Learn a language to CEFR level B1
A friend has invited you to do this with them.
B1 is the point where you can hold your own in a conversation, follow the gist of a radio programme and sort out most situations while travelling. The level has a published checklist of can-do statements, so you know exactly when you have arrived.
DemandingUnder £100 / $130A year or moreIndoors or outAlone or with others
How to start
- Pick one language and read the CEFR level descriptions for A1 to B1.
- Use the self-assessment grid to mark where you are today.
- Arrange a weekly lesson or conversation partner and set a date to test yourself.
Where to go
We opened this link on 6 October 2026 and found it to be what we say. Dates, places and prices are on the official page, where they stay up to date.
Plan this
Pick a day, or a month, and we will set out how to get ready, step by step, with a date and a reason for each. Courses and classes have start dates and can fill up, so the plan begins with finding and booking one. Kit comes after the first session, once you know what you need.
From the site
Learning a language as an adult: a realistic plan
Why adults learn languages differently rather than worse, how to use a 20-minute daily slot, what spaced repetition is, why to speak early, where to find cheap or free help, and a 12-week outline you can start on Monday.
Read next
“Education has no expiration”: Virginia Ordaz and her mother finished their degrees in the same class
How a retired fire dispatcher from Stockton, California, finished the degree she started in 1989, and how her mother finished hers more than 40 years after her last class. How to find out what your own old credits are worth, in the US and the UK.
Sixty paper hats on a table in Bridlington: David Smith and the shape mathematicians had sought for decades
David Smith of Bridlington, a hobbyist with no training in mathematics, found 'the hat': the first single shape known to cover a flat surface only in patterns that never repeat. How he found it, why he could not prove it alone, and the free tools that let you put the same tiles on your own table.

