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.
Boa sorte a todos!