#B2 and C1 proficiency

[tjeromebaker]

Universidad de Oxford lanza a nivel mundial su nuevo examen para acreditar el B2 y C1 | 100% online para los niveles B2 y C1 de Oxford | Resultados disponibles en 5 diás

Oxford Test of English Advanced View this post on Instagram A post shared by Teaching English with Oxford (@teachingenglishwithoxford) La Vanguardia Madrid, 12 mar 2024 (EFE).- Oxford University Press, la editorial de la Universidad de Oxford, ha elegido este martes a España para presentar a nivel mundial su nuevo examen de evaluación de inglés, que certificará los niveles B2 y C1 conforme al…

[aaiieell]

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THIS SHEET IN PDF FORMAT HERE :

Exploring the Magic of "There you…" Phrases!

Let's dive into the enchanting world of phrases featuring "there you…" – from the classic "There you go" to the playful "There you go again." Check out the picture below for some useful examples that showcase the versatility of "there you…" phrases.

[hungwy]

JLPT N3 is comparable to CEFR B1; JLPT N2 is equivalent to CEFR B2, and JLPT N1 basically requires the same skills as CEFR C1. but consider the fact that to get to JLPT N1, the highest level of fluency for the most popular Japanese proficiency test, you need, on average, starting from no knowledge of Japanese at all (including kanji), 3000–4800 hours. to get to CEFR C2 in German, that being the highest level of the most popular framework for measuring European-language proficiency, you should study around 750 hours, maybe more. mind you this is measured with monolingual native English speaker -> target language perspectives in mind, but still, like, what the hell man. look at the requirements:

CEFR C2 (750-900 hours in German): "[understanding] with ease virtually everything heard or read … [and expressing oneself] spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations."

JLPT N1 (3000-4800 hours): "able to read [various and profound] writings with [logical/abstract] complexity … [and] comprehend orally presented materials [in a wide variety of settings] … spoken at natural speed … [and] also able to understand the details … such as the relationships among the people involved, the logical structures, and the essential points."

if you study German well for 3 hours a day, every day, nonstop, until you hit the 750 hours of study for CEFR C2, you're more than fluent in 250 days. okay, the US State Department says you need 900 hours, so the time it takes to become fluent changes to... oh... 300 days.

if you study Japanese well for 3 hours a day, every day, nonstop, until you hit the 3000 hours of study for JLPT N1, you're more-or-less fluent (not even definitively!) in 2.7 years. for 4800 hours it takes 4.3 years.

and studying 3 hours a day every day is basically unreasonable for most people! not to mention "real language heads" study for 10 hours a day. a regular person would probably do about an hour or two a day, right? and probably have weekends where studying doesn't happen. so let's say 2 hours a day, monday-friday; 10 hours a week. with 52.14 weeks in a year, you get about 521.4 hours of studying in per year.

with this regimen you achieve considerable German fluency in about a year and a half of study, and are probably on the same level as university students. the same habits will get you high-school-level Japanese fluency in 8 years.

now obviously all this assumes a lot: consistent learning ability, consistently paced lessons, not skipping any days, not forgetting anything, etc etc etc. but i think these numbers more or less hold

[russell-crowe]

I'm curious now, which languages can you speak and which ones did you study?

Dutch is my native language, and I attended a bilingual high school where most classes were taught in English. The only exceptions were classes where teaching in English would not make sense, such as Dutch and other foreign language classes. I also have a C2 diploma in English somewhere, though getting there was quite a journey. For example, our vocabulary lists included words like gobbledygook and canoodling :~)

In high school, I studied both French and German. I absolutely hated French, and despite several years of classes, I have retained almost nothing. My German is theoretically at a B2 level, though I do not feel comfortable speaking it. However, I can understand it quite well, and watching German TV or listening to the radio is easy enough for me. I also used to live pretty close to the German-Dutch border and my local accent is of the Lower Saxon variety, so German came more natural to me anyway.

I learned Danish through duolingo, online courses and uni, for which I have a C1 diploma. That said, I do not feel fluent in Danish at all, even though it is my everyday language now. I also had to develop receptive skills at my uni course (Scandinavian Languages and Cultures) in Norwegian and Swedish. This meant learning to understand them in both spoken and written forms without being expected to produce them myself. Many of my later courses were taught in Norwegian as well. I am not able to speak Norwegian, but I can Norwegify my Danish and have conversations with Norwegians without much trouble.

During a semester abroad, I also took a class that focused on Nordic languages in the Middle Ages. As a result, I can understand written Old Norse and some Icelandic and Faroese, although I am far from proficient in either.

I am also learning Welsh on Duolingo. I am not aiming to ever speak or write it fluently, but I simply enjoy the sounds of the language. :D It's been a lot of fun to play around with it. Also this all makes it sound like I am a person who enjoys learning languages, but I would not say that I am a big fan of linguistics and learning new structures and systems. That is also why I am studying history now - the one thing had fuck all to do with language that I could pursue as a master's degree.

[xiangqiankua]

holy shit guys, I surpassed my wildest dreams and passed TOCFL 5 (C1) 🎉🎉 I was not expecting it, I almost cried. Shortly beforehand I had run into my Japanese acquaintance who'd taken the morning session of the exam- she told me it was super hard and she ran out of time at the end, so I went into it feeling resigned to my fate and wondering if I'd even manage to score a 3. She was not wrong, there were some insanely difficult passages (the pros and cons of transistors vs vacuum tube technology? wtf?) and I also ran out of time and clicked a bunch of random answers for the last 4 reading passage questions (which I tried to speed read, but it was about how methods of protein absorption in the human body affect the effectiveness of certain beauty products (or at least that's what I gathered) so it didn't help much). However, apparently my listening score made up for it.

I took two CAT practice tests in the two days before and scored lower on the listening both times (and only got a 4/B2 overall), so I was fairly surprised that it was the opposite on the actual test (although I had managed to finish both the practice CATs with time to spare, so maybe that last reading passage really did me in, idk). I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised though, because I tended to score higher in listening on the old Band B tests too- I think seeing the timer count down on the reading part made me extra nervous, but with the listening one can only go as fast as the questions are read, so I didn't feel the same sense of pressure.

This was my first time ever taking a Chinese proficiency test- I took it mainly so I can apply for university programs taught in Mandarin, but it also feels really good to have some kind of solid evidence of the fruit of years of struggle. Not that I think it should be a requirement for anyone's self confidence, and to be sure it's also a test of how well someone can take tests (which was something I specifically practiced for a month in advance), but I had written repeatedly on student visa applications that my end goal of intensive classes was to pass Band C (or at least I thought that sounded convincing to immigration), so I feel extremely gratified that it's finally happened. (Also I really thought I was not going to pass it, and would have to torment myself with god knows how much more studying and exam-taking!)

[logansgaar]

Casual headcanon that Bucky is technically the record holder for most manually learned (as in not granted by powers or technological "installing") languages spoken to C2 level, as well as the most languages to C1 and B2.

But there's controversy over whether or not his super serum enhanced mind disqualifies him the same as it does for Allspeak users, people with language based innate powers, telepathy and AI-originated entities like Vision.

It's highly contested and debated over, with some people considering the serum a "gray area" since it's Bucky's brain that's enhanced not the method with which he's gaining these language proficiencies and that enhancement wasn't specific to languages; he is actually learning each language not simply instantly acquiring them through powers or tech, he goes through an extended and consistent learning process exactly the same as baseline humans, it's just quicker for him. Some think that if Bucky counts, then so should omniglot mutants and other people who know languages via innate powers. It gets really deep into enhanced people's rights and heavy politics, ethics and equality therein: whether enhanced individuals are disqualified from the Olympics, competitions and Guinness Book of Records etc.

Bucky himself doesn't really give a shit about being a record holder, he just enjoys learning new languages.

[aftg-and-random-things]

As much as I want aftg to get a tv show adaptation, the casting would be near impossible if we want it to be really accurate. I know a lot of people share fancasts and stuff, but I'm not sure if anyone has talked about some of the more odd requirements for casting.

Kevin: around 6 ft, speaks French and Japanese Andrew: 5ft or like to be realistic 5'3'' (the statistic likelihood for this is still super low), speaks German (or willing to learn some for the role) Aaron: probably has to be the same actor as Andrew cause what are the chances that actor also has a twin Neil: around 5'3'' (or somewhat under average height), speaks French and German, also willing to learn some Japanese for some lines, a ginger with blue eyes (if not eye contacts and hair dye...at least that would be in character) Nicky: speaks German

I feel like Matt, Allison, Renee, Dan, and the rest of the characters have like more general requirements since they aren’t like constantly talking in other languages.

But yeah unless the casting agency miraculously finds polyglots who look and act like the characters, like how would the show be done? I mean sure they could just learn lines for the role, but they would have to do a pretty decent job because speaking poorly wouldn't really make sense for some of their backstories (maybe except Andrew and Aaron cause we can argue their language proficiency in German might not be the highest comparably). For everyone else, I'm assuming they have around a B2-C1 (high-intermediate/advanced) level in these languages (for Japanese it would be probably around N3-N2 level).

And them speaking in other languages plays a considerable role in multiple scenes, especially all the scenes where Neil reveals that he speaks another language or uses languages to conceal information from other characters, so it’s not exactly an easy thing to write out either.

Anyways there are like probably a hundred other reasons this book can’t/will not be filmed by anyone, but logically even if a studio is okay with all the trigger warnings, the scenes when they speak in other languages in the book would make it pretty difficult to adapt successfully.

[oscarcito]

someone asked for a gif tutorial and that reminded me of (totally unrelated) of when i took the cambridge english proficiency exams for b2 (2017) and c1 (2018) and both times i passed speaking, listening, reading and use of english with perfect scores and failed horribly at writing. i think since then i’ve been terrified of stringing more than 3 sentences together… BUT i’m going to try For U Anon….

[thethirdromana]

Because I've seen a few polls going round about how many languages people speak:

Options borrowed from the description of CEFR levels here.

I'm curious to know how this relates to where people are from and the languages that they speak, so do share that in the tags if you'd like.

[2oosterr]

capt. ryan 'orca' murdoch

-> Playlist

GENERAL

NAME: Ryan Murdoch

ALIASES: Orca, Oscar Actual

AFFILIATION: United States Navy, OSOD

RANK: Captain

DOB: March 6th, 1978

AGE: 45

GENDER: F

BLOOD TYPE: B NEG

SEXUALITY: Queer unlabeled

HOMETOWN: Rockland, Maine

CURRENT RESIDENCE: Redcorn Airfield, Odessa, Texas

NATIONALITY: USAmerican

EDUCATION HISTORY: K-12 [1983 - 1991]

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY: US Naval Aviator (Commander) [1994 - 2011], PMC Operator (Captain) [2011 - Present]

APPEARANCE

HEIGHT: 182cm (5’9”)

WEIGHT: 170 lbs

EC: Brown

HC: Black, White

BUILD: Athletic, prominent muscle definition

SKILLS

[23/30]

Strength:             ▮▮▮▯▯

Speed:                ▮▮▮▯▯

Intelligence:        ▮▮▮▮▯

Experience:        ▮▮▮▮▮

Perception:         ▮▮▮▮▮

Communication: ▮▮▮▯▯

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: English (Native), Spanish (C1), Russian (B2), ASL

SPECIALISATION: Can pilot almost any aircraft, including helicopters and the C-130.

WEAPONS: Proficient in close combat, hand-to-hand, air-to-air, and air-to-land combat. Long range is a weak point.

RELATIONSHIPS

Alison Murdoch [Mother] [AGE: 66]

Louis Murdoch [Father] [DECEASED]

Aaron Murdoch [Brother] [AGE: 34]

PSYCHOLOGY

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Anger management issues

Chronic alcoholism

MEDICAL

GSW on right side of face

3rd degree burns on right arm

Dog bite scar on left arm

ENHANCEMENT

[GRADE 4 - Extremely Low Risk]

Individual had demonstrated the ability to walk on liquid. Note that individual can submerge in the same liquid when contact point is not the feet.

PERSONALITY

MBTI type – ISTJ-A; Introverted, observant, thinking, judging, assertive.

Orca is a natural leader despite her introversion. She commands attention, even from those who aren't willing to follow her, unafraid to put such people in their place with harsh words and biting insults. Her introversion leans more to the ambivert side of things, she prefers the quiet of solitude over a loud social function, but socialising is not out of her comfort zone, and she would never be afraid to speak up and voice her opinions.

The ends always justify the means to Orca. She is willing to do risky, and sometimes deplorable, things to complete her objective, leaving some to question her morality, but those close to her trust that she knows where to draw the line. She's self-assured, confident to the point of cockiness at times, because she's good and she knows it. 

The opinions of others mean very little to her, with the exception of the few people she calls her friends – she cares deeply for those select few. It takes a lot for her to trust, and a lot more to consider someone a friend, but once you've proved yourself, her loyalty is fierce. It’s incredibly difficult, but not impossible, to lose her faith.

Even when she was in the Navy, Orca has never been a fan of authority. It takes effort to earn her respect, which many of her commanding officers never did. In a way, this makes her slightly hypocritical, seeing as she demands respect from those around her but doesn't give it so easily.

Although she appears to be a serious, no-nonsense Captain, under the stony facade Orca actually has a strong sense of humour. She's more than willing to indulge in the jokes her soldiers throw around, but she still reserves the ability to take things seriously when the need arises.

FUN FACTS

Orca learned to play the drums as a way to de-stress. She learned in bootcamp from one of the older kids, and kept it up when she could in the Navy.

Her biggest pet peeve is stupid questions. She’s been known to make people run laps until the sun goes down for not using common sense.

The streaks in her hair are due to a bout of Alopecia Areata that she suffered from for most of her childhood, likely stress induced, and when the patches of hair grew back, they were white. She also has a patch of white where her neck meets her skull, but she keeps that one hidden because she doesn’t think it's as cool as the other two.

Her hair is also the reason for her callsign, since it looks vaguely like the markings on a killer whale, especially when she wears it up.

Her favourite colour is red.

She owns an ungodly amount of orca plushies.

On a similar note, she also owns an ungodly amount of model figures of fighter jets.

She’s obsessed with Top Gun. Like, balls to the wall fucking insane about it.

Like, she references it daily.

Yes, it was the reason she joined the navy. She is not immune to propaganda

Orca actually attended the real TOPGUN in Nevada in 2000, and graduated top of her class.

In 2016, she bought a decommissioned F-22 Raptor thanks to an Admiral friend of hers, and has been slowly refurbishing it in her off time. She keeps it in hangar two, and nobody else is even allowed to go in there.

She does all the repairs to the OSODs aircrafts herself.

BACKGROUND

Ryan's fate was decided before she was even born.

Her mother, Alison, was known to carry the gene for a genetic disorder and as a result, when she was pregnant with Ryan, she opted for a genetic screening to see if it would be passed down to her. It wasn't, but it's thanks to this genetic screening that they found out Ryan carried the NLH gene – the enhanced gene.

From the moment she was born, it seemed that her parents had already given up on her. Neglectful would be an understatement, there was no love in the way they cared for her. It was nothing but a chore to them, having to raise their mutant child when all they wanted was a normal baby.

Her father died when she was five. Shipped out to Iraq in ‘83 and never came back. Her mother shut down after that.

Growing up was difficult. Rockland was a small enough town that most, if not all, of the inhabitants knew about the fact that she was enhanced. She spent the majority of her childhood alone, being avoided by her peers and ignored by her mother, and becoming more and more bitter as the years went by.

She was eight when she finally discovered what her enhancement was; the ability to walk on water. It's a cruel joke, that she never even had a fleeting chance at a normal life because of something so insignificant.

When Ryan was eleven, her half-brother Aaron was born, and she got to witness firsthand what it looks like when someone loves you. Her mother was a completely different person once she brought him home, smiling and cooing adoringly at her infant brother. The resentment for both of them would never leave her.

Enhanced individuals, as the official paperwork refers to them, are required to serve in the military whether they like it or not. Mandatory service, starting at sixteen, and ending when you die. There is no choice, not for those who are deemed sub-human because of a genetic mutation completely out of anyone's control.

Despite the unfairness of it all, Ryan was shipped off to bootcamp a few months after her thirteenth birthday. It was easier there, surprisingly; there were other enhanced kids – people like her, for the first time in her life – and the structure and regiment of it all was something she actually found herself enjoying. The one aspect she struggled with was the demanding authority. She has never been with being told what to to, being a follower, especially by people she has no reason to respect apart from their rank. Her commanding officers were just like every other adult that had failed her thus far, and she earned more than a few disciplinaries for the insubordination of her outbursts of anger.

The three years she spent there helped Ryan for some sense of identity. It was strange, and bittersweet in a way, but she thrived in the military – had she not been conscripted, she may have even joined of her own accord.

The only sense of choice people like Ryan are given is the liberty of choosing which branch of the military they go to, so when she finally reached her sixteenth birthday in the March of ‘94, Ryan picked the Navy. She was on the plane to California the next day.

Once again, her entire life and any sense of structure she had was thrown to the wind. The Navy was harder, she was alone again and this time she had no idea if she was the only one of her kind; outing herself as enhanced didn’t seem like the best idea, especially since being a woman already put a target on her head. They looked down on her, endlessly questioned her abilities with an arrogance that made her blood boil, but Ryan was determined. She would be an aviator, and she’d be leagues better than all the people who thought they were above her – no amount of discouragement from them could change her mind.

It was in the academy that she met her first true friend, Michael ‘Berlin’ Addams. He was Ryan’s wingman, her partner in the skies, and the only person in her life to accept her unconditionally and without question. From the moment they met it was like two puzzle pieces clicking into place, his easygoing and humorous nature was the complete opposite of Orca’s quick temper, but they worked incredibly together like two sides of the same coin.

After Orca and Berlin graduated from the academy, placed first and fourth respectively, the two of them quickly rose through the ranks together, thanks to their raw talent for aviation as well as the synergy they had. They were best friends, practically inseparable, and though there were others they got along with, no one else came close to the bond that they had. For the longest time it was just the two of them, but the incident of March 1999 changed that.

While offshore on a deployment, someone found out Orca was enhanced, and word spread around the aircraft carrier faster than she could’ve imagined. She lashed out, broke another pilot's nose, and had to mop the floors for two months as punishment. While she was cleaning she was approached by one of the sailors, Eric Reyton she would come to learn. He extended an olive branch, and almost got his head bitten off before he revealed that he was enhanced too. It was a relief, learning that she wasn’t the only one, she finally had someone who really understood again. Berlin did his best, but he would never truly know what it was like.

From then on, it was the three of them. Orca, Berlin, and Eric – Static, as they took to calling him – and for the first time she actually started to feel like she belonged. The boys were like brothers to her, the family she never had, and life finally felt like it was looking up after all those long, lonely years.

And then Berlin died.

Shot down over land while they were on assignment. He didn't even have time to eject before he hit the ground.

Orca thought she knew pain. Unloved by her own mother, alone for the first sixteen years of her life, rejected by almost everyone she'd ever met, none of it had been easy; but as she watched Berlin's plane disappear into the treeline, nothing could've prepared her for the agony that ripped through her chest.

The rest felt like an out of body experience. She ejected, sparing not a single though for her own plane as it went down too. The landing fractured her ankle but she ran anyway, through the forest towards the blaze. She clambered up the wing of his aircraft, ripping the cockpit open and paying no mind to the way the searing metal burned through her flight suit and then her skin.

She pulled his body from the wreck, collapsing onto the ground with his lifeless body cradled in her arms. That's how the evac team found her, hours later, still sobbing into his cold skin.

His body went back to his family in New Jersey, but Orca kept his tags. She stayed standing over his coffin for hours after everyone else had left, everyone but Eric. Nobody was closer to Berlin than they were. Nobody understood the gaping hole his death left behind.

They were approached, after night had fallen and they were on their way out of the graveyard. The stranger handed Orca a card and introduced herself – Colonel Ellis – telling her to call when they needed a change of scenery. Eric had to restrain her from clawing the Colonel's eyes out for her audacity.

After the funeral, Orca finally understood how her mother felt when her dad didn't come home. There was nothing that could help the pain, the anguish of losing her best friend, so she drank herself into blackout numbness to escape it. Eric tried to help her, but it only ended in her lashing out. It went on like that for months, the only time she wasn't wasted was on the aircraft carrier where she had no choice. In a desperate attempt to help his friend, Eric ended up calling the Colonel to get them both out of California.

They found out on the flight to Texas that the Colonel was starting a PMC solely for the enhanced. The 'Occult Special Operations Division', she called it, a counter-terrorism taskforce. At first Orca was sceptical, the idea of it seemed almost too good to be true, but Colonel Ellis's achievements spoke for themselves. She was a decorated officer, and there was no doubt she had the power and resources to create something like this.

For a year, Orca and Eric served under Colonel Ellis in the OSOD, along with Lieutenant Klaus Green, Corporal Badger, both marines, and Lieutenant Nina ‘Vulture’ Smith, an Air Force pilot and all soldiers Ellis had worked with for a long time. It was better, being surrounded by people like them, and the freedom they had now was infinitely better than what they had in the Navy, but they were still out of their element. While Ellis, Green, Badger were marines and had decades of experience with active combat and its many intricacies, Orca and Eric were just a pilot and a sailor. Still though, Ellis didn't give up on them. They learned surprisingly fast under her mentorship, picking up what she taught them with ease, and though they were still miles behind the marines, their skills were impressive.

In 2011, Ellis was arrested.

The NLH gene is a random mutation, not something that can be isolated and cut out like a genetic disorder. However, if at least one parent carries the NLH gene, then the offspring are guaranteed to be enhanced as well. Starting in the 70s, sterilisation became mandatory for the enhanced, the same as conscription, as another way to control the enhanced population. Colonel Ellis was born in the late 50s, and conscripted in the 60s; in other words, she evaded sterilisation.

It came out that she had a daughter, around Orca's age, and action was taken almost immediately. Colonel Ezikiel Ellis died two months after her incarceration. The details of her death were never released.

Her death was different. It was obvious foul play was involved, but Ellis's death didn't affect her the same way Berlin's devastated her. This time, she got the feeling Ellis had reached her time, that she'd accomplished what she set out to do in her life, and now it was Orca’s duty to carry on her legacy.

She took over the OSOD as Captain as soon as Ellis's death was publicised. Now down to just the three of them, it seemed like a logical course of action to find some new recruits, and it didn't take long to find some. Ellis's daughter, Sergeant Major Arctic, came to Orca shortly after she took over the OSOD, but despite it being her mother's creation, she showed no interest in taking Orca's place. She agreed to work alongside the OSOD, but remained a free agent.

In the same year, they met Sergeants Eastwood and Vantage, marines like Ellis and Green, and most importantly, both enhanced. They were by far the best of their unit and then some, with expertise between them from insertions to engineering. She hired them on the spot.

Orca got the scar in 2012. A mission gone south, an attempt to save a group of hostages, and a crack shot from the enemy. She took a bullet to the face. If she wasn't enhanced, there was no way she would've made it. As luck would have it, if you could call it that, a doctor was among the hostages, and saved Orca's life that night – Honey Rosenheim, an enhanced combat medic who would work with the OSOD for years to come after their unfortunate first encounter.

██████ ██████ ██ █████████ ████ ██████ ███████ █████. █████████ ███████ ██████ █ █████ ████ ██████ ████████. ████ ███████ ███ ██████ █ ██ ██████ █ █████ Badger ███ ███████ █████ █████████ ████ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ██████ █ █████ ██ █████. Badger ███ ████████ M.I.A. ██ ████ 2014.

[CONTENT REDACTED: SEE MISSION REPORT JUNE 11 2014]

It's 2019 by the time Orca meets Captain Price, through Kate Laswell and, surprisingly, their mutual friend, Nikolai. To say he didn't make a good first impression would be an understatement. Perhaps it's because of Orca's natural hostility and standoffish nature, but the two Captains butted heads constantly. Eventually he realised – with gentle nudging from Eric and the lieutenants – that she wasn't just an asshole for the sake of it, and she was actually a proficient leader. She slowly warmed up to him once she didn't have to fight for his respect.

Since the mission in 2018, the OSOD has collaborated with Captain Price, and subsequently Task Force 141, on multiple occasions.

It took significant work, but Orca was an accomplished Captain, with loyal soldiers and the ability to actually make a difference in the world. Her fate may have been decided before she was born, but Ryan is the one who made something for herself. She still has Berlin's picture hanging up in her office.

[mehilaiselokuva]

Okay, I need this info to make relevant content for you guys! You can answer even if you don't follow me or anything (why aren't you following me yet🤨) , as long as your native language isn't Finnish!

[aaiieell]

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THIS SHEET IN PDF FORMAT HERE :

Today we dive into the magic of present tense in time clauses! Check out the picture below for some useful example sentences that will transport you into the realm of the present moment.

[gamergirlbonestaskforce141riot]

Sergeant Christine ‘Riot’ Vega, Task Force 141

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47442772

Nationality: Spanish/British

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Sexuality: Bi (prefers men)

Birth date: 5th September, 1994

Height: 170 cm / 5ft 7in

Weight: 70 kg / 154 pounds

Hair: Natural blonde in several tones ranging from honey to almost platinum

Eyes: Light blue

Build: Curvy/Hourglass, well toned by training

Blood type: O- (universal donor, is fucked if needs blood though, Price is always requesting supplies when they’re on an op just in case)

Favourite colour: Red

Preferred civilian clothing: When off duty she usually wears blue jeans, usually skinny, red or black t-shirts, and black hoodies or sweatshirts, with trainers or boots and a leather biker jacket.

Hobbies: Cooking, learning languages, videogames, music (rock and metal specially, has a soft spot for pop and electronic sometimes), History and Archaeology

Studies: College graduated in History and Archaeology by Cambridge (online degree)

Parents: Medics for Doctors without borders, killed in a terrorist attack in Benin when she was eighteen and in college in UK. She enlisted right away and finished her degree online.

Languages: Spanish (mother tongue), English (C2), French (C1), German (C1), Russian (B2) / Can survive in Italian and Portuguese, and is trying to learn Japanese and Chinese

Tattoos: A rampant phoenix in an aggressive attacking position on her upper back and a triquetra on her right ankle (Soap has the same design on his left ankle)

Scars: Plenty on her body, from bullets to knife cuts. The more recent one is the large half assed Glasgow smile on the left side of her face, from the corner of her lips to almost her cheekbone, the reason why she wears the mask.

Headcanons:

- Plays both guitar and bass guitar, and Soap tried to teach her to play the drums

- They used to have a music group with other rookies

- Cold, silent and collected when in the frontline, Soap got a liking to Ghost at first because he reminded him of her. Down to the stupid deadpan jokes.

- Met Soap in boot camp, they were fast friends/brother-sister because both their brains work alike (lightning speed). She admires Soap’s proficiency with things that go BOOM, and considers him to be wicked smart, she can’t calculate that fast to save her life

- She adores Ghost’s jokes, and enjoys greatly to hear Soap squirm with them

- Despises tea, calling it ‘pissy water’ (her mother loved it though), prefers water, juice or coffee

- Rarely drinks alcohol

- Sings in the shower and used to like going to karaoke bars

- She is always cold

- Gets mouthy the more physically hurt she is. If she’s getting mouthy, flirty and cheeky, she’s bleeding heavily. Soap is thankful Ghost is not like that

- Her brain works at 200% speed, storing info (hopefully useful, most of the time it’s not). Example: she learns languages fast because she memorizes vocabulary and phrases at lightning speed, but she also knows by heart tons of dog breeds.

- Hyperfocuses on shit to the point of obsession and sleepless nights

- Her call sign Riot is NOT because she’s a riot (well she is), the story is even better. It involves a SAS rookie op in Turkey, staging a riot in a prison, breaking Soap out of the prison’s infirmary and a stunt leaping from a roof Soap still has nightmares about.

- She has a fucked up knee since then (and will keep fucking it up more, you’ll see)

- Likes very spicy food but can’t have cilantro: tastes and smells like trash to her (she has that gene, yeah)

- Has PTSD from the op in Transnistria, has flashbacks and breakdowns sometimes, but is determined to keep going. Price is surprised/pleased to learn that she goes to therapy weekly, instead of the mandatory once a month (he had to drag Soap and Ghost to go even once a month, specially after Las Almas which is why Price has deemed it necessary; Gaz goes bi-weekly)

- Got licensed as a drone pilot after a bad op with her previous unit, HeadHunters, where she was on medical leave for three months. She was bored out of her mind not doing anything, so she signed up for a course.

- Hates her last Captain with the passion of a burning sun, dreaming of putting a bullet to his skull. Price understands and approves (he despises him too), just warned her to not be caught if they happen to cross him (he has an alibi prepared).

[salvadorbonaparte]

hey what are those letter-number combinations next to the languages in your profile?

i gather that they're proficiency levels or evaluations of some sort but i've never learned what they are or mean, and I don't even know what they're called

Hey thanks for reaching out!

These are part of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).

The levels go from beginner over intermediate to proficient in the steps A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2.

Sometimes you will also see people add a plus to indicate they're on a threshold between levels (e.g. A2+ being someone between high beginner and low intermediate).

Sometimes you also see A0 to indicate a language someone doesn't speak or just started learning, i.e. a language where they're working towards A1. Honestly, it's not always entirely clear if someone means they already reached a certain level or they're working towards one.

For language courses I've also occasionally seen things like A1.2 or B2.3 to indicate that their courses are split into different units for each level.

If you Google the CEFR you can find some slightly different definitions and milestones for each level.

I hope this was helpful!

[no-passaran]

Language schools listing the courses they offer are like:

English A1

English A2

English B1

ENGLISH CAMBRIDGE EXAM PREPARATIONS

Calls for the official English accreditation exams

English B2 (FIRST)

English C1 (ADVANCED)

English C2 (PROFICIENCY)

English intensive summer courses

English for business

ENGLISH ONLINE

English semi-online

Other special English courses

*in tiny minuscule letters*: (We also offer French, Chinese, etc)

[xiangqiankua]

So I’m filling out a job application which has both English and Chinese, and in the section for language abilities the options to rank oneself are 基本 Basic  流利 Fluent  精通 Proficient and at first I automatically listed myself as Fluent in English and Proficient in my other languages before I realised it was a little strange for 流利 to be in the middle if it was the highest level. For comparison, the CEFR labels language stages as A Basic User (A1 Breakthrough, A2 Waystage), B Independent User (B1 Threshold, B2 Vantage), and C Proficient User (C1 Advanced, C2 Mastery), and the TOCFL equivalents are 「入門基礎級」（1級、2級）for A,「進階高階級」（3級、4級）for B, and「流利精通級」（5級、6級 ）for C. I know “fluency“ is often a murky concept, but I need remember that for bureaucratic purposes, “proficiency” is actually the final destination.