Listening at length
Around 200 words at a time: what is being claimed, how strongly, and what the speaker declines to claim.
These recordings are much longer than the B2 ones, and the questions are not about details. Listen for the shape: the claim, the evidence offered for it, and — this is where C1 speakers do most of their work — the part the speaker explicitly refuses to claim.
Spoken German signposts out loud, because a listener cannot re-read. drei Punkte, erstens, und zwar, daraus folgt, ich will das nicht überbewerten — each of these tells you what the next stretch is doing. Use them as your map.
| You hear | What follows |
|---|---|
| und zwar | the specific version of what was just said |
| Ich will das nicht überbewerten | the speaker limits their own claim |
| Man muss … zugutehalten, dass | a concession to the other side |
| Daraus folgt nicht, dass … | a conclusion the speaker rejects |
| Was in der Praxis gemessen wird, ist … | a gap between claim and evidence |
| Das ist mir das Wichtigste | the point the speaker most wants remembered |
One German voice is all a browser gives us, so a recording with two speakers announces each turn by name inside the audio. Nothing here asks you to distinguish voices — only positions. And if your device has no German voice at all, these items simply do not appear, and no assessment depends on them.
The speaker says participation rose, so the programme works.The speaker says participation rose, and then says explicitly: "Wir messen Teilnahme, nicht Wirkung."
At C1 the qualification is usually the most important sentence in the recording. Hearing the claim and missing the limit is the characteristic C1 listening error.
Words from this topic
- ausschlaggebenddecisive, the deciding factor
- vorläufigprovisional, for now
- überbewertento overrate, to read too much into
- zugutehaltento give someone credit for
- unzulässiginadmissible, not permissible
- die die Ersatzgrößethe proxy measure
- die die Freistellungrelease from duties (paid time off for training)
- die die Anbindungtransport links
- der der Flurfunkthe office grapevine