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Michel Thomas

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
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zekecoma
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5345 days ago
561 posts - 655 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 369 of 405
10 February 2012 at 10:23am | IP Logged 
jazzboy.bebop wrote:
zekecoma wrote:


I like the German foundation course so far. Even though I know most of it so far.
-------------------------
I hope they do a new Spanish version. I do not like his Spanish accent. It is really
awful to listen to. I just listened to the 2nd track (via youtube). I wouldn't bother
using MT for Spanish. I do like the German and Russian ones.


I know what you mean about his Spanish accent! Makes me feel uncomfortable to listen
to. He might not have been good at accents but he was good with grammar! Not sure about
the other courses but I noticed Thomas teaches some incorrect things though not grammar
related.

My dad thinks the Foundation and Advanced German courses are a great start but you'll
still need to find another good grammar resource, especially for cases. My dad also
noticed the lack of an important kind of past-tense which was taught in the French and
Italian courses but not in the German ones. Can't remember what particular tense it was
though but my dad was confused as to why it wasn't taught as it is an important one to
know.


Probably the subjunctive. I already have prior knowledge of German. So I ain't really
worried about the missing info on the cases. I have Assimil, Colloquial and Teach
Yourself German to get around other stuff, if it leaves it out. The past tenses just
are like wäre and hätte, etc, or look up the verbs on wiktionary which gives all the
past tenses, etc.

The MT Russian courses teaches you all the past tense, present tense, future, aspect
verbs. It doesn't really explain the cases. Russian just has two more cases which are
pretty easy to understand. Also, it does teach you the impolite too (which is always
good), but that's not until the advanced course on the 2nd CD.
1 person has voted this message useful





jeff_lindqvist
Diglot
Moderator
SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6910 days ago
4250 posts - 5711 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 370 of 405
10 February 2012 at 12:00pm | IP Logged 
jazzboy.bebop wrote:
But anyway, Thomas' accent should not put people off from using his courses. If I learn German one day I'll certainly be using Thomas' courses as my starting point.


I agree. A non-native is OK as long as he/she can teach (=Michel Thomas), and aspects like accent and prosody can be learned from other sources, you just have to use your ears!

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Random review
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5784 days ago
781 posts - 1310 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German

 
 Message 371 of 405
10 February 2012 at 11:12pm | IP Logged 
He only touches on the subjunctive II (wären and hätten) and does not even touch
subjunctive I. The course was never finished IMO.

Edited by Random review on 10 February 2012 at 11:13pm
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Random review
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5784 days ago
781 posts - 1310 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German

 
 Message 372 of 405
10 February 2012 at 11:17pm | IP Logged 
@ Zekecoma: he does a good job on the Spanish course, I highly recommend it. You'll be
missing out if you don't, your accent will be stuck on that level.

Edit: sorry, should have read, "will not be stuck at that level..."

Edited by Random review on 11 February 2012 at 7:55pm
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zekecoma
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5345 days ago
561 posts - 655 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 373 of 405
11 February 2012 at 2:22am | IP Logged 
Random review wrote:
@ Zekecoma: he does a good job on the Spanish course, I highly
recommend it. You'll be
missing out if you don't, your accent will be stuck on that level.


I just can't understand how he's pronouncing the words to even bother trying to do it.
1 person has voted this message useful



nway
Senior Member
United States
youtube.com/user/Vic
Joined 5416 days ago
574 posts - 1707 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean

 
 Message 374 of 405
11 February 2012 at 2:47am | IP Logged 
I, too, was turned off by his bizarre Spanish pronunciation, but I really wanted to progress my conjugation beyond the simple present tense, so I sucked it up and powered through the "Advanced" course, and I'm glad I did, because it completely clarified with beautiful simplicity what in high school had caused me nothing but helpless confusion. When the course finally came to closure, I felt as if I had just listened to a magnificent symphony, where the journey often caused uncertain doubts of "are you sure you know what you're doing?", but ended as a sum greater than its parts where everything made sense in retrospect.

By the way, in the Foundation course, he always over-emphasized the syllables that were to be stressed, which had the unintentional effect of sounding utterly clownish, but he fortunately stopped doing this in the Advanced course.
2 persons have voted this message useful



zekecoma
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5345 days ago
561 posts - 655 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 375 of 405
11 February 2012 at 3:28am | IP Logged 
nway wrote:
I, too, was turned off by his bizarre Spanish pronunciation, but I really
wanted to progress my conjugation beyond the simple present tense, so I sucked it up
and powered through the "Advanced" course, and I'm glad I did, because it completely
clarified with beautiful simplicity what in high school had caused me nothing but
helpless confusion. When the course finally came to closure, I felt as if I had just
listened to a magnificent symphony, where the journey often caused uncertain doubts of
"are you sure you know what you're doing?", but ended as a sum greater than its parts
where everything made sense in retrospect.

By the way, in the Foundation course, he always over-emphasized the syllables that were
to be stressed, which had the unintentional effect of sounding utterly clownish, but he
fortunately stopped doing this in the Advanced course.


Well I have Teach Yourself Latin America Spanish and Assimil Spanish (yeah it's only
Spain's Spanish D:)
1 person has voted this message useful



Durazno
Newbie
United States
Joined 4691 days ago
10 posts - 10 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 376 of 405
14 February 2012 at 8:28pm | IP Logged 
This is my first post. I love this forum!

I started MT Spanish about 2 weeks ago and it has helped me a lot. It does feel a bit weird having better pronunciation than him, but he is great at instilling an understanding of the grammer, verb tenses and has clarified some things that I just didn't "get." He has some pretty funny ways of getting you to remember things. For example: Whenever you hear the feminine river at the end of the verb, "ria" then you are in the woods (woulds). In addition, the simple past tense "Cha-cha" that he sang for remembering the first two conjugations was pretty quirky: e and o and i and io, e and o and i and io...Sometimes you just need to hear someone sing a silly song and those conjugations then will be difficult to forget.

I want to become fluent in Spanish, and also I aspire to move towards a career in translating. I know this will take a long time to acheive, but I am determined to make it happen. I'm sure this was probably already mentioned in this long thread, but what are some other things I can do to aid my learning process?

As of now, I have completed the Foundation and am half way through the Advanced portion. Also, I listen to Spanish-speaking radio whenever I am in a car. Once I am finished with the Language Builder and Vocabulary CDs should I purchase some books written in Spanish that I have already read in English?

Any advice would help. Thanks!

Edited by Durazno on 14 February 2012 at 8:36pm


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