Natasha here, reporting in on the aftermath of the infamous DELF B2.
I was worried. Let’s find some better descriptors, now that I’m functioning in my mother tongue. Words like chagrined, nausea-ridden, paralyzed. I dreaded that exam. My entire body was stiff with tension for eight solid weeks, from the moment I walked into my first class to the day after the inquisition. My long-awaited summer in France turned out to be, in many ways, a summer of travail and trepidation.
And then, just like that, I passed. Not just by the skin of my teeth. Not just with a satisfactory margin of breathing room. Not quite with the flying colours I secretly dreamed of. But almost. Almost.
At one point, I re-coined the DELF acronym (“Diplome d’Etudes en Langue Française”) as “Dumb, Enigmatic Lists of Faults.” I still kind of think that. The test-makers are simply méchants, in my well-studied opinion. They rub their hands in delight as they formulate one trick question after another, in a sinister attempt to separate the dumb from the dumber. I know. I met one of them. And she was mean.
But do you know what it was that bumped my score down two points from the 80% I’d hoped for? Continue reading
