C2 English: proficient

C2 is about nuance: hearing what is meant but not said, recognising irony and understatement, choosing words whose tone fits exactly, and controlling what your reader notices first. The course has one C2 unit so far, new and still awaiting review.

6 grammar lessons, 18 words in 1 topic decks, 4 graded texts, and writing and speaking practice with AI feedback.

What you can do at C2

• Listening: I can understand any kind of spoken English, even fast and in unfamiliar accents, given a moment to adjust.
• Reading: I can read demanding literary, academic and professional texts and appreciate fine distinctions of style.
• Speaking: I can convey fine shades of meaning precisely, and rephrase smoothly when I hit a difficulty.
• Writing: I can write complex, polished texts in an appropriate style that a reader finds easy to follow.
• Speaking: I can handle sensitive, high-stakes conversations, reading the room and adjusting as they unfold.

What learners find hard at C2

Implication and understatement (I'd rather you didn't, not without its critics), reporting claims with the right distance (is thought to have been), and the formal patterns of polished writing: tired as she was, so strong was the wind that…

What the C2 lessons cover

All 6 C2 grammar lessons

Free to read, with examples and practice questions.

1. I'd rather you didn't: what is meant and what is said
2. Not bad at all: irony, understatement and litotes
3. He is thought to have left: distance and degrees of commitment
4. Thrifty or stingy? Fine distinctions of register and tone
5. Tired as she was…: concession with fronting and fixed phrases
6. So strong was the wind that…: fronting for focus and cohesion

C2 vocabulary

• Nuance, tone and implication: 18 words and phrases, each with a plain-English definition and an example

Reading at C2

• The things we don't quite say: An essay on indirect English: why 'Interesting' can sink a draft, what silence says in a reference, and who pays when the code isn't shared.
• The reference: A retired lecturer is asked to write a reference for a charming former student whose work she remembers rather less fondly.
• Review: In Praise of Delay: A critic reviews a book arguing that putting things off can be wise, and finds its argument stronger than its execution.
• What the forecast actually said: A columnist follows one cautious economic forecast from the report to the headlines, and asks where its uncertainty went.

Questions