CEFR B2 in German: what you can do

B2 is the level at which many universities and employers start to take your German seriously. You can follow complex texts, take part in discussions and express yourself with fluency, even if you still make occasional slips with endings. Your German now sounds less like a textbook and more like yours.

What you can do

Understand the main ideas of complex texts on concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in your field.
Interact with native speakers with enough fluency that neither side has to strain.
Write clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects, and explain a viewpoint with pros and cons.
Follow most TV news, talk shows and films, as long as the speech is not heavily dialectal.
Work or study in German with modest support.

A quick self-check

You are probably at B2 if you can do most of these:

Read a feature article in Die Zeit or Süddeutsche Zeitung and summarise its argument.
Write a formal complaint or a statement of 250 words with a clear structure.
Report what someone said without sounding like a quotation.
Spot the difference between deshalb, deswegen, trotzdem and dennoch and use them correctly.

Typical grammar at B2

The full Passiv

Beyond werden + participle, you meet the Zustandspassiv (Die Tür ist geschlossen), the Perfekt (Das Haus ist gebaut worden), the Passiv with modals (Das muss erledigt werden) and impersonal forms (Hier wird getanzt). Alternatives avoid the Passiv: man (Man sagt), sich lassen (Das lässt sich lösen) and -bar (lösbar).

Konjunktiv I in reported speech

Newspapers use the Konjunktiv I to report what someone else said without taking responsibility: Der Minister sagte, er sei überzeugt und habe alles geprüft. Forms are built on the infinitive stem: er gehe, sie habe, es sei. When the Konjunktiv I looks the same as the indicative (as in the plural sie haben), writers switch to the Konjunktiv II: Sie sagten, sie hätten keine Zeit. In everyday speech, most people just use the indicative or dass -clauses.

Nominalisation

Formal German turns verbs and adjectives into nouns: Wenn man die Preise erhöht becomes bei einer Erhöhung der Preise; weil es regnete becomes wegen des Regens. The nominal style gives density, but it can make a text heavy. Know both directions, so that you can read formal texts and also write them out in plain language.

Connectors and structuring

Concession: obwohl, trotzdem, dennoch, zwar ... aber
Cause and effect: da, weil, deshalb, folglich, somit
Contrast: während, hingegen, im Gegensatz dazu
Condition: falls, sofern, es sei denn
Purpose: damit, um ... zu

Two-part connectors such as entweder ... oder, sowohl ... als auch, weder ... noch, je ... desto are very common in essays.

Vocabulary themes

Politics, economy, society and the media
Science, technology and environment
Work, careers and education
Abstract nouns and verb-noun combinations (eine Entscheidung treffen, in Betracht ziehen)
Idioms: food idioms and everyday idioms

What you may find hard

Konjunktiv I. Rare in speech but frequent in newspapers; the forms are easy, but the choice is subtle.
Prepositions with cases. Verbs and adjectives with fixed prepositions need memorising: sich freuen auf (+ acc.) vs sich freuen über (+ acc.), abhängen von (+ dat.).
Register. Knowing when a sentence sounds like a lecture rather than a conversation.
Speed and idiom. Real conversations contain particles (doch, mal, ja, eben, halt) with a meaning that is hard to translate.

Exams and courses

The Goethe-Zertifikat B2 tests reading, listening, writing and speaking. The telc Deutsch B2 is a close alternative, including versions for work or medicine. For university admission, the TestDaF (levels TDN 3 to 5) is widely accepted, and many universities ask for B2 or C1. The ÖSD Zertifikat B2 is the Austrian equivalent.

How to practise at this level

Read one article a day and note the connectors the writer uses. Summarise it aloud in two minutes. Try writing the same text in a verbal and a nominal style. Revisit B1 if relative clauses still wobble, and look ahead to C1. For the mechanics of the case system, see the four cases.

Practice

Remember that the Konjunktiv I is used for reported speech, that nominalisation replaces a clause with a noun, and that weder ... noch means "neither ... nor".