actually think that French should relatively easy to learn as a native speaker of English, compared to other romance languages or to non indo-european languages. French and English share a lot of vocabulary and etymologically related words. Grammar is a b*tch, sure, but that's easy if you have an analytical mind. Grammar is nothing more than a complex set of algorithms.

Originally Posted by JoeDRL

Anyway, not to make a language warfare here, but grammaticality, french is much more complex, in my opinion, than english. With the differentiation of genders and all the exceptions, even we have difficulty writing good french!

Compare that to phrasal verbs - simple base verbs, simple prepositions, radically different and unpredictable meanings. Call up / call off / call out. Jerk out / jerk around / jerk off. Drop off / drop in / drop by / drop out. Get across / get along / get around / get off / get out / get by / get over / get up... Talk about subtlety!
I apologize for pointing this out, but I think many non native speakers who claim English is easy and lacks subtlety don't actually speak it very well. The more I study it, the more complex and rich it becomes.

Back to the OP: is B2 the highest level? I would say it's doable, but I love intensive learning schedules. I don't think 2-3 hours a day would cut it, though.
I would follow the method outlined at AJATT: All Japanese All The Time (works for all languages). Quasi immersion, spaced repetition system, increasingly complex material and a lot of powering through. Also, since your goal is more to prep for the test than to actually learn the language, get yourself a big stack of mock tests and do at least one a week in the couple months leading to the exam.

[OptimistPrime]

I don't want to derail this thread, so I moved the language complexity discussion here.