ibw

Hi folks,
My wife is Italian but we live in the UK. I'm interested in gaining Italian citizenship due to brexit really. I had a brief look at various exam prep sites and I think I'd do fine with everything except the oral exam. I'm not a great speaker really, though I have good comprehension and could happily watch films in Italian with no problem. I really don't speak a lot though. Could anyone who's done the B1 exam tell me what sort of level of fluency is expected from it? I looked on youtube and all the examples I could see were native Italians walking through it, which I didn't find very useful

philat98

Tell your wife you can only speaking Italian between midnight and noon. You will walk it.

modicasa

B1 is intermediate - enough to get by. They wont expect subjunctives or past remote (though in the written test they do - which means any Sicilian would fail) - If you have a good vocabulary and can use past present and the odd conditional youll walk it.

ibw

Thanks for the feedback.

VEROVITA

What really helped me was a YouTube site called ItalyMadeEasy run by Manu Venditti. He has from beginner through to advanced exercises. I liked the manageable pace and his friendly manner. He is a good teacher because his lessons have stuck with me (and I passed my italian exam for citizenship!)

ibw

Thanks for the tip. Looks good.

HADENOUGHPIZZA

Hi , you can take a B1 for citizenship which is slightly simpler than the standard B1 , the level of understanding required is quite basic .

ibw

Interesting. I didn't know that. Seems there are pros and cons. If you fail one part of the B1 citizenship you have to retake it all, whereas you can just retake one or more parts you fail in the regular exam. Also according to another site there's a one-off oral only B1 exam available in September due to covid.

HADENOUGHPIZZA

If you can find a place on the one off oral exam it might be the easiest option , but they may already be full up

ibw

I took an online lesson/evaluation with a teacher who also does the examination at this level. Seems I'd probably pass as I am but will do a few practice sessions with this person and a bit more studying anyway. Seems there are tons of resources on the web for language learning, so will try a few.