The presentation will look at one institution's solution to the problem of mapping varied competences onto a coherent levels framework. Southampton has developed a series of 7 language levels or stages which map onto CEF and national qualifications and take into account the varying entry levels of learners, both specialist and non specialist learners, who are taking a language option as part of their main degree. The learning outcomes and equivalencies for each of the seven stages can be seen on the Languages at Southampton website at http://www.soton.ac.uk/cls/courses/stages.html.