The CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) describes six levels of language ability, A1 to C2. The official descriptors talk about what you can do — "can understand the main points of clear standard input" — not how many words you know. But vocabulary is the raw material behind every can-do statement, and research has measured it level by level. This guide turns those measurements into targets, example words and study lists.
The six levels at a glance
| Level | Label | Typical receptive vocabulary* | Exams at this level | Word list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Breakthrough | < 1,500 | Cambridge A1 Movers/Starters, IELTS < 4 | A1–A2 list |
| A2 | Waystage | 1,500–2,500 | Cambridge A2 Key (KET), IELTS 4 | |
| B1 | Threshold | 2,750–3,250 | Cambridge B1 Preliminary (PET), IELTS 4–5, TOEFL 42–71, TOEIC 550–780 | B1–B2 list |
| B2 | Vantage | 3,250–3,750 | Cambridge B2 First (FCE), IELTS 5.5–6.5, TOEFL 72–94, TOEIC 785–940 | |
| C1 | Effective Operational Proficiency | 3,750–4,500 | Cambridge C1 Advanced (CAE), IELTS 7–8, TOEFL 95–120, TOEIC 945+ | C1–C2 list |
| C2 | Mastery | 4,500–5,000+ | Cambridge C2 Proficiency (CPE), IELTS 8.5–9 |
*Word families recognised in reading/listening, from Milton (2010) and Milton & Alexiou (2009). Exam alignments from Cambridge, IELTS, ETS and ETS TOEIC published mappings. Productive vocabulary (what you can use) is typically 50–70% of receptive.
What the words look like at each level
Counts are abstract; the words themselves tell you where you are. These examples come straight from Word Hype's curated level pools.
A1–A2: the world around you
house, write, stone, guitar, carrot, budget, charge, credit, bother, beyond, fright. Concrete nouns, everyday verbs, the 2,000 most frequent words of English that cover roughly 80% of any ordinary text. At A2 the first abstract words appear (budget, credit) and phrasal patterns start (charge for, bother to).
B1–B2: talking about ideas
author, award, behave, category, reject, subsequent, talent, trouble, record, living. You move from things to relations and opinions. B2 is where the Academic Word List (570 families, ~10% of academic text) becomes essential and where most words gain a second meaning (record the noun and the verb, living as adjective and noun).
C1–C2: precision and nuance
deduce, dilemma, exceed, intuition, legislate, reconcile, scarcity, simulate, despair, ritual, bewitch. Lower-frequency, often Latinate, frequently with a Turkish/Spanish cognate that helps recognition but hides usage traps (reconcile with, not reconcile to, for people). At C2 the distinguishing skill is choosing between near-synonyms — scarcity vs shortage vs dearth.
How Word Hype assigns levels
Difficulty in the app is not word length. All three pools share the same 4–10 letter board range; what changes is the source pool. A1–A2 words come from high-frequency learner corpora; B1–B2 from mid-frequency bands and exam-preparation lists; C1–C2 from low-frequency bands cross-checked against advanced-learner evidence (the app's c-level-frequency-review). So "Hard" in Word Hype means "rare and useful", not "long".
How to find your level in five minutes
- Open the B1–B2 list. Cover the definitions and check the first 30 words: if you know 27+, move up; under 20, move down.
- Repeat with the neighbouring list. Your working level is the one where you miss roughly one word in three — the sweet spot for learning.
- Confirm with a quick read: an unknown word every ~10 words in a news article ≈ B1; every ~20 ≈ B2; every 50+ ≈ C1.
Moving up a level: what it actually takes
| Step | New word families | At 5 words/day | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| A2 → B1 | ~700–1,000 | 5–7 months | Frequency bands 2,000–3,000; phrasal verbs; past/future narration |
| B1 → B2 | ~500–700 | 3–5 months | Academic Word List; collocations; second meanings of known words |
| B2 → C1 | ~500–1,000 | 4–7 months | Low-frequency band 4,000–5,000; register (formal/informal); precise synonyms |
| C1 → C2 | ~500+ | 4+ months | Idiom, connotation, near-synonym choice; reading widely beats lists |
Two things shorten every row. First, retrieval over rereading: test yourself instead of scanning lists (see The Science of Repetition). Second, varied contexts: meet each word in a definition, in audio, in a paragraph and in a dialogue — which is exactly what the four Word Hype modes do (see Repetition in Varied Contexts). If your goal is an exam, How many words do you need for IELTS? translates these levels into band targets.
Word lists by level and goal
- A1–A2 vocabulary list · B1–B2 vocabulary list · C1–C2 vocabulary list
- Exam packs: IELTS · TOEFL · TOEIC · Cambridge · PTE
- Topic packs: Business · Travel · Technology · Daily conversation & idioms
References
- Council of Europe (2020). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Companion Volume.
- Milton, J. (2010). The development of vocabulary breadth across the CEFR levels. EUROSLA Monographs 1. Milton, J. & Alexiou, T. (2009). Vocabulary size and the CEFR. Palgrave.
- Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly, 34.
- Nation, I. S. P. (2006). How large a vocabulary is needed for reading and listening? Canadian Modern Language Review, 63.
- Cambridge English, IELTS, ETS: published score-to-CEFR alignments.