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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 41 of 185 18 June 2008 at 7:54am | IP Logged |
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Agreed, I'm far more likely to say MT things like "I would have done it if you had told me you needed it" rather than normal course stuff like "Is the station far from the hotel?"
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| tpark Tetraglot Pro Member Canada Joined 7047 days ago 118 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English*, German, Dutch, French Personal Language Map | Message 42 of 185 18 June 2008 at 3:51pm | IP Logged |
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Yes - many of the things that people talk about are past tense. When using a language as a tourist, it makes sense to first learn basic phrases like "Is the station far from the hotel", "Where are the toilets", but when sitting and chatting with friends, narrative language and descriptive language are used much more. Anecdotes come from the past, plans reach into the future, conditional events are discussed. The MT materials are useful in that they explain how tense works in an easy to understand manner. Using MT materials should help one to better understand and use their target language in other ways than basic tourist talk.
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| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6152 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 43 of 185 19 June 2008 at 5:17am | IP Logged |
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I find Michel Thomas ideal when you want to speak the language, and not get stuck, trying to form the sentences in your head. A lot of courses, will have you able to rattle of phrases, but when you try to vary it, you start thinking, which preposition am I meant to use, or have I got the word order correct. His courses allow you to conjugate verbs very quickly in your head. His method is like doing FSI drills, but with very good memory hooks, explanations, and much greater variety.
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| ymapazagain Senior Member Australia myspace.com/amywiles Joined 6960 days ago 504 posts - 538 votes Speaks: English* Studies: SpanishB2 | Message 44 of 185 20 June 2008 at 2:29am | IP Logged |
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Just a quick question about using Michel Thomas. I have gone through the first disk of the Russian course but I only have the disks, not the other materials/instructions. Is the idea just to keep going through until you reach the end or is it better to repeat each disk until you're 100% with it?
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| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6081 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 45 of 185 20 June 2008 at 2:42am | IP Logged |
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I would go through the whole course until the end UNLESS you are finding a certain part difficult later on.
For example: You understand the future tense and go past it, but later on you are finding it difficult, at which point i reccommend reviewing that section. Usually you get 90%+ in a disk, so you dont really need to improve like that. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 46 of 185 20 June 2008 at 4:22am | IP Logged |
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Michel Thomas is only discs! (The accompanying booklet is merely an index.)
You'll probably need to repeat some of it, but 100% is completely unnecessary. Not only will you get bored while doing it, but the course is designed so as to continually revise and build on your earlier knowledge, so you'll continue to be bored by the new material, as the students on the CD will still be learning stuff that you know. How much you need to repeat depends on how quickly you do it. If you work through it in two days (as the students on the recording did), you won't need to repeat a thing. If you do a disc each day, you probably still won't need to repeat anything. If I was only able to work on it for a couple of hours each week, I'd probably redo the last half hour from the week before and an hour or so of new material each week. With this course, the less repetition you do, the better you're learning, so go through the course as quickly as you can. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| andrewm Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6014 days ago 40 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian | Message 47 of 185 22 June 2008 at 7:22pm | IP Logged |
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I'd have say that trying to do the full Michel Thomas course in two days is simply too much. You need to give your mind some time to digest what you have been taught, be it subconciously. I'd say a couple of weeks should see you work steadily through the course, allowing you time to subconciously digest what you have been taught. People always seem to expect everything to come so fast and by doing it in two days you are, in my opinion, quite substantially rushing the course.
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| Rollo the Cat Groupie United States Joined 6035 days ago 77 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Russian, Ancient Greek | Message 48 of 185 22 June 2008 at 8:20pm | IP Logged |
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I think 1 lesson per day is good. That means about 1-1.5 hours per day for about two weeks.
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