European language levels

With the growth of internationalisation, knowledge of foreign languages within companies has become more and more important. The European Council ordered the development of an instrument to judge the current knowledge of foreign languages among employees and to increase it in a targeted manner. This led to the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference), an instrument that is being used by governments and more and more companies and institutions within the European Union.

It consists of a scale of six levels for the various components of the language acquisition process: comprehension (listening and reading), speaking (production and participation in conversations) and writing.

The six levels are:

  • A1 Beginners
  • A2 Beginners +
  • B1 Pre-intermediate
  • B2 Intermediate
  • C1 Upper-intermediate
  • C2 (near) Native speaker

Here you can find an overview of the European language levels.

With the help of this measuring instrument we can ascertain the starting level and determine the achievable end level of the participant for each individual language course. This makes apparent which components of language acquisition require extra attention during the course. Upon completion of the language course the participant receives a certificate on which the achieved level for each component is stated.