General information DELE

DELE Spanish Diplomas are official titles certifying degree of competence and mastery of the Spanish language, granted by Spain’s Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport.

The Instituto Cervantes organizes examination sessions, while the Universidad de Salamanca in Spain designs the exams and is in charge of corrections and the final evaluation of all exams.

Spanish Diploma Level B1 (Threshold)

Certifies candidates’ capacity to understand the gist of clear texts, in standard language, if they involve well-known topics related to work, studies or leisure. It also certifies students’ ability to deal with most situations that occur while travelling in areas where Spanish is spoken; to produce simple and coherent texts about familiar topics, or topics of personal interest; and lastly to be able to describe experiences, events, wishes and hopes, as well as to be able to briefly express opinions or explain plans.

Spanish Diploma Level B2 (Vantage)

Certifies students’ ability to interact with native speakers with a sufficient degree of fluency and spontaneity to enable easy and natural communication between interlocutors; produce clear and detailed texts about diverse topics, as well as defend an opinion about general topics, expressing the pros and cons for each argument; and lastly, understand the gist of complex texts about both concrete and abstract topics, including technical texts, provided they are within the candidate’s area of expertise.

Spanish Diploma Level C1 (Effective Operational Proficiency)

Certifies sufficient linguistic competence to understand a wide variety of lengthy, and somewhat demanding texts, as well as to grasp implicit meaning in the same; to express themselves fluently and spontaneously without apparent effort to find the right words; to be able to use the language flexibly and effectively for social, academic, and professional purposes; and finally, to be able to produce clear, well-structured, and detailed texts about topics of some complexity, correctly using mechanisms of organization, articulation, and cohesion in the text.

Further details on the structure of each exam can be found here.