Hi there, it’s Luca from MosaLingua.
Lately, I’ve been getting many questions from our users and subscribers
asking if I think that language certifications are useful or not.
My answer? Coming up!
I’m sure you are familiar with the most popular language certifications,
such as the TOEFL, the TOEIC and the IELTS for English;
the DEFL and DALF for French;
The DELE for Spanish; The Goethe-Zertifikat for German, and so on...
I have some experience with these certifications,
as some years ago I took the TOEFL,
the Certificate in Advanced English (issued by the British Council) and the DELF for French.
So, are these certifications useful?
It really depends on your goals and your personal circumstances...
These certifications are useful or even compulsory in some situations,
for instance: If you want to study at a foreign university.
Some of them even require a specific certificate, such as the TOEFL or the IELTS;
And another situation: If you want to get citizenship in another country:
this was my case last year, and having passed the DELF helped me obtain French citizenship;
If you want to work in particular fields:
for translators and interpreters, for example, these can be quite useful,
especially at the beginning when you don’t have a lot of references yet.
There is one more situation when having these certificates can be really useful:
when you are looking for a job.
In some countries like Italy, France or Spain,
people tend to overestimate their language skills,
so you have a bunch of people claiming to be fluent in English on their CVs.
Then when they arrive at the job interview and you start asking some questions in English,
they go really pale when they realize you’re going to find out
that they exaggerated a little bit when it comes to their actual language proficiency.
That’s why many companies hiring multilingual professionals
prefer to give interviews to people having these certifications,
instead of risking it on candidates who might waste their time.
So a language certificate could keep your CV from being thrown out
before you make it to the interview stage.
Another question is: are language certifications useful for learning or even mastering a language?
Of course it depends on the certification program,
but generally speaking I do not think they are enough to really learn
and be able to speak the language.
Even if preparing these exams can help,
you should not only rely on them to master a language.
Some certifications rely too much on writing and grammar,
so you end up with people getting very good scores
but are still not able to speak the language.
Plus, when you are preparing for these exams,
you end up working a lot on activities which are more useful for passing the exam
than for using the language in real life.
I mean, how many times in your life have you had to describe a picture of a family or a landscape?
These are things which are often asked of students for certain exams,
but aren’t the most useful aspects of a language to focus on...
However, studying for a language certification can be useful to some extent,
because it gives you a precise deadline and basically forces you to study.
That’s what happened to me when I registered for the Certificate in Advanced English
I had to pay about 150€ just to take the exam
which was a lot for a student.
I can assure you that this gave me the motivation
to study every day for 3 months,
because I did not want to waste my money by failing the exam.
To conclude, language certifications can be really useful
proving your skills in different situations
but taking the exams to get them will not help you master a language.
They can be of great help,
but you should not only rely on them
for a good command of your target language!
If you are interested in language certifications,
I should mention that you can get a MosaLingua Certificate
of course if you use our apps, or our web platform: MosaLingua Web.
When you reach certain milestones, you unlock a personalized MosaLingua Certificate
which is not only useful for motivation
(you can print it out and proudly display it in your home or your office)
but also proving to a potential employer that you have worked on your target language
and reached certain goals.
Take a look below to find out how to get your own certificate!
Thanks for watching this video
if you are not yet among our beloved subscribers,
just click on the “subscribe” button
to get more tips for learning a language.
Take care!