I just completed the CIPLE Exam A2 in Lisbon at the Faculidade de Letras earlier today. I thought it would be useful to share my experience with the people on the board that are interested and I’d be happy to answer any questions about my journey and the exam.
After talking to my lawyer about the language requirement of the golden visa, she recommended the best option would be to do the CIPLE Exam (as there’s lack of clarity of what counts as an approved course / institute). In March of this year, I signed up for the CIPLE exam in Lisboa for November online via Faculidade de Letras - Universidade de Lisboa’s website (https://www.iclp.letras.ulisboa.pt/exame-portugues-ciple-a2/).
Studying:
I started studying online because I worked full-time and did not live in Portugal. I signed up to take individual online classes with a recommended language school in Lisbon “Portuguese Connection” for an hour twice weekly (https://www.learnportugueseinlisbon.com/). They also have group classes online, but the time zones didn’t work out for me. I also downloaded the “Practice Portuguese” app to practice in my free time (https://practiceportuguese.com/). I did 30 hours online from June to August and completed level A1.
In September, I took a sabbatical from work and moved to Lisbon for ten weeks. I enrolled in an intensive group classes with Portuguese Connection for 8 weeks to study the A2 level. The remaining two weeks I took daily individual classes to practice previous exams with my instructor.
Exam:
The A2 exam was held at the Faculidade de Letras (at the University of lisbon). Two weeks before the exam, I received an e-mail of which classroom I should go to. They ask you to be there at 8:30 AM and the exam starts at 9:00 AM. The first part of the exam is reading comprehension and writing, which took 75 minutes (9:00AM - 10:15AM). You then get a 30 minute break and return for the Listening section at 10:45am. This is by far the hardest part of the exam for most of us. What doesn’t help is that there’s a lot of background noise (shuffling papers, opening and closing doors, other students fidgeting) which doesn’t help with concentration. Once we finished the listening part, each of us received a paper indicating our 15 minute slot for the final part of the exam which is speaking. I had my slot 3 hours later, so I left the university to have lunch nearby. The speaking part was for me the easiest part of the exam. I was paired with a another test taker. We had to introduce ourselves, describe items in a image, and discuss completing daily tasks.
I will only receive my score in early January so the anxiety continues. Nonetheless, I felt I did ok in the exam (especially in the reading comprehension, writing, and speaking parts). I felt that I probably did poorly in the listening part (as did many of my fellow students).
Overall Thoughts:
I thought I had budgeted sufficient time to study for the CIPLE exam - 3 months part time (30 hours) and 2.5 full time (160 hours). I think this was as expected to learn the exam and I’m glad that I was able to take the time off. Anything less would have been challenging to learn to the A2 level. One of my classmates was taking Portuguese part time for the past two years to reach the end of A2.
Don’t get discouraged with your progress. Initially, I was frustrated with my pace of learning and thought I wasn’t learning fast enough. However, my learning curve started improving dramatically as I started in person group classes. During my last three weeks, I was having decent conversations with people on the street in Portuguese (not perfectly but they were able to understand me).
Online versus In-Person classes, if you have the luxury of doing in person classes, I would strongly recommend it as it is much more interactive with a group.
Learning in Lisbon wasn’t as beneficial as I expected as I stayed in a touristic part of the city. Most of the people here speak English fluently. I would get frustrated when I spoke to people in Portuguese and they would respond in English. I would recommend staying in less touristic parts of the city.
I had learnt some Spanish before (at the A2 level) and I thought it would be useful. It’s a mixed bag, as some of the vocabulary is similar (e.g. numbers) but a lot of grammar or even word meanings are different in Portuguese. I felt it was a liability more than an asset to have learnt Spanish beforehand as I kept mixing up the two languages (and spoke “Portunhol”. My teacher says they recommend you reach Level B2 in either Portuguese or Spanish before moving to learn the other language.
I hope my experience will be useful for the people reading this. I’d be happy to answer any questions that are relevant to my experience. I will post my exam score once I receive it in January.
Congrats. I think other lawyers are quite clear that PLA course counts for citizenship, which you could have completed in just 8 weeks part time during your sabbatical with no exam, if you were purely optimizing to spend the least time possible for citizenship. But your path undoubtedly taught you more Portuguese.
The real cost of online PLA via a facilitator like Edpro is 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 8 weeks where you will be attending online class with camera on, and you need 90% attendance. The euro cost is ~€700 which is frankly a rounding error in the whole process. It has been extensively discussed in the forum, for example in A2 Portuguese Language Certificate course - #5 by minimaxr and Language required for citizenship - GV
Many people here have successfully completed online PLA, and a few who have submitted naturalisation applications using PLA as well.
Thanks for describing the process. Should I conclude that if two adults must pass the test and we have young children, that a babysitter is absolutely necessary because all candidates are together from 9am to 10:45? Therefore no hope of getting two different time slots for the test, one parent in the morning and one parent in the afternoon?
You spent comparatively little time (30 hours) to reach level A1, but an additional 130 hours to get from A1 to A2. Do you think this time split is really reflective of the difference between the two levels? I’m currently doing a 120 hour A1 course, and I self-study in addition. Our course tutor said that the step up from A1 to A2 level is primarily verb tenses, and of course additional vocab. I was planning to hire a private tutor to get from A1 to A2 level after my current course ends, but hadn’t considered that would need anywhere near an additional 130 hours. Would be interested to hear your thoughts on the step up from A1 to A2. Thanks
Yes, you would must likely need to find a babysitter if both adults are taking the exam on the same day. All students taking the exam on the same day will have the following schedule:
the reading / written parts together (9am-10:15am)
the listening part (10:45-11:15am).
The spoken part will be designated some time in the afternoon (15 min) and that could be at different slots for the two adults.
Seems like your options are either to : 1) book the exam on different dates for the two adults or 2) get a babysitter from 8:30AM to 11:15AM
The main reason why I went through Portuguese A1 relatively quickly was that I was already an A2 Level in Spanish which helped a bit (similar grammar, shared numbers and some vocabulary). I’m assuming if you don’t have an existing basis in a romance language (French, Spanish, Italian, etc.), you would probably need to go through the full A1 material. The step up to A2 is significant as you will learn the various past and future tenses, which is complex for a non-romance language speaker. I had the same challenges when I did A2 Spanish.
Here’s an update on the CIPLE Exam, as I just received my exam result (after endless refreshing of the CAPLE webpage since the morning, the score result was finally released at 6:20 PM Lisbon time). I passed with a “Bom” score. As expected, I did much better on the written, spoken, and reading parts of the exam (scores between 70-80%). I passed the listening part with a score of 62% (not amazing but I’m grateful that I passed that section of the exam). Anyways, onwards to B1 exam! Good luck for anyone reading this that is planning to take the exam!
Parabens! As per the e-mail from CAPLE, the certificates are available for collection from the exam center 21 days after the exam. (Feb 6th 2025 if you took the exam on Nov 16th 2024). You can also give delegate someone else to collect the certificate on your behalf by filling out a form:
I wish! That would have made my life so much easier. The CAPLE website (the link in my previous post) clearly says : " Atenção: o LAPE-FLUL não envia certificados/diplomas por via postal."
I signed up for CIPLE exam a few days ago and paid. I have not received any confirmation of the registration. Further, I am thinking i want to select a different exam date, but I have no way to cancel or change the date.
There is a login on the website, but I don’t have a username or password.
Is there some other way to access my registration or change/cancel the registration?
According to FAQ, you can only change the exam date with a strong reason and within the same test center.
No online access to your registration. Write to test center. No need to cancel, as there is no refund possible. Personal experience: i registered both A2 and B1 (different dates) in Nov 2023 and was asked to choose only one exam, because registrations for two exams for the same exam epĂłca are not allowed. No refund.
@rogergan68 Does epĂłca in this context mean a month basically? They offer exams every month .
So, if I registered at a test center for say September but I need to take it at the same center in October, I should just register again and forget about getting a refund?