English level A2 Pre-Intermediate (pre-threshold)

The basic level necessary for "survival" among English speakers is followed by A2 - Pre-Intermediate / Waystage or pre-threshold level of English. At this level, a person is a more interesting interlocutor. He can already understand not only individual words, but also whole phrases, and the general meaning of the conversation. Let's look at the main characteristics of Pre-Intermediate.

What does level A2 mean?

It is from this step that most adults start learning English, because they already have a minimum base of school or university knowledge.

Level A2 is enough for travel and tourism, for communication on everyday topics and helping a child with homework at an entry level. In more detail, proficiency in English at this level in an English-speaking country allows you to:

• Talk about past or present events in your life.
• Deal with the necessary household needs (call a courier, cleaner, send a package).
• Speak about your plans for the future, including professional ones.
• Talk to neighbors or answer questions from strangers.
• Have a conversation about nature, travel, life in a new city or country.
• Describe your work and meet foreign colleagues.
• Talk to native speakers about your favorite movies, TV series and actors.
• Discuss fashion, describe any style, and name the benefits of your favorite stores.
• Describe the event, accident, tell the doctor about your feelings and buy medicines.
• Agree and challenge in general terms the opinion of colleagues, friends, family members.
• Express your point of view in comments on social media posts.
• Select a product on the site, enter data and pay for it.
• Discuss living conditions with the landlord.
• Settle all registration and other documentary issues.
• Invite the person you like for a cup of coffee in a cafe.
• Participate in team building and go to corporate events.

In terms of work experience, Elementary and Pre-Intermediate will not be enough for highly qualified work with a team of native speakers. As a rule, the requirements of foreign employers include level B1 (Intermediate) . However, you can easily communicate with those who are not English native speakers, that is, Chinese, Indians, Arabs, Thais, French, Spaniards, Germans, and so on.

You are definitely fluent at this level if you:

• Accurately pass online tests (for example, this one) on Elementary or are the owner of a certificate confirming your entry level (A1).
• You studied English at a university, school, in courses and you can boast of grades "4" and "5".
• You understand simple English songs without Google translator.
• You can conduct a dialogue using all groups of simple tenses ( Past, Present, Future Simple ).
• Understand what is said to you and can answer in one word.

The study of the pre-threshold level is very important for the development of further knowledge. As a rule, at this stage, all problematic points are identified that need to be taken into account and corrected in order to move on.

Pre-intermediate grammar

The vocabulary consists of 1500-2000 English words. In addition, your grammatical skills suggest that:

• You know the rules for using Present, Past and Future Simple, Present and Past Continuous, Present and Past Perfect, as well as their differences.
• You clearly distinguish between I am going to pass my English exam in the spring, I used to read many books and I am used to reading many books.
• You know how to ask questions not only with the help of intonation, but also thanks to the question words in the correct tense and arrangement.
• You know why more/most beautiful -er/est is added in others, as in sweet-sweeter-sweetest.
• You are not intimidated by the difference between a little salt and a few carrots.
• You confidently use forms with the ending -ing after some verbs - I like dancing so much, and after others - the infinitive - I plan to get married to Anna.
• You correctly use I must do this plan and I have to do this plan.
• You will correctly translate the phrase A big red apple was bitten by our dog.
• It is not a problem for you to change the direct speech She said: “I am busy now” into the indirect said that she was busy.
• You know when the first and when the second type of conditional sentences is used If he called me, I would go for a date and If he calls me, I will go for a date and understand the difference when translated into Russian.

You can decorate the conversation with such logical and relevant units of speech:

Thus, in order to get to Pre-Intermediate, you must be perfectly oriented in such grammatical directions:

• Present and Past Continuous.
• Present Perfect.
• Simple Tenses Group + Future Simple.
• When to use Present Perfect and when Past Simple?
• Past Simple of regular and irregular verbs.
• Irregular verbs: go, have, get.
• Grammar rules: to be going to, used to do and to be used to.
• Comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives.
• The use of modal verbs have to/ must/ can/could, may/might, should.
• ( Passive voice ).
• The use of infinite and gerund ( Verb + Ing or to-infinitive ).
• Conditional Sentences (1, 2).
• Countable, uncountable nouns ( Many, enough, a little, a several ).
• Listening recognition of numbers.
• Word order in questions, types of questions.
• Prepositions of time and place: in, on, at ( Prepositions of time and place ).

You also perceive new material well, are able to highlight the main thing in stories and articles, compose short essays and annotations on them, express disagreement with the author or share his position. You feel free in typical situations, you can identify humor, sarcasm or irony in a native speaker's speech.

Topics for level A2

You should be able to formulate dozens of sentences in the following areas:

• Family, friendship and personal relationships.
• Celebrities, their life priorities and differences.
• Life events, key moments of your life.
• Character traits, appearance, behavior of another person.
• Job responsibilities, career goals and plans, self-education.
• Daily routine: daily routine, mode, work schedule.
• Hobbies, musical preferences, favorite films, series and books.
• Interior and description of the main household objects.
• Health, self care, exercise.
• Travel, vacation, weekend and travel and holiday planning.
• City life, sights, infrastructure facilities.
• Transport and movement around the city, route description, fare payment process.
• Favorite stores, clothing style, promotions, shopping.
• Weather conditions, nature, climate, flora and fauna.
• Education, educational goals, title of diploma and your specialty.
• Fears, failures, anxiety states and their causes.
• World news, important political and social events.
• Taste preferences, diets, recipes, your menu.

Up to 20 full-fledged sentences on each topic is the minimum required for this stage of training. When listening to video or audio recordings, you grasp the main idea, despite the fact that the text may include structures that are unfamiliar to you. You are also able to ask and answer questions, at least in a yes-no format, without losing the overall meaning.

Preparation at the pre-threshold level

We can talk about confident knowledge if your skills correspond to the following key points:

• Pronunciation understandable for native speakers.
• The ability to explain a complex expression or word with the help of simpler ones.
• Understanding the essence of advertising, the headline of the newspaper adapted literature level A2.
• The ability to have a moderate paced conversation with meaningful answers and questions.
• Capturing the essence of a TV show or video in the original using subtitles.
• Pre-intermediate audio stories.
• Correct placement of stress and intonation.
• Self-compilation of a story on a proposed familiar topic and retelling it by heart.
• The ability of independent speech without cheat sheets.

Main activities

Reading and maintaining a helps to achieve significant success, in which ideally there should already be a worked out list of A1 level words. Go to original sources: news, newspapers, video reviews of English or American bloggers. Be sure to work with a dictionary and write down all expressions unfamiliar to you. Do not be lazy to compare how the linguistic color of the text changes when everything is known in it and when there are gaps.

A good exercise is to describe an object or several. You train to compare, select the necessary synonyms or antonyms. Try to find a pen pal or just comment on original foreign content.

Keep a diary in English in which you describe past events, note what is happening in the present or even this very minute, and plan for the future. This is the perfect workout for all the times needed at this stage.

A2 is the turning point when most people realize that it's time to sign up for courses or look for a tutor in order to get to Intermediate. We advise you to build on your goals. If you plan to be a teacher or translator, then you cannot do without a competent specialist or coach. However, if you are learning a language for the soul or traveling, then self-study is quite suitable for you. In any case, we wish you good luck!