What the CEFR is
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is a scale for describing how well someone can use a language. The Council of Europe published it in 2001, and a Companion Volume in 2020 updated and extended its descriptions. It’s language-neutral, so the same scale works for Spanish, Japanese or English, which is why schools, textbooks, exams and employers around the world use it.
The CEFR has six levels in three bands:
- A, the basic user: A1 (Breakthrough) and A2 (Waystage)
- B, the independent user: B1 (Threshold) and B2 (Vantage)
- C, the proficient user: C1 (Effective Operational Proficiency) and C2 (Mastery)
What makes the CEFR useful is its approach. It doesn’t define levels by grammar points or word counts. It describes what a learner can do: understand a text of a certain kind, take part in a certain kind of conversation, write a certain kind of message. Those descriptions are often called “can-do statements”.
The six levels at a glance
Here’s what each level means in practice, summarized in plain language:
| Level | Band | What you can read | What you can say |
|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Basic | Signs, simple forms, very short messages about familiar things | Introduce yourself and ask and answer simple questions, slowly |
| A2 | Basic | Short everyday texts: menus, notices, simple personal messages and stories | Handle routine exchanges: shopping, directions, your background |
| B1 | Independent | Clear texts on familiar topics, simple news, letters describing events and feelings | Get through most travel situations; describe experiences and give reasons |
| B2 | Independent | Most articles and reports, and contemporary fiction with some effort | Talk with fluency on a wide range of topics and argue a point of view |
| C1 | Proficient | Long, complex texts, including specialist articles, and meaning that’s implied | Express ideas fluently and precisely at work, in study and socially |
| C2 | Proficient | Virtually anything, including abstract, complex or literary writing | Express yourself with precision and nuance, even on difficult topics |
Most learners’ skills are uneven. Reading is usually ahead of speaking, and listening often lags behind both. The 2020 Companion Volume acknowledges these uneven profiles, so it’s normal to be B2 in reading and B1 in speaking.
Pre-A1 and the in-between levels
Six levels are a coarse scale, so you’ll often see finer steps. The 2020 Companion Volume describes a Pre-A1 stage for learners who can manage only isolated words and memorized phrases. It also describes “plus” levels within A2, B1 and B2 (A2+, B1+, B2+), for learners who are clearly beyond the base description but not yet at the next level.
Courses and textbooks often split levels further still, into A1.1 and A1.2, or B1.1 and B1.2. These sub-levels aren’t standardized across publishers, so a B1.2 course at one school may not match one at another. If a course or exam uses them, treat them as halfway markers within a level.
What text looks like at each level
Level descriptions are easier to grasp with an example. Here is the same piece of news written at three levels.
A1: “The city has a new rule. Cars cannot go on Main Street on Sundays. People walk there. Children play in the street.”
B1: “From next month, Main Street will be closed to cars every Sunday. The city says the change will make the center quieter and safer, and shop owners hope more people will walk past their windows. Not everyone is happy: some drivers say they will need to take longer routes.”
C1: “Starting next month, Main Street will be closed to traffic on Sundays, a move officials present as a modest experiment in reclaiming public space. Retailers, wary at first, have come round to the idea, betting that pedestrians linger where drivers merely pass through, while critics warn that the congestion will simply shift to neighboring streets.”
Notice what changes as the level rises:
- Sentence length and structure. A1 uses short, single-clause sentences. B1 links ideas with “and”, “because” and simple future forms. C1 nests clauses and uses participles.
- Vocabulary. A1 sticks to the most frequent words. C1 uses lower-frequency words (“linger”, “congestion”) and figurative phrases (“come round to”, “reclaiming public space”).
- What’s left unsaid. At C1 the reader has to infer attitudes, such as the officials’ caution in “modest experiment”. At A1, everything is stated.
This is why reading at the right level matters so much. A B1 learner can read the B1 version comfortably and learn a few new words from it. The C1 version would mean stopping at almost every line.
How long does each level take?
There’s no fixed answer, because it depends on how different the language is from yours, how intensively you study, and what you already know. Two widely used sets of estimates give a sense of scale.
For English, Cambridge English publishes rough guided-learning-hour figures, counted from the beginning: around 180 to 200 hours to reach A2, 350 to 400 for B1, 500 to 600 for B2, 700 to 800 for C1 and 1,000 to 1,200 for C2.
For English speakers learning other languages, the US Foreign Service Institute (FSI) estimates the class hours needed to reach professional working proficiency. It groups languages by difficulty: about 600 to 750 hours for languages close to English, such as Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch; about 900 for German; about 1,100 for languages such as Russian, Turkish, Persian and Hungarian; and about 2,200 for Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
Two patterns hold whatever the language:
- Each level takes longer than the one before. The gap between B2 and C1 is far wider than the gap between A1 and A2.
- Self-study hours aren’t class hours. Hours of focused input and practice count; hours of passive exposure count for less.
How to find your level
- Read the self-assessment descriptions. The CEFR’s self-assessment grid describes each level for reading, listening, speaking and writing. Find the highest description you can honestly say yes to in each skill.
- Take a placement test. Many exam boards and language schools offer free online tests. They’re rough, but they’re a useful second opinion.
- Test your reading directly. Read a few short texts written for a level. If you understand almost every word, around 98% according to research by Hu and Nation (2000), that level is right for fluent reading. If you’re stopping on every line, go down a level.
- Get an official result if you need proof. For a job, a visa or a university, only an official exam counts.
The CEFR and language exams
Most major language exams are aligned to the CEFR by their publishers, so a result tells you, and anyone you show it to, roughly where you stand on the six-level scale. Examples include DELE and SIELE for Spanish, DELF and DALF for French, the Goethe exams for German, and Cambridge English exams, IELTS and TOEFL for English.
Exams differ in format. Some test one level per exam, so you pass or fail a B2 exam, while others place you on a range of levels from a single test. If you’re preparing for one, check its publisher’s own description of the levels it covers and the skills it tests. Reading practice helps with every part, but speaking and writing need practice of their own.
How LingunAI uses CEFR levels
In LingunAI you choose a CEFR level, from A1 to C2, every time you generate a story with StorySplice, rewrite an article in the article reader, or start a roleplay. That means you can read at one level and speak at another, which suits the uneven profile most learners have.
Three tips for choosing:
- Read one level below your best guess for most of your reading. Fluent reading builds volume, and volume builds vocabulary.
- Step up in short sessions. Read an article at your level, then the same article one level higher.
- Track your progress by what feels easy. When a level stops producing new words, move up.
LingunAI also turns your study time into a rough, hours-based estimate of your level for each language you add. Treat it as a progress marker, not a test. For the method behind reading at your level, see how to learn a language by reading.