|
 |
Any other programs similar to Michel Thomas | ||
Tags: Michel Thomas | Language Program | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4258 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 9 of 34 24 February 2014 at 1:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Besides the male student constantly mispronouncing "работать" because he misheard it the first time and came up with the mnemonic "rubber ducks" to remember it, I found MT Russian to be quite useful and fun. Edited by YnEoS on 24 February 2014 at 1:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5379 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 10 of 34 24 February 2014 at 2:41am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I've heard great things about synergy Spanish.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5787 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 11 of 34 24 February 2014 at 3:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Cainntear found serious flaws with the Polish course, specifically regarding leaving the student with a faulty understanding of the sounds of the language and posted about it on this forum. That made me wary about the Russian course before I even started thinking about it. Then I checked on Amazon and sure enough saw some reviews like this: "First up, this is not the Michel Thomas Method -- it is an approximation of it, and not a particularly good one. 1) When the students on the CD get the stress wrong in a word or sentence. Natasha says "yes", or "very good", or "that's right", before saying it correctly. She presumably believes that they'll get better just by hearing it said right. Thomas never did. When she eventually gives in and starts correcting them, they're confused by it. Why is what was right earlier wrong now? Their confidence goes causing them to start asking questions they should already know the answers to. 2) Natasha tells us that an unstressed "au" is "ah" in Russian. She pronounces every unstressed "au" clearly as "ah". Then in CD 5 she mentions in passing that they are slightly different. She immediately goes back to pronouncing them the same. In doing this, she fails to teach a distinction that is vitally important (this can mean the difference between calling something feminine and calling it neuter) and now I know I'm going to have to do a lot of work to undo this bad teaching. 3) Michel Thomas only asked his students to guess things when he had a reasonable expectation that they'd get it right first time -- Natasha doesn't. There are many cognates and loan words in the course, but there is no reliable pattern regarding changes in word stress. This means that our first exposure to a new word is wrong in about 50% of all cases. Not good. 4) Natasha falls into the old teacher habit of "answer in sentences". Thomas rarely asked you to answer anything, because answering in sentences is unnatural in any language. The Michel Thomas method means you don't have to answer, so why introduce this unnatural language? 5) The course wastes a lot of time on "A man says?... And a woman says?" If she had used "he" and "she" more than "I", we could have learnt the gender system without nearly as much repetition. 6) The course wastes a lot of time teaching fairly random words of very limited us (luggage, newspaper, etc). MT taught the most common words and words that formed a pattern. Don't get me wrong -- this is better than most courses out there, but it's only half as good as a genuine "Michel Thomas" course, so why is it the same price?" Or this: "It's partly that the tutor doesn't seem to pay much attention to the students' pronunciation; for example, they constantly pronounce the Russian letter 'e' in an entirely English way, and are rarely corrected, and, to my ear, anyway, they seem constantly to get away with mistakes relating to 'hard' and 'soft' vowels and consonants - which are crucially important in Russian." Edited by Random review on 24 February 2014 at 3:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4719 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 12 of 34 24 February 2014 at 5:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Aha, I see what you mean now.
Yes, that happens, and yes, Natasha is not the best teacher from the MT method (nor is Michel Thomas IMHO), but I still think it's one of the best courses to get started with. Do you know any other programs similar to MT for Russian specifically? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4913 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 13 of 34 24 February 2014 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
The tutor of the Russian MT course may not pay close attention to the students' pronunciation, but Michel Thomas himself does a pretty poor job of it in the French course. In order to simplify things for his students (presumably), he teaches them to fudge the sound of un and une so that they sound the same, and the student doesn't need to know gender. For example, he teaches them to say the "n" in "Je voudrais encore un verre". So unfortunately, he teaches them to say the u sound of the masculine "un" and the n sound of the feminine "une" every time the article is used.
I'm sure the Russian MT course has its flaws, but so did the original MT courses; nevertheless those of us who used his courses learned a lot so we could overlook the flaws. My point for this thread is that every course has its shortcomings. The best way to use them is to be aware of the problems and get on with the learning. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5787 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 14 of 34 25 February 2014 at 2:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yeah, I actually remember Cainntear saying he screwed that one up, presumably because of his own imperfect knowledge of the French language. He also makes mistakes in his Spanish, Italian and German courses. None of the mistakes he makes in Spanish and German have long term consequences for the student (as long as you don't try to "learn" the course, which is not what they're designed for), I can't say for Italian.
Ha ha, if only I did! I would use it! For me MT is by far the best teacher; he's very far from the best polyglot, though. Edited by Random review on 25 February 2014 at 2:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4715 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 15 of 34 25 February 2014 at 2:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
There seems to be quite a bit of feedback on French and German MT. How about his Spanish
and Italian courses? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5379 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 16 of 34 25 February 2014 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I really liked his Spanish courses. I can only speak for the foundations and advanced Spanish courses. They were great. He has a "cha-cha" dance that he does to remember the past tenses and I still hear him "cha-cha"-ing when I have to think about it.
2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
