How do I get A2 certified if I work full time?
The exam route usually fits better. A PLA course needs 150 to 200 hours with a minimum attendance requirement, which is hard around full-time work. The CIPLE costs one morning plus preparation you can do in short daily sessions on your own schedule.
Why the course route is hard around a job
An A2 PLA course is 150 to 200 hours of instruction, and most providers require 80% to 90% attendance. Even a part-time format at 5 to 8 hours a week runs 20 to 40 weeks.
That is not a matter of willpower. It is a scheduling reality, and courses run at times set by providers rather than by you. Evening and weekend groups exist and are worth looking for, but the attendance requirement is not negotiable, and missing sessions can cost you the certificate you did the work for.
Why the exam route fits better
The CIPLE costs one morning. Everything before it is preparation you control: when, where, and in what size pieces.
That matters more than it sounds. Reaching A2 is roughly 150 to 350 hours of study from zero, but those hours do not have to be scheduled by anyone else. Five to ten hours a week is the sweet spot for most working adults, and at that pace A2 takes roughly 4 to 8 months.
What actually works in short sessions
Daily beats weekly. Twenty minutes most days beats a three-hour session at the weekend, because material consolidates between sessions and because a routine survives a bad week.
Practise with immediate feedback. Answering questions and seeing what you got wrong, with the correction in front of you, is the highest-yield use of a short session. Unguided reading is not.
Put listening in dead time. European Portuguese in your ears on the commute, while cooking, while doing anything that does not need words. Ear training runs on exposure, and exposure is the one thing you can get without carving out study time.
Before you book
Find out where you actually stand. Our free homepage quiz grades three real exam-style reading questions instantly, no account needed, and our practice tool is built for exactly this pattern of short daily sessions.