Last week I took the DLPT in Serbian/Croatian. I challenged myself this year to bring back one of my stale languages at least to a 1/1 level (A2 in CEFR scale). In the end I decided upon Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. Since I had initially studied this language at DLI, I was able to make use of DLI's online language training system, one-on-one with an instructor. I used this same system the last couple years for Russian, and I credit it for getting me 3/3 (C1) on the DLPT.
The U.S. government's DLPT for this set of languages is simply called the Serbian/Croatian DLPT. If you've only studied Croatian, for example, you'd have trouble on the Reading DLPT, as fully half of the test is in Cyrillic.
I last took this DLPT in 2009 three months after finishing a 4-hours/week, 9-month long refresher. Unfortunately, during those three months I'd switched to a Russian intermediate course (same hours/week scheme). I ended up with a 0+ on the Serbian/Croatian Listening and a 2 on Reading (and a 1 on Speaking...yes, higher in speaking than listening!). Prior to that, in 1999, was the last time I took the DLPT as a working linguist, and got a 3 in Listening and 2+ in Reading. I managed to keep my proficiency to around the 2/2 level for about three or four years after that test, but finally stopped as Russian became more useful in my life.
Tuesday and Wednesday last week I took the Serbian/Croatian. I was surprised after the Reading to find out I got a 1+. (Felt really good and thought I might squeak out a 2.) Didn't expect much after the Listening; felt worse than after the Reading. Surprise! I got a 1+ on that one, too!
So: goal was 1/1 and I got a 1+/1+. Success!
No comments:
Post a Comment