#language exam

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Latvian government lost patience and is now making everyone with russian citizenship to pass A2 level Latvian language exam in order to retain their Latvian citizenship and avoid deportation. To many russians, this proves to be an impossible hurdle, many shedding tears over their misfortune.

"It's so unfortunate, it causes me great anxiety, I can't even speak calmly," says Ludmila Larkina, a russian citizenship holder who lives in Latvia.

Born and raised in Riga, Latvia, pensioner L. Larkina holds back her tears - she failed the Latvian language exam.

"Let's start with the fact that Latvians themselves make spelling errors," she notes.

Larkina has a russian citizenship and for people like her Latvian government raised an ultimatum - either pass the A2 level exam or leave the country.

"When everyone tells me that in 30 years I could've learned, I, of course, know that. And I can speak and understand Latvian, but naturally I can't write in it," Larkina says.

There are currently 25 000 russian citizens in Latvia. About half of them rushed to pass the language exam, but the results were often unfortunate.

"Are you taking the exam for the first time?" The reporter asked.

"No, this is my second attempt," a man replied.

"Which part was harder, speaking or writing?"

"Writing."

"How long have you lived in Latvia?"

"My whole life."

During the 2008 financial crisis russian government offered people of former Soviet republics a russian citizenship. Many Latvians got tempted by this proposal, especially women, as Russia's retirement age for women at the time was 55.

Larkina also took the offer. Being unemployed, she thought extra money couldn't hurt. That's why to this day she receives a russian pension, which is just over 100 euros.

"Now, because of these pennies, Latvia doesn't pay us anything. Why are we such enemies of the people just because Russia pays our pensions?" Larkina ponders.

Ludmila, together with 7000 other people, now waits for a chance to retake the exam. But around 4000 people took no action, and to them the Latvian government already issued a note ordering to leave the country within 90 days.

Some people were asked to share their opinion:

"I think it's a great rule. If someone lived their whole life here and do not know the language it's a nightmare."

"The law is horrible. Of course people won't learn the language in two years."

"The issue is, when russians would start talking to Latvians, Latvians would respond in russian. They spoiled them."

Latvian exam consists of 4 parts: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. There is a time limit and the whole process is aided by computers.

Larkina finds it hard to use a computer. She says whenever she used to be in a company of people, especially at work, she always spoke russian to people, and if there were any Latvians, they would also speak to them in russian for the sake of simplicity. And now it all turned around.

"You know, I know some people who lived here for many years. They also took the exam and failed. They're now getting ready to leave," Ludmila Larkina states.

Ludmila says that Latvian government is kicking out people whose children and grandchildren are Latvian, they go to Latvian schools, now they will also leave the country.

"Even my husband says - Ludmila, don't run your nerves, we can just leave and that's that," Larina says.

People interviewed in the streets seem to take two sides. While Latvians don't see any tragedy, russians claim that there is no need to learn Latvian and that the requirement is absurd.

"I see no point for it," a woman said. "There's no need nor point for it."

"I'm sad for the people who will have to leave, who are forced to leave. Those who live here consider Latvia their smaller homeland, their second homeland. It's not fair," another woman points out.

"Imagine if Chinese occupied you and told you to learn their language as a 60 year old. Would you be able to do it?" a man says.

Yesterday for fun, I took an HSK level test from hsklevel.com--I hope it is accurate because I am quite pleased with the results haha!

I will say that this test felt REALLY HARD. It shows you words/characters and you indicate whether you know the word or not. I felt like I was saying no to over half! But I guess it learned from my answers and was showing me more and more difficult words to find my “breaking point,” which is what my teachers have said a language assessment is supposed to do.

I actually took it twice. I got very similar results the second time, so I’m just going to show the scores from the first time.

I don’t really know how to assess if the 11,030 words is accurate, but it sounds like a lot so I am fine taking their word for it :) 

I wouldn’t say I’m at 90% comprehension for movies, social media, blogs, and literature...I’m guessing maybe the HSK words are sorted into categories, so it’s supposed to mean something like “you can understand 90% of literature written at an HSK 6 level.” Which isn’t quite as impressive. As it’s been said, HSK 6 only gets you halfway there. 

I will say it is definitely true in my experience that my news comprehension is lower. But I have some resources I’ve gathered that focus on news articles, so I know I can strengthen that skill later on.

This above is the HSK which is going to be phased out. I’ve estimated previously that I am in the HSK 6 zone because a fair number of new words I encounter are HSK 6 words (I think most are not in the HSK vocab list at all). So this feels pretty accurate to me!

I have been curious about how my ability maps onto the new/incoming HSK, so this is quite interesting to see. I know people reacted to the new levels with some disappointment that they might be bumped down in terms of the “number,” so I will admit I am pleased to see these results.

When I took the test a second time, it estimated my HSK 3.0 level as 6 instead, but the number of HSK 6 and 7-9 words it estimated I knew was not that much lower, so I guess I am somewhere around the cutoff. I’m happy either way.

I don’t know that much about TOCFL so I don’t really have anything to say. Does it correspond to CEFR levels?? It kinda looks like it might.

Now I am thinking I should look over the CEFR guides again...whenever I do look at them, I’m never sure if I’m under or overestimating myself, you know? I feel like it’s better to underestimate your ability and then surprise people, but also you wouldn’t want to miss out on opportunities due to this. And overestimating might push you to grow more.

To kick off my year of language exam studying, I figured it would be best to suss out the requirements of each of the exams I’m planning to take so I can better focus my study efforts 💪💪💪

🌟 ¿why am i doing this?

This is one exam I’ve actually been wanting to do for a long time, simply because an actual certificate that says I have an advanced level of Spanish would open many doors for me, so it’ll be my main focus for the most part of the year.

I’ve been studying Spanish since i was in high school and it’s a language that I’ve just always had a passion for learning. I carried on studying Spanish at university and ended up majoring in it and even writing my thesis about a particular linguistic feature of the language 👩‍🎓👩‍🎓👩‍🎓

all this study, plus the fact that i have been living in Spain for a while has let me develop my language skills to the point where I can communicate just about anything to just about anyone without too much trouble, despite still making a fair few grammatical errors in spontaneous speech and missing some key vocabulary 

however i feel like my skills have kinda plateaued at a B2 level, as I haven’t really felt a push to want to focus on improving my grammar, vocab and pronunciation 

u n t i l   n o w

lmao

🌟 ¿when am i gonna do it? 

If all goes to plan (i.e. pandemic permitting), I’ll take this test on the 22nd of May 2021. This is (as i worked out) 166 days before my birthday deadline which gives me plenty of time to study for the other 3 exams and it also gives me a chance to resit it before my birthday if I fail lmao

but most importantly I want to take it on this date because I want to do it while I’m still in Spain so I’m in the best possible head space/environment for it ✌️

🌟 ¿what will be on the exam? 

The exam itself is made up of 4 separate sections, each section has 2-5 tasks, and each task has 1-10 parts 🤯🤯🤯 altogether, the exam will take 4 hours to complete omg

in short, the four sections are reading, listening, writing, and speaking.

in long, the four sections are given as:

Comprensión de lectura y uso de la lengua (reading comprehension and use of language) - basically in this section I have to read given texts and write responses/answer questions about them

Comprensión auditiva y uso de la lengua (aural comprehensionn and use of language) - I answer questions to recordings of conversations 

Destrezas integradas: comprensión auditiva y expresión e interacción escritas (integrated skills: aural comprension and written expression and interaction) - I’ll be writing long form responses to reading materials

Destrezas integradas: comprensión de lectura y expresión e interacción orales (integrated skills: reading comprehension and oral expression and interaction) - first I’ll be speaking in response to a written text, then i converse with the examiner about a given theme and finally I have to hod an informal debate about a topic and eventually come to an agreement with my speaking partner

🌟 ¿what will i need to do?

in order to pass this exam i recognise i’ve got some key areas to work on for each section:

improving my vocabulary, familiarizing myself with different styles of writing and improving my reading speed and accuracy

familiarizing my self with different accents and dialectal words and phrases (any variety of Spanish could appear in the exam recordings!!)

improving my spelling and learning connecting phrases and conventions to use in formal writing 

learning more idiomatic phrases and informal expressions, improving pronunciation and accuracy of my speech (look sometimes i’m still gonna accidentally say el mano or la mapa i mean more the grammar side lmao)

annnnnnd bc that destroyed my confidence these are some things I recognise that i’m pretty good at and can keep improving:

understanding the key messages of texts!

following most conversations even if they’re on a topic i don’t know much about!

knowing where most accent marks go!

speaking without hesitation!

🌟 ¿how will i study?

look idek at this point lmao stay tuned

these last few weeks have been a bit chaotic and so i’ll give myself some time to settle into my new schedule before working out any set study plan, but for now I’ll start by looking at past/practise exams to see how i go and where my weakest points are and make note of what themes/topics are likely to appear in the exams to begin studying the relevant vocabulary. I’m also going to do a big review of all things like grammatical structures and verb conjugations, and finally, to ease myself into doing more readings, i’ll find some easier texts (such as YA novels, introductory texts to certain topics) and practise writing reviews about them 📚📚📚

at some point I’ll also try to get some one on one lessons with a tutor to further refine my skills but that will definitely have to come later

this post is super long omg so if you’ve made it this far reading thanks for sticking around 🤗🤗🤗 but honestly after writing all this out i’m pretty excited to get started studying for this exam! 

please do let me know if you’ve got any tips for studying for this type of exam - i’d love to hear your experiences!!

It's 139/180

I'll do my best to pass the JLPT N3 with the higher score!