Immigrating to Canada
Is your French at CLB 7?
Test your speaking for free, before the official exam.
Don't risk $450 blind. Get an instant estimate of your spoken level.
- 100% free
- No credit card
- Result in 2 minutes
Where the bar falls
- C2
- Mastery
- C1
- Independent
- B2
- Upper intermediate
- B1
- Intermediate
- A2
- Elementary
- A1
- Beginner
What's at stake
Why spend 2 free minutes on this?
- Save the $300 to $450 the official exam costs
- The official French exam is expensive. Two minutes here estimates your level for free, so you don't spend $450 finding out you weren't ready.
- All 4 papers at CLB 7 / NCLC 7 (roughly B2)
- Canada asks for that level in reading, listening, writing AND speaking. Fall short in a single one of the four and you lose every bonus point.
- Up to +50 points on your immigration score
- Canada ranks candidates on points. Proving you speak French adds a large bonus, up to 50 points, which is what moves a profile up the list.
- 420 points instead of 516 to be invited
- Canada is looking for French speakers. In July 2026 the Canadian-experience category invited at 516 points, while the French-language draw invited at 420. French is the biggest shortcut there is.
The 4 papers
Three are easy to check. The fourth is the real trap.
Before spending $450, you can already place yourself on three of the four papers. The fourth is where most candidates fail without knowing it.
Reading
Check it yourselfPractice papers with answer keys are easy to find. You sit a timed one, count your correct answers and get your exact score.
Listening
Check it yourselfSame again, with the official audio. It's multiple choice: a right answer scores, with no room for interpretation.
Writing
Easy to have checkedA written text holds still. You can reread it at your own pace, run it past an AI tool, or have someone whose French is solid mark it up.
Speaking
The critical paperYou cannot measure your own spoken level. Hesitations, sentence shapes, fluency: nobody hears their own voice the way an examiner does. That is exactly the problem our free 2-minute test solves.
In practice
What B2 (CLB 7) actually sounds like
Forget the official descriptors. Four things you can check on yourself today:
Talk for 5 minutes on a topic you're handed
No preparation, no notes. The official exam picks your themes at random, and thirty seconds of silence getting started costs you points immediately.
Hold an opinion against disagreement
Describing a situation isn't enough. The examiner will push back, and you have to argue and hold your position without stalling for vocabulary.
Fix your own mistakes without losing the thread
You slip, you correct it mid-sentence, and you still finish the thought. Below B2, a single mistake derails everything that follows.
Follow a conversation at normal speed
The examiner speaks at their natural pace. If people usually slow down for you, that's a sign you're still one notch short.
How it works
Your estimated level in 3 quick steps
Guess your level
Tell us the level you think you're at. Comparing your hunch to your actual score is often the most revealing part.
Speak for 2 minutes
Answer 3 questions straight into your microphone. It's 100% free, with nothing to install.
Get your result instantly
Your level right away, plus a breakdown of your strengths and weaknesses across 5 criteria.
What you get
Your overall level + where exactly you're weak
You get your level on the European scale, the one the CLB 7 threshold is calibrated against. But a single letter (A2, B1, B2…) doesn't tell you what to work on.
So your report breaks it down across 5 criteria:
- Fluency
- Grammar
- Vocabulary
- Pronunciation
- Pace
A word on pace, the invisible trap
It's the one criterion missing from every official grid, and it's the one that fails the most candidates.
Example : Excellent B2 grammar delivered too slowly (A2 pace) will read as B1 to an examiner. Ours is one of the only tests that measures it.
What this test gives you
A realistic estimate before you pay for the exam
Our test and the official exam are two steps that do different jobs, at different moments:
Now
Our free test
- Its job
- Give you a fast, honest estimate of your spoken level.
- What you get from it
- A clear read that points straight at your next decision:
If the result says B1 or below
You've just saved $450. The test names your weak points, usually pace or fluency, and those are what daily conversations on PalVivo are for.
If the result says B2 or above
You know your speaking clears the bar. All that's left is checking the other 3 papers with practice material, then booking the official exam.
Later
The official TEF / TCF Canada exam
- Its job
- Officially certify all 4 papers with Canadian immigration (IRCC).
- What you get from it
- The official attestation your application needs. Nothing replaces that result.
In short : Take our test before you book, to estimate whether you're ready, avoid wasting $450, and walk into the official exam knowing where you stand.
What people ask us
Questions before you start?
Is it CLB 7 or NCLC 7 for French?
Officially it's NCLC 7. CLB (Canadian Language Benchmarks) is the English-language scale; NCLC (Niveaux de compétence linguistique canadiens) is the French one. Most people say "CLB 7 in French" anyway, and IRCC treats the two scales as equivalent levels, so you'll see both. On your TEF or TCF Canada result, the number will be called NCLC.
TEF or TCF, which should I take?
Both are recognised by IRCC and both give you an NCLC level. TCF Canada marks speaking and writing out of 20, with 10 out of 20 as the minimum for NCLC 7. TEF runs on a points scale that gets converted afterwards. Our full comparison of TEF vs TCF goes through the format of each; otherwise choose on the dates and seats available near you, not on difficulty.
How much does the official exam cost?
Between $300 and $450 CAD, or the equivalent in your local currency. You sit it at an approved centre, whether you're already in Canada or abroad. Each centre sets its own price, so it's worth comparing two or three near you. Results are valid for 2 years.
What CEFR level is CLB 7 in French?
It falls on the border between high B1 and B2. The simplified equivalence everyone quotes, CLB 7 equals B2, is handy but optimistic: the CCLB alignment study puts full B2 at NCLC 8. In plain terms, a solid B1 isn't there yet and a confident B2 is above it.
How long does it take to go from B1 to B2 in speaking?
It depends on how much you actually speak, not on how much theory you revise.
- If you speak regularly (three times a week) : you can reach B2 in a few months.
- If you revise alone with books : your grammar will improve while your speaking can sit still for a year or more.
In short : the "Pace" criterion in your report tells you straight away whether a lack of speaking practice is what's holding your score down.
What if I hit CLB 7 in three papers out of four?
The bonus drops to zero. The threshold is all or nothing across all four skills, and it's the most common nasty surprise. It's also why this page exists: the fourth paper, speaking, is the one nobody can assess on their own.
Can I prepare for the speaking paper alone?
You can prepare the topics alone, and our guide to the TEF Canada speaking section walks through them. What you can't do alone is hear what an examiner hears: your pace, your restarts, the moment you reach for a word. That needs an outside ear, or a measurement.
Does this test count towards my application?
No, and no online tool can. IRCC only accepts TEF Canada and TCF Canada, sat at an approved centre. This one is for deciding whether you're ready to book the official exam, and what to work on until then.
Take 2 minutes to test your French before investing $400.
Don't walk into the official exam blind. Get an instant estimate of your level and find out whether you're ready.
100% free, no credit card.