For a little bit of context, I started learning German in 2021 while preparing for my study/life adventure in Germany. It was a fast-paced, two-and-a-half-month-long online programme, and somehow we made it to A2. Even the teacher was surprised!
I still remember my first lesson. At the start of every class, the teacher asked us for unbekannte Wörter. It took me a full week to understand what this woman kept asking for.
Then it clicked. Ohhh. Unknown words in the text.
Okay.
I felt very confident with my A2 certificate. I pictured myself arriving in Germany and chatting with people on the street, at the bus stop, in the supermarket.
Easy.
Except my A2, earned on my parents’ sofa in Yaoundé, was not really A2.
On paper, I had A2. In real life, everything was new. My pronunciation was off. People spoke too fast. Sometimes someone would say something to me in German and I would get an instant headache, questioning every life decision that had brought me to this country.
So I registered for A2 again, determined to move beyond the mit Karte, bitte level. But then life happened. PhD fieldwork took over, and German became something I would get back to “when I had time.”
That time came with the inter-semester break, when I did an intensive A2.2 course for a month. And something changed. For the first time, I found German genuinely fascinating. There was something satisfying about the way every part of a sentence had its place. Even when I didn’t understand a sentence, I could appreciate its architecture.
So naturally, I continued.
I didn’t know it yet, but I was walking straight toward the first boss.
Enter B1.1
This is where German and I developed a complicated relationship.
I started B1.1 and didn’t finish it. No time. I gave up.
I tried to go back, but the next course was fully booked. It was winter. And instead of waiting patiently for German, I decided this was the perfect moment to learn Chinese. I signed up for A1.1 with a Chinese teacher who spoke German.
My reasoning was very straightforward: two languages for the price of one. I’m good at finding a deal hahaha
Honestly, I still think the logic was sound. The execution, perhaps, less so. But it was fun. I left every lesson smiling, thinking: Wow. This life abroad.
One has to experience things.
Eventually I went back to B1.1 and finished it. But I still wasn’t feeling the German. I could do the exercises. I could pass the level. I just wasn’t confident.
Still, I kept going.
The intensive plot twist
For B1.2, I thought: maybe I just need to do this intensively.
So I did, and this time I could feel it. I constructed sentences more easily. I understood more. I even started a little podcast in German, and it was going pretty well.
That’s the pattern I only noticed later: both times I went intensive (A2.2 and B1.2), I made real progress. The slow, squeeze-it-in-between-everything courses never stuck.
Then life got busy again, and B2 appeared on the horizon. The level I kept looking at from a distance.
Should I do it? Yes. No. Maybe. Actually, I have two conferences this year, and I need to finish my dissertation.
Maybe later.
And as happens when you stop using a language, I started forgetting things. Some days I couldn’t construct a simple sentence and thought: I know this. I KNOW this. Why can’t I remember?
The exam
By then I needed a concrete goal, so I chose the TELC B1 (a standardised German exam, popular in Germany for proving your level).
A friend told me, “Just go directly to B2.” Part of me knew he might be right. Another part of me went: eish. B2? Really? Let’s not get carried away.
So I registered for B1. I took the exam and walked out feeling very confident that I had passed. I went home and popped the champagne. I was basically proclaiming it in the streets to anyone who would listen!
Then, of course, I started wondering why I hadn’t gone straight to B2. That thought always arrives after the exam.
Then came the result.
TELC B1: sehr gut. Done and dusted!
And my speaking score: 75/75.
Seventy-five out of seventy-five.
Me.
Apparently the German was in there somewhere. It just needed pressure.
This website really helped me prepare for the exam: Telc B1 Prüfung – Übungstest für Vorbereitung
What I learned
Looking back, B1.1 was the real bottleneck.
A2 got me into the game. B1.2 finally got things moving. And B1.1 was the Mortal Kombat boss. Every time I thought I had defeated it, it came back.
FIGHT!
If I had to give one piece of advice, it would be this: learning German takes time, and the foundation has to come first. I used to think I would learn the basics, arrive in Germany, and pick up the rest from the streets. For me, it didn’t work like that. It took several rounds with B1.1 to figure it out, and what finally worked was doing it intensively.
In the meantime, maybe I’ll restart my little podcast and play around with the language. I’m now convinced that the next part of this journey might not be about getting another certificate, but rather about using the German I already have!
