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Christopher F. Hansen's avatar

You know your own abilities best, of course, but I would guess if you've studied Spanish for 1800 hours and read 80+ books you could easily pass the C2.

For reference, I studied my L2 similarly to you (reading books and copying new vocabulary into an Anki deck, supplemented with some audio and online lessons) and passed after 2 years and ~40-50 books read.

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Joshua Derrick's avatar

I just took the B2 and found it difficult but think I passed. I think C2 will take a bit longer for me.

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Nick's avatar

On Shane Godliman’s YT channel, he mentioned that he was preparing for the C1 exam. His channel is no longer active, so I assume he failed.

Do you know where you learned that he had failed an exam? Maybe it’s in a video and I just didn’t catch it.

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Joshua Derrick's avatar

I assumed since he didn't post a video or update on twitter/reddit that he failed. I don't have any information other than that.

In terms of Giovanni Smith, he did post an update that he failed the C2 exam (in 2023). Out of the two I've definitely found his stuff to be more annoying/misleading. Shane had tutors who did practice exams with him and generally seemed to have a much more well-rounded approach to immersion that involved consuming lots of different content and doing iTalki lessons. Giovanni just seems to grind Anki and speak into a microphone which I find baffling. Of course you're not going to pass if you've basically done no reading of actual novels.

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Nick's avatar

Okay, thanks for the clarification. I didn’t know of Giovanni prior to your post, but Shane seemed to be a dedicated learner. However, the gap between B2 and C1 is significant, and I agree with you that C1 is likely out of reach for many without having read a good deal.

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Joshua Derrick's avatar

Yea I liked Shane a lot when he was still making content! Seems like is still around but focusing much more on his family (looks like he got married and had a kid). I was impressed with his reading challenge that he did right before C1, and agree with his general approach, which matches Refold. I also think C1 vs. C2 was a good choice, but think that a). his hours were a little for the attempt and b). might have been good to tackle B2 first.

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