Reach B1 in a New Language
20 weeks · 5 milestones
B1 is the intermediate plateau — where many learners stall for months or years. Moving from A2 (familiar topics, past and future tense, 20-minute conversation) to B1 requires a genuine expansion into sustained narrative, defended opinions, hypothetical language, and improvised problem-solving. Every milestone requires a real recorded conversation with a native speaker. App scores are not accepted at any level.
Milestone map
Milestone map
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Current milestone
Narrate a personal story with real detail
4–6 weeks from completing A2. Choose a story you already know well in your native language first — the cognitive load of narrative structure plus a new language is high; don't add the burden of figuring out what story to tell on top of it.
Tell a native speaker a real story from your life — a trip, a mistake, something funny or significant that happened — lasting at least 3 continuous minutes of YOU speaking, with the native speaker mostly listening and asking occasional clarifying questions. This is the bridge from A2's isolated past-tense sentences to genuine sustained narrative: setup, complication, resolution.
Proof required
Submit a 15-minute recording (the story itself should be at least 3 uninterrupted minutes within it; the rest can be follow-up discussion). Write 200 words on: what made this story hard to tell (a specific grammar point, vocabulary gap, or structural challenge), and one moment where the native speaker had to ask you to clarify something — what was unclear and why.
What gets checked
- The narrative has real structure — a setup, something that happened or went wrong, and a resolution — not a flat list of disconnected past-tense facts strung together
- At least 3 continuous minutes of the learner speaking with minimal interruption — this tests sustained production, which is qualitatively different from the back-and-forth conversation tested at A2
- The clarification moment described is genuine and specific — names the actual word, tense, or structural confusion, not a vague 'I struggled sometimes'
Express and defend an opinion under pushback
Solve an unexpected travel complication
Discuss a topic requiring hypothetical language
Sustain a 25-minute conversation across multiple registers
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