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Collins Paul Noble Language series | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6169 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes  Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 33 of 51 21 October 2010 at 12:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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As a complete beginner to any kind of second language - including at school, I was as dumb as the students on the Michel Thomas course. I can scoff at them all I like now, but they are an interesting and reassuring studytool, study partner. It also adds enormously to the entertainment factor. A similar thing has just happened with the new episode of coffee break french and the fun factor does drop when you remove the students.
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| 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 34 of 51 10 November 2010 at 9:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Has anyone seen the ads appearing on Google and Amazon for the Paul Noble courses?
Learn the Paul Noble Way Tried Michel Thomas? New Spanish & French Audio Courses from Collins That's a pretty poor show. If you're not logged in, it shows up on practically every thread that mentions MT.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 35 of 51 10 November 2010 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This confirms my initial impression from their packaging that they were deliberately trying to make it look like the MT courses, as I said earlier in this thread I was dumbstruck when I saw it. I was always a bit p*@@d off at MT for being so paranoid about people stealing his method, since the delay this caused resulted in his being unable to complete his courses before passing on. I see now that I was unfair, and he was spot on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7122 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 36 of 51 18 November 2010 at 10:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You're probably thinking of Colin Rose's courses. I once bought a 'Superlearning' language 'course' (I use the term loosly!) to see what all the fuss was about, because that was supposed to be based upon the Suggestopedia idea that I had allowed myself to become so gullibly fascinated with in my innocent youth. It was useless! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 37 of 51 06 December 2010 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Harold Goodman also seems to be quite angry about the whole thing, which suggests we were right to think it is copying. link
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| 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 38 of 51 06 December 2010 at 10:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
They'd be better off calling it "plagiarism", particularly if they're professional language teachers. Also, he's setting himself up for a massive lawsuit if he starts badmouthing his competitors. Posting reviews of competitors products is a massive no-no. Anyway, this is a particularly silly thing to say:
Harper Collins are a professional publishing house so you can be pretty sure that they went over all the IP issues and no what they're doing. A) Michel Thomas's patent is solely for having a recorded class and telling the listener to use the pause button. As I understand it, Paul Noble's courses have preprogrammed gaps (no pause button) and no recordings of other learners. The patent is irrelevant. B) "numerous copyrights" -- this displays a significant level of ignorance of the nature of intellectual property. Each and every creative work is protected by copyright. There is no such thing as "a copyright", so there's no such thing as "numerous copyrights". Noble has not copied individual sentences, or the overall ordering of teaching. Copyright does not cover a methodology, just the final material. Noble has made significant changes to the ordering of the material, so he is not infringing on anyone's copyright. Now, as for the point that Noble doesn't credit Thomas... well, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, because the name Michel Thomas is now a trademark, so if he was to give credit to Thomas, he would effectively be marketing his material by using a competitor's trademark. This would certainly see him taken to court. If I ever was to write a language course, I'd want to credit Thomas, but because of this I'd probably only namecheck him as Moniek Kroskof, but even then, I'd still have to check with a lawyer first. 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 39 of 51 06 December 2010 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Also, listening to the free sample from the Collins website, Noble has made some of the same mistakes as are common in the posthumous Thomas courses. Which is kind of ironic when one of the post-Thomas teachers is moaning about the course....
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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 40 of 51 06 December 2010 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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OK, well what about Goodman's assertion that his review on Amazon was removed? I take your points, but frankly I think the law's an ass when it comes to Intellectual Property, so I don't really CARE if it's legal or not- I care whether it is RIGHT. The fact that many perfectly ethical things are illegal, and v.v is neither here nor there for me, and in my opinion it's just not right how he has gone about this.
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