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Michel Thomas | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 377 of 405 14 February 2012 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think it's ok at all. I don't mind a non-native who learned the language to near-native level and isn't 100% perfect, but if I can tell from the first word, something's wrong and you shouldn't be teaching me your bad habit. 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 378 of 405 15 February 2012 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Bear in mind that a non-native speaker can be just as good at explaning things like grammar, sentence structure etc. (something that some natives aren't even aware of...), and it's mainly in that aspect that I find Michel Thomas to be good teacher.
You can spend a thousand hours on lessons with a native and still have bad pronunciation. You have to work on it yourself. The MT courses have so little L2 input anyway, so you more or less have to find other material. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 379 of 405 15 February 2012 at 4:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've recently finished the Total French course (the new version of the Foundation course) and I've noticed something he teaches which seems incorrect. He has a shortcut so you don't have to remember the gender of nouns. For the definite article, he says to just lightly touch the "l" so it doesn't matter if it's le or la. For example, you'd say l'maison instead of la maison. That works fine, and it sounds a lot like what I've heard of spoken French. However, he suggests the same thing for the indefinite article: touch lightly on the "n". However, you wouldn't normally even hear the "n" sound for masculine nouns, even in spoken French, would you?
An example is "je voudrais un cafe". He gets the students to stick the n sound at the end of voudrais, so it sounds like voudrain. However, one of the students was clearly confused, because at several points she said "je voudrain un ...", totally missing the idea. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 7001 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 380 of 405 15 February 2012 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
L2 ? whay's that ? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 381 of 405 15 February 2012 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Second language, or target language in this case
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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 382 of 405 16 February 2012 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
Advice? Yes, save your money and don't buy the vocabulary course, it's rubbish. The "Language Builder" course is OK for what it does, but at your level it'll not be any use so save your money on that. While I'm posting on this thread I just want to reiterate my opinion that I think any beginner who decides against Michel Thomas purely because of his accent is making a big mistake, the following is worth repeating: if you use the course properly you will not pick up his accent. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 383 of 405 17 February 2012 at 1:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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The vocabulary course is now integral to the courses. The lower course is called Total, and has 2 disks of the vocab course. The upper course is called Perfect, and has the other 2.
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| Durazno Newbie United States Joined 4691 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 384 of 405 17 February 2012 at 3:56am | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with you that you won't pick up his accent as a beginner. Thanks for the advice. I am borrowing all the CDs from a friend so it wouldn't cost me anything to listen to the Vocab. and LB CDs. Are they not worth my time at all, even if they are free? Do you have any other suggestions for building up vocab? Edited by Durazno on 17 February 2012 at 3:57am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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