Answer eighteen short statements about what you can do in a language and get an estimate of your level on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2, with a plain explanation of what it means and three concrete next steps. It takes about five minutes. There is no sign-up, and your answers stay in your browser: nothing is sent or saved.
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the CEFR, is the scale most schools, exams and employers use to describe language ability. It does not count how many words or grammar rules you know. Instead it describes what you can do with the language: order a meal, follow the news, run a meeting. That is why the same six levels work for English, Spanish, Japanese or any other language, and why this check asks about situations rather than testing vocabulary.
The six levels sit in three pairs. A1 and A2 are the basic user levels, B1 and B2 the independent user levels, and C1 and C2 the proficient user levels.
You can use familiar everyday expressions and very simple sentences. You can introduce yourself, say where you live and ask someone the same, as long as they speak slowly and are willing to help. Most conversations still depend on the other person meeting you more than halfway.
You can manage routine tasks that need a simple, direct exchange: shopping, ordering food, asking the way, talking briefly about your family and job. You understand short, clear messages. A conversation with a native speaker at full speed is still hard to follow.
This is where you become independent. You can deal with most situations when travelling, talk about experiences, hopes and plans, and give short reasons for an opinion. You follow the main points of clear speech on familiar topics. Many learners stay at B1 for a long time, because moving on needs much more real conversation than textbooks give.
You can talk with native speakers with a fair degree of fluency, so that neither side is straining, and follow most television, interviews and films in standard language. You can explain a viewpoint and weigh up options. Many universities and employers ask for B2, and it is what most people mean when they say "fluent".
You express yourself fluently and spontaneously without obviously searching for words, and use the language flexibly at work and in study. You understand long, demanding texts and implied meaning, and you can follow films without subtitles most of the time.
You understand virtually everything you hear or read and can express yourself precisely, picking out fine shades of meaning even on complex subjects. Very few learners need C2; it is roughly the level of a well-educated native speaker in many situations.
There are three statements for each level, eighteen in all. "Yes, easily" scores two points, "With some effort" one, and "Not yet" none. A level counts as reached when its three statements add up to four points or more, which means two clear yeses, or one yes and two "with effort". Your estimated level is the highest level you reach without skipping one below it: if A1, A2 and B1 all count but B2 does not, the result is B1, whatever you answered for C1. If the next level up already scores a couple of points, the result says you are on your way to it.
The rule is deliberately simple, so you can see exactly why you got your result. It runs on your own device, and the page makes no request with your answers.
Treat the level as a map reference, not a grade. It tells you which kind of practice will move you forward:
When you set up a profile on TalkSibi, each language you are learning has a level: Beginner (A1 to A2), Intermediate (B1 to B2) or Advanced (C1 to C2). Use your result to pick yours, so partners know how fast to talk to you. You can change it at any time.
As a rough guide to the effort involved, Cambridge English estimates that a learner of English starting from zero needs about 200 guided learning hours to reach A2, 400 for B1, 600 for B2, 800 for C1 and 1,000 to 1,200 for C2. Those numbers vary a lot with the language, how close it is to one you already speak, and how much of that time you spend actually speaking.
Self-assessment is genuinely useful, and the CEFR was designed with it in mind, but it is not an exam. People tend to rate themselves generously on reading and listening and harshly on speaking, and confidence varies from day to day. Two people with the same ability can get different results here.
So use this as a starting point. If you need a certificate for a university, a visa or a job, take a recognised exam for your language, such as IELTS, TOEFL or Cambridge for English, DELE for Spanish, DELF or DALF for French, Goethe for German, JLPT for Japanese or TOPIK for Korean. And if you want to know how you really sound, the quickest test of all is a conversation with someone who speaks the language natively.
TalkSibi is a free language-exchange community: you help someone with your language and they help you with theirs. You can filter the community by language and by level, start in text chat with one-tap translation and corrections, move up to voice notes, calls with live captions and drop-in voice rooms, and talk to an AI language partner when nobody is online. There is no card and no paid plan; translation and the AI features have a daily allowance. It is for adults aged 18 and over.
No. It is a self-assessment based on the CEFR idea of can-do statements. It gives you a useful estimate in five minutes, but only a proper exam, marked by trained examiners, can certify your level.
No. The check runs in your browser. Your answers are not sent to TalkSibi or anyone else and are not stored; close the page and they are gone.
Yes. The CEFR levels describe what you can do with a language, not which language it is, so the same statements work for English, Spanish, Japanese or anything else.
Every two or three months is plenty. Levels move slowly, and checking more often mostly measures your mood that day.