How to Go From B1 to B2 in French (and Why It Feels So Different)

Introduction

The jump from B1 to B2 is one of the hardest parts of learning a language. I’m going through it myself in Japanese, so I know how strange it feels. You’ve worked hard, you can get by in most everyday situations, and suddenly it feels as if you’ve stopped making progress.

In this article, I’ll explain why this stage feels so different from everything before it, what a B2 level actually asks of you, and what I think is the most effective way to get there.

The Intermediate Plateau

The move from B1 to B2 coincides with what’s often called the intermediate plateau. You make progress, then you hit a long flat stretch where you feel stuck, and then you start moving forward again.

Almost every learner goes through it, and it’s frustrating. When you study every day and can’t see any progress, frustration builds up, and you start losing the motivation to continue. (If that’s where you are right now, I wrote about how to beat that frustration.)

But there’s a second reason this stage is hard: the way you learn has to change. And changing a method that has worked well for you so far isn’t easy.

Up to B1, French Is a To-Do List

To reach B1 in French, you need to know the present, the passé composé, the imparfait, the conditional, the simple future… You need to know the main sentence structures and how to use adjectives and adverbs.

That’s a to-do list, and that’s actually a good thing: you tick one box, you move on to the next, and you really feel yourself progressing.

Vocabulary works the same way up to B1. It’s common, everyday vocabulary, so almost any video helps you. The only question you need to ask yourself is “Is this video right for my level?” Everything you hear in it will be useful for reaching B1.

B2 Is an Open Field

B2 is harder, mainly because it’s much broader. At B1, you feel like you understand a lot, that you have an all-purpose level you can use in many situations. In reality, there’s still an enormous amount left to discover.

The guided path disappears. Instead, you’re standing in front of a huge field of things to learn, with no obvious order or priority. That’s what makes it so frustrating: you don’t really know which way to go.

What a B2 Level Actually Means

According to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), a B2 learner can:

• understand the main ideas of complex texts on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in their field;
• interact with a degree of spontaneity and fluency with native speakers, without having to think too hard about every sentence;
• express themselves clearly and in detail on a wide range of subjects;
• give their opinion on a current issue, explaining the advantages and disadvantages of different options.

That last point is the real key. At B2, someone should be able to ask your opinion on all sorts of topics, and you should be able to answer.

What the Exams Ask You to Talk About

I’ve had students take the TEF and the TCF, the two main French proficiency exams. In the TCF speaking test, here’s the kind of question you get:

• Est-ce que vous pensez que l’État devrait interdire la vente de tabac et d’alcool ? Pourquoi ? (Do you think the government should ban the sale of tobacco and alcohol? Why?)
• À votre avis, l’usage des téléphones portables devrait-il être interdit aux enfants ? Pourquoi ? (In your opinion, should children be banned from using mobile phones? Why?)
• La présence de caméras dans les lieux publics permet-elle réellement d’améliorer la sécurité ? Qu’en pensez-vous ? (Do cameras in public places really improve safety? What do you think?)

These three topics have something in common (the state, politics, laws), but they’re still very different. At B2, you’re expected to talk about each of them fluently, and to give and defend an opinion.

Could you explain right now, in French, why the government should or shouldn’t ban tobacco and alcohol? To do it, you’d need vocabulary specific to that topic. That’s exactly what makes B2 hard: it’s difficult to feel you’ve mastered everything there is to master.

If you’re wondering whether taking one of these exams is worth it, I’ve written about whether you should take a French proficiency exam.

Vocabulary Is the Key

So how do you reach B2? My answer hasn’t changed: the main thing is vocabulary. (I’ve written a whole article about why vocabulary matters more than grammar.)

Think of cooking. You can own fourteen frying pans, two ovens and the latest air fryer, but if the only thing you know how to cook is potatoes, you’re not a good cook. On the other hand, if you only have very basic equipment but know how to cook lots of different ingredients, people will say you’re a good cook.

It’s exactly the same with French, or with any language:

• If you know very precise, very specific grammar rules but don’t have the vocabulary to talk about varied topics, nobody will think “wow, they’re great at French.” They’ll think: “OK, they can’t talk about much.”
• If you make grammar mistakes but can join in any conversation, people will think you’re practically fluent. You make mistakes, but you can talk about anything.

And that comes down to vocabulary.

Go back to the tobacco and alcohol question. If you think it through in your own language, the arguments come easily: these products cause health problems and addiction, they create extra costs for hospitals and therefore for the state. On the other side, banning them won’t stop people from consuming them. When you try to say all this in French and get stuck, it’s almost always a lack of vocabulary, not a lack of grammar.

When you answer a question like this, the first thing people notice is whether you have the vocabulary. If you make some grammar mistakes but your opinion is clear and precise, they’ll still understand your idea. Advanced grammar and elegant sentences are the cherry on top: great when the vocabulary is there, but on their own, they only make it look like you’ve learned things by heart without understanding them.

How to Build B2 Vocabulary

There’s no secret: immersion. Keep reading, keep listening, keep discovering new words.

But there’s one important difference with the earlier levels. Up to B1, the vocabulary you meet in immersion is common, so repetition happens naturally: podcasts and videos keep using the same words and the same structures, because it’s basic French.

Once you move on to specific topics, the vocabulary becomes much rarer. A specialized word might come up once, and then you won’t hear it again for weeks or months. Of course it’s harder to remember.

That’s where I encourage people to use an SRS (spaced repetition system), meaning a flashcard app like Anki. It creates repetition: a bit artificial, but necessary, because the content you watch won’t give you that repetition anymore. If you’re new to Anki, here’s how to install and set it up, and how to use it for French vocabulary.

Curiosity: Exploring the Islands of Vocabulary

The second key is curiosity. If you have to give your opinion on all kinds of topics, you need to be curious enough to explore them, which means deliberately doing immersion on varied subjects. Look at the exam topics: politics, culture, society, the economy… To learn that vocabulary, you have to consume content about it.

In his book Fluent Forever, Gabriel Wyner describes islands of vocabulary. Up to B1, you live on a main island with all the general vocabulary. To reach B2, you need to take a little boat and explore more specific islands: the island of politics, the island of sport, the island of the economy, and so on.

You have to do this consciously. Once you have a solid B1 base in grammar, what’s missing is vocabulary, and it won’t grow on its own if you keep watching the same kind of content.

Exams are a good exercise for this, by the way: you have to understand texts and audio, and write and speak on varied topics, which forces you to build a wider vocabulary. Without that range, you simply can’t be B2.

Nuances: The Layers of the Language

There’s another difference with B1. Up to B1, you mostly learn a neutral French: everyone understands it, and it fits most situations.

At B2, layers start to appear on top of that neutral base: all the nuances of the language. In Japanese, I sometimes learn a new word and think, “but that means the same thing as the other one, so when am I supposed to use which?” Usually, it’s just a matter of nuance, and that’s hard to grasp.

Don’t stress too much about it. Treat nuance the same way as vocabulary islands: when you pick a video to learn political vocabulary, also ask yourself how formal it is. Is it very polite? Pure slang, very young? Once you’re aware of this, you can decide, “today I’ll watch something in a very polite style,” and you’ll see the words in context. Over time, you’ll get a much better feel for these registers.

What About Grammar?

There is some grammar at B2. You need to be able to use the present subjunctive, for example, and probably to recognize the passé simple.

But you mostly learn these things by picking up a little theory, then seeing them in practice through immersion. When you come across a verb and wonder “what tense is this?” and realize “ah, that’s the present subjunctive,” you keep learning grammar at the same time as vocabulary.

Finally, if you want to add more nuance, you can memorize a few specific sentence structures. That really is the cherry on top. For example:

Loin de moi l’idée de dire du mal des Parisiens, mais je trouve qu’ils sont un peu arrogants. (Far be it from me to speak ill of Parisians, but I find them a bit arrogant.)

It’s a very long sentence just to say “they’re a bit arrogant.” But that’s the point: it softens the statement, as if to say “I don’t want to be unpleasant, but this is what I think.” Drop a couple of sentences like this into an oral exam answer on tobacco or alcohol, and it adds real flavor to your presentation.

It won’t be the heart of your answer, though. If you use this kind of sentence with the wrong vocabulary, people will think: “What is he doing? He’s trying to do complicated things, but he can’t even do the simple ones.”

The Math of B2 Vocabulary

So the foundation is vocabulary: immersion plus an SRS. That’s what I recommend.

Say you learn 10 new words a day. In a year, that’s more than 3,000 words. I think a B2 level is somewhere around 10,000 words, so on paper, that’s about three years. In reality, if you speak English, many French words look alike, and these cognates are real shortcuts.

At some point, the only question you need to ask yourself is: “Am I growing my vocabulary?” That’s the one goal: learning more words, in more contexts. It’s strange, because it wasn’t really like that up to B1, but I think it’s the key to reaching B2.

And if you’d like to practice, try answering one of the three exam questions above, in French, out loud. You’ll see very quickly which words you’re missing.