Sproochentest level: A2 speaking, B1 listening

You sit down across from the examiner. They ask you, in Luxembourgish, why you are learning the language. You answer in short, plain sentences about your life here. A few minutes later you move to a tablet, put on headphones, and listen to a radio clip played at natural speed. Same exam, same morning, two different levels of Luxembourgish. Speaking is tested at A2, the level of simple everyday talk. Listening is tested at B1, one step higher. There is no reading and no writing part. The exam is speaking and listening only.

The Sproochentest sets two levels, not one: you speak at A2 and you listen at B1.

What A2 speaking actually means

A2 is basic conversation. You talk about yourself and the things around you: your family, your job, where you live, what you do on a normal day. The sentences are short. Nobody expects fluency, and nobody expects perfect grammar.

Here is the shape of it. In the interview you might be asked Firwat léiert Dir Lëtzebuergesch? (Why are you learning Luxembourgish?). A passing A2 answer is plain and honest:

Ech léiere Lëtzebuergesch, well ech d'Lëtzebuerger Nationalitéit wëll kréien. (I am learning Luxembourgish because I want to get Luxembourg citizenship.)

That is the right size. One clear sentence, then one more. You are not graded on long words. You are graded on whether you can keep an everyday conversation going without stopping.

The speaking part runs 10 minutes, in two parts of 5. The interview comes first. Then you pick one of three photos and describe it. If reaching for big answers is your habit, this is the place to break it. The fastest way to freeze is to attempt a sentence you do not have the words for, so answer at your level instead.

What B1 listening actually means

This is the half that catches people out. You listen to three short recordings in Luxembourgish and answer multiple choice on a tablet: a radio message, an everyday conversation, and a longer exchange or presentation on a topic. The clips run at the pace people really speak, and the whole section lasts 35 minutes, not the 25 some older pages still list.

B1 means following connected speech about familiar subjects: catching a time or a place, holding the thread of a longer talk. You will not catch every word, and you are not meant to. The questions test the gist and the key facts. This is also why a candidate who speaks confidently can still lose marks here. Speaking and listening are different skills, and B1 sits a level above your A2 speaking, so your ear needs hours of real Luxembourgish, more than any vocabulary list gives you. We wrote a full guide to the B1 listening for that.

The two levels side by side

A few prep sites and AI answers swap the two, putting B1 on speaking and A2 on listening. That is backwards, and it is worth knowing before you build a study plan around it. When you see a different claim, check it against the official INL page, which states both levels plainly.

So how do you pass two different levels?

You do not need both at full strength. The rule rewards speaking: score at least 50 percent in the speaking test and you pass, whatever your listening score. If speaking falls below that line, you can still pass when the average of your speaking and listening scores reaches 50 percent, rounded up to the next whole number. In plain terms, a strong A2 mouth is the clean path, and a decent B1 ear is your safety net. We break the maths down in the scoring guide. The same guichet page lists the 75 euro registration fee you pay when you sign up.

That is also why "is it hard" has no single answer. The grammar is gentle. The difficulty is steadiness, mostly in the speaking room. You will see a "roughly 70 percent pass" figure quoted around the web. That number is press-reported by outlets like Delano and Paperjam, not published by the INL, so treat it as background, not a guarantee. A better gauge than any statistic is your own practice: how many answers come out without you hunting for words.

What this means for your practice

Two levels means you split your time, not evenly, but with purpose. The speaking topics are predictable and sit at A2, so a few weeks of saying short answers out loud goes a long way. Listening sits at B1 and you cannot predict the audio, so it needs steady exposure over a longer stretch. A little every day beats one long session.

Inside LëtzPass that split is built in: 17 interview topics and 40 picture scenes for the A2 speaking, with 350 practice questions across them, plus a free graded mock so you can hear where your speaking stands today. For the B1 ear, the Schwätzt Dir Lëtzebuergesch? audio from the INL's textbook series is good listening practice you can do in the background.

Start with one short answer. Say Ech léiere Lëtzebuergesch, well... (I am learning Luxembourgish because...) out loud, finish the sentence with your own reason, and say it twice more before you close the page.