I'm officially C1 in German now. Now what?

What the test was like

Conveniently, there’s a Goethe Institut here in Los Angeles that offers exams for various levels a couple times a year. I figured that with the low frequency of exams, I’d be taking the test with a few other people, especially since I’d been warned that the exam might be cancelled if not enough people signed up. But on the day of the exam, I found out that I was literally the only person to sign up for the C1 test last fall. This made things a bit awkward for the final speaking segment of the test, because you’re usually supposed to be paired up with one of the other people taking the test — instead, I just had to speak with one of the staff members.

The test was pretty standard, with reading, writing, listening and speaking segments as you can see describe on the Goethe Institut website. The one thing that threw me off a bit was that I had to do the whole thing by hand with a pencil on paper — I knew that was a possibility, but still guessed that a computer-based exam would be more likely. This was the most the most I’d written by hand in a single sitting in any languages in years, and actually the first time I’d ever written anything by hand in German beyond a couple of words. This made the writing section a bit more stressful that it would’ve been otherwise, and also made the first listening segment a bit more challenging, since you only hear the recording a single time and have to write down long-ish answers by hand.

In the end, I guess that bit of extra stress didn’t really matter. Coming out of the exam, I gave myself a roughly 70% chance of even passing - depending on how badly the writing went - but a week later I was notified that the actual score I got was 97 out of 100: 25/25 on listening, and 24/25 on each of the other segments. (I know for a fact that I missed at least one of the listening questions, so I feel like there must have been some sort of scoring adjustment involved… 😅)

How I prepared

Of course, the first order of business when it comes to prepping for a test is finding out what the format of the test will be. Beyond the examples provided on the Goethe Institute website itself, I also got my hands on this handy guide, which also included hints on time management, more example tests and — most importantly for me — examples of essays at varying levels of quality, with explanations of how they were graded. Since the writing section was definitely going to be the most difficult for me (I hardly write anything in German or any language besides English, and certainly not essays), knowing how writing would be assessed was crucial for me, and was one of the main factors that helped me decide that B2 seemed a bit too easy, C2 a bit too hard, and that C1 would be slightly challenging but clearly acheivable.

Next, I came across this very helpful manual with lists of vocabulary and turns of phrase to use specifically in the exam.

Beyond exam-specific preparations, I decided I also needed to clarify my understanding of a few grammar points which I could get away with not knowing in casual conversation, but which would be problematic when writing words down on paper. To that end, I revisited Hammer’s German Grammar and Usage, which I had browsed through a few years ago, this time focusing on the usage of prepositions, and the rules of word order.

Another big focus was learning not just individual words, but word collocations and the nuances of synonyms. I would regularly look up words in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache not just to see their definitions, but also examples of usage in context and various other words they were related to or commonly appeared together with. I also reviewed the sections of Using German: A Guide to Contemporary Usage that focus on “Easily confused words”.

Beyond test-specific prep, I also kept reading a lot of German books as I had already been doing for the past two years. Around the time of the exam, the main book I was reading was a German translation of Frank Herbert’s Dune (or Der Wüstenplanet), which I had decided to read in anticipation of the release of Dune 2 (which was originally scheduled for last fall before being delayed). I also started listening to more German podcasts, my favorites being Apokalypse & Filterkaffee, Hotel Matze and Alles gesagt? (the latter two being especially good for long drives, with episodes lasting several hours.)

What does C1 even mean?

As a self-taught language learner for the most part (for all my foreign languages except Russian), I’ve always struggled a bit with assessing my own language level. On the one hand, that’s totally fine - I’ve never actually needed an official language certificate for work or study, and despite having thought about it vaguely in the past I don’t have any plans to formally study or work abroad. (These are privileges that comes with being an L1 English (and Chinese) speaker I suppose.)

On the other hand, being able to quantify things is often helpful, at the very least for setting goals and tracking progress (and to know what order to put my languages in at polyglot events). In the past, I’ve had people tell me my Spanish is B2, and I’ve been satisfied with that - if my skill in a language is roughly on par with my Spanish, that’s B2. (“B2” also has the benefit of sounding somewhat impressive but not presumptuous.)

Another issue is that my perception of language ability is skewed by my tendency to focus on reading and listening far more than speaking, and with absolutely no focus on writing at all. And when I read German these days, it tends to be high-quality content produced by proficient writers at the peak of their craft - so whenever I read their writing, I think to myself “wow, I could never phrase things so eloquently”, but that’s obviously not a realistic way to go about assessing one’s own language ability.

What’s next?

One obvious question that comes to mind is “when are you going to take the C2?” to which I have to say: I have no idea right now. Maybe never? Prior to taking the C1 test, I would have considered C2 to be an entirely unrealistic goal unless I literally moved to a German speaking country for several years. But with the decent score I got on the C1 ( and considering that you only really need to get 60% right to pass a test), I’d say it no longer seems entirely ridiculous.

At the very least, it’s nice to have a solid benchmark against which I can judge my skill level in other languages. If my German is C1, then my Russian likely is too, and my French and Spanish a tier below but getting there. (I guess I still need a second, lower benchmark to help me distinguish my B1s and A2 though… but then again for those lower levels a specific label doesn’t really matter as much.)