Esperanto B1 level means you can use the language on your own: chat at a congress or a club, write to a pen friend, tell a story in the past and explain your opinion in simple terms. It's also the first level the KER exams of the World Esperanto Association (UEA) certify, because there's no KER exam below B1. From A2, the regular grammar lets many learners get there faster than in a national language, though no official body publishes study hours for Esperanto.
What can you do at Esperanto B1?
On the CEFR scale, B1 opens the independent band: you follow clear speech on familiar topics, describe experiences and plans and give reasons for your views. In Esperanto, the grammar is so regular that B1 is less about exceptions and more about using the whole system.
You use all three tenses (-is, -as, -os), the conditional -us and the volitive -u. You put the accusative -n where it belongs, including for direction: mi estas en la domo (I'm in the house) against mi iras en la domon (I'm going into the house). You use the table of correlatives (kiu, tiu, ĉiu, neniu, iu and their relatives ending in -e, -am and -el) and build words from roots and affixes: lerni (to learn), lernejo (school), lernanto (pupil), malfacila (difficult).
Typical B1 sentences:
- Mi lernas Esperanton jam de unu jaro. (I've been learning Esperanto for a year.)
- Se mi havus pli da tempo, mi vojaĝus al la Universala Kongreso. (If I had more time, I'd travel to the World Esperanto Congress.)
- La libro, kiun vi pruntedonis al mi, estis tre interesa. (The book you lent me was very interesting.)
- Ŝi diris, ke ŝi venos morgaŭ. (She said she would come tomorrow.)
- Ni renkontiĝu post la kunveno por priparoli la planon. (Let's meet after the meeting to talk the plan over.)
Look at the fourth sentence. Esperanto keeps the tense of the original statement in reported speech, so "she will come" stays venos. It's one of the few places where English habits mislead you.
Which exam proves Esperanto B1?
The international standard is the UEA-KER exam, run by the World Esperanto Association on the CEFR. KER is the Esperanto abbreviation for the framework.
| Exam | Who runs it | Level | CEFR link |
|---|---|---|---|
| UEA-KER B1 | World Esperanto Association (UEA) | B1 | Built on the CEFR, as stated by UEA |
| UEA-KER B2 | UEA | B2 | Built on the CEFR |
| UEA-KER C1 | UEA | C1 | Built on the CEFR |
| UEA-KER C2 | UEA, with the Akademio de Esperanto | C2 | Built on the CEFR |
Each level has a written and an oral part. You can take them together as the complete exam or separately, and the pass mark is 60 percent in both (UEA-KER description). UEA has run the system since December 2008, first together with ORIGO, the language exam centre in Budapest, and on its own since July 2021. For 2026 it announced online exams at B1, B2 and C1, plus paper exams at the Universala Kongreso in Graz, Austria, on 7 August (UEA-KER).
Esperanto A2 vs B1: what changes?
At A2 you know the basic endings and enough words for introductions and daily routines. B1 adds:
- Participles. Active -ant-, -int-, -ont- and passive -at-, -it-, -ot-: la manĝinta knabo (the boy who has eaten), la skribita letero (the written letter).
- The full table of correlatives, so you can say "somewhere", "nobody" and "in every way" (ie, neniu, ĉiel).
- Word building. Affixes like mal-, -ej-, -ist-, -ig- and -iĝ- turn one root into a family: komenci (to start something), komenciĝi (to start, by itself), varma (warm), varmigi (to warm up).
- The reflexive si. Li lavas sin (he washes himself) against li lavas lin (he washes him, someone else).
- Vocabulary for opinions and community life: congresses, clubs, travel, letters and online discussion.
