Hello everyone! I got kindly asked by Sammy to retell my experience getting the Class A (HAREC) license without being a native (or fluent!) german speaker. In fact, my german is a B2 at most, B1 in most aspects. This was…. a problem. The exam is completely in german, no dictionary and no help other than the help documents, and it is not very casual german as well. Everything is carefully worded to have exactly the meaning that they intended. This means that many words will only appear once in a particular question, and most of those I could not translate at all.
Six months before I even registered for the exam, I started getting into the idea to actually commit to studying for it. This, for a normal person without the language barrier, is much shorter. I downloaded the 50Ohms app and started doing some questions. And I gave up for a while. It was too time intensive to translate every single question. I retook it two months after and I started doing Betrieb questions, learning more about how to operate radios in the club meetings, and overall getting informed. This was key in my learning journey. There were many questions that I didn’t have to translate because I knew from the answers which ones were wrong. The Class E seminar also started, so I went to those classes. Even though they were in german, it was useful to see the presentations and do the quizzes.
Let us be completely honest, I had a lot of luck. Sammy offered to explain all of the material in English in her free time, and without that, I would not have been able to pass. We went through the laws segment, the Betrieb segment, Class N and E technik. After we finished Class E, she asked me if I wanted to go the extra mile for A. It is much more content, and quite a bit harder. I was skeptical, as I did not know even if I would be able to pass Class E. But she convinced me that I would be able to make it. Technik Class A is, language barrier wise, easier than Betrieb and laws. Even easier than Class E. This is because most questions ask you to calculate XYZ, and that is almost always written the same. So if you translate one time, you will not have to any more. Content wise, it was harder, but I had an easier time most of the exam. There are also questions that had complex words, of course, but it was easier on my brain.
One month before the exam, I started to do practice exams every day. I started with Betrieb, the easiest, and then I moved to laws, and so on. For the first week and a half, every day I did at least 1 of each of the base, and sometimes Class N technik. Mind you, I was failing most of them. This was when I had the hardest time to stay motivated. It seemed like I just could not get to the bottom of the list of possible questions. Every time I was facing questions that I just… could not understand. It was so demoralising to see a question, not be able to understand it, and know the answer instantly after I looked the words up. I was not lacking in knowledge, but in sheer language understanding.
After the week and a half, I started to pass the laws and Betrieb segments consistently, as well as some Class N. I have to point out, the language on Class N is much less complex than the other exams. It is the most doable for a conversational german speaker without technical word knowledge, and made it very enjoyable to do.Then I started doing Class E instead of one of the base segments. It did not go as bad as expected. It was hard, but as I said before, many questions where about calculations, and pretty understandable. It was mostly about learning what the questions wanted from me and learning more concepts from the slides and electronics. It took me two weeks to start passing Class E. I never actually managed to pass it consistently, maybe 80% of the time. With very little time left, I started Class A. It was an utter disaster. I think the first exam I did, I got around a 40%. With 76% needed to pass, this was way too low. Then started the hardest part. Class A has the same quantity of content as the other four parts combined. There are just WAY too many circuit types, antennas, filters for several parts of transceivers, just knowledge that is needed to answer the questions. It was hard, and I actually never managed to pass one of the training exams with more than an 80%. A few days before the exam, I started doing full exams, the five parts back to back, to get used to the length of the exam.
The day of the exam, I had a game plan ready: I was going to do the first three parts in one go, then have a break, do Class E, have another break, then Class A. They let you bring water and snacks with you, so I was able to eat something. They also allowed us to go to the bathroom in between parts. What I did not account for was how kind the examiners would be. I told them I was a german learner, and they told me to ask them any question about a word translation, and they would help me as much as possible. I actually passed the exam because of that. They helped me translate words that I did not know and needed for the answer, and in one occasion, one question had two options that were written the same but changed the word’s placement, and I straight up asked them what the difference was between the two. For a fluent/native speaker, the difference would be clear, but when you are translating all the questions and answers, the different placement of words‘ significance can go unnoticed. They did NOT give the answer at any point, but they made it possible for me to get the support I needed to succeed. Even when I got a 72% and needed to have an oral retake exam, they did their best to frame the questions in a conversational level that I could understand. I am very grateful for that. And thus, I passed all parts and actually got the full HAREC. They examiners said that I was the first person they had ever seen to pass the full Class A while being a foreigner with limited german knowledge. I suggested them that they allow to bring a simple dictionary, which would have helped me a ton.
I am so grateful to the club station members for helping me achieve this. I only ever got encouragement words from them. Sammy of course, she helped me a ton. I feel like this success is at least 20% hers. And, to anyone that might be in the same position I was half a year ago, wondering if their german level is too low for this, I tell you: it is not. You only need determination, and consistency. There are many tools available to help. You can do it. Just like I did. I am not particularly versed in electronics, RF, or anything like that, in fact, I am a computer engineer but the last time I touched a circuit was more than 5 years ago. I had to relearn everything from scratch. It’s doable. Do it. The club members can help you if you need it 🙂
– Bea, DJ0DE
You can contact me at mail@<my_callsign>.de (put the callsign above instead of <my_callsign>, one can never be too careful of scraping bots 🙂
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