Language certificates

Hi guys. I'm glad to see you here, in this topic. =)

You know, there are several dreams I've been having from childhood. And one of them is speaking English and German (I don't know how to say it right here without reconstruction of this sentence. I mean, to be able to speak English and German. Being able blah?).

I'll need to have two types of certificates for the future: German one and Eglish one. What do that certificates provide? They guarantee that a man who has them can speak language at some level (it depends on a type of certificate).
Do you have some success stories about passing such exams (which provide such certificates)? I mean how you (or another man) was preparing for an exam? What did you do? What did you read? Et cetera.

It's just intresting for me to know what people do to get that thing happend. =)

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Originally Posted by blacky

Hi guys. I'm glad to see you here, in this topic. =)

You know, there are several dreams I've been having from childhood dreams I've had since childhood. And one of them is speaking English and German one of them is to be able to speak English and German (I don't know how to say it right here without reconstruction of this sentence. I mean, to be able to speak English and German. Being able blah?).

I'll need to have two types of certificates for the future: a German one and an English one. What would these certificates provide? They would guarantee that a man who has them can speak the language at some level (it depends on a type of certificate).
Do you have any success stories about passing such exams (which provide such certificates)? I mean how would you (or another man) prepare for this sort of exam? What did you do? What did you read? Et cetera.

It's just interesting for me to know what people do to make this happen. =)

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I don't think that there is a standard, well recognized certificate of competence in English. I am sure there are many courses or tests you could take which could provide you with some sort of certificate. I know that for the TOEFL, the administrators of the test only give you a score--they don't tell you what score means that you are very good at English. Different universities and institutions require different TOEFL scores for acceptance.

Probably there are others who know much more about this than I do. I don't know anything at all about German tests. Learning a language is something you are never done with. I hope that someday I will be able to communicate clearly in Russian nearly anything I want to say. I'm sure I will never know everything in the Russian language. There are still a lot of things I don't know about English :)

Thank you for the corrections.

As far as I know TOEFL certificate is not life-long. I mean it's up-to-date only for 2 years, then you have to re-pass those exams.
I would have a CAE (Certificate of Advanced English) which is non-limited by the time.

I believe language certificate is only needed if you plan to immigrate to an English speaking country to live & work there. In fact no one needs this paper here in Russia, at least in small towns like mine.