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Michel Thomas - where are they now? | ||
Tags: Audio-lingual | Michel Thomas | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4713 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 17 of 26 18 December 2013 at 12:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Were the core Michel Thomas courses (Spanish, German, French, Italian) re-recorded after
his death with someone else "teaching" his method? Or are there only native speakers for the courses bearing his name from other languages (Dutch, Russian, etc...)? I was just wondering if any of the original four were available for English speakers with a native teacher. Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5567 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 18 of 26 18 December 2013 at 12:44am | IP Logged | ||
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No - the original four are only available with Michel Thomas.
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| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4713 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 19 of 26 18 December 2013 at 12:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the clarification!
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| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5221 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 20 of 26 18 December 2013 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm following the MT Arabic as a revision when I'm in the car on my own. There is a female English teacher - and Ma'moud, a native Egyptian teaching assistant - the students are the usual one okay, one not so good.
I'm only onto the second CD but so far they haven't corrected the accent of the students at all though Ma'moud does repeat the majority of the phrases. It wasn't like that when I was first learning Arabic. I got to quite like the sound of the female student on the MT Spanish advanced. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5785 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 21 of 26 19 December 2013 at 2:24am | IP Logged | ||
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This thread makes gloomy reading for me. Some of the complaints about Thomas are valid: the students
can be annoying, his accent is mediocre for Spanish and Italian and poor for French (his German accent is pretty decent and presumably his Polish and Yiddish accents were native when he taught these languages to private clients...what a shame he never publicised a course for those two). Nevertheless, his courses are still (in spite of these faults) by far the best thing that exists for beginners. I'm not just saying that I think the new courses with native speakers are inferior, having experienced the difference (with the Greek course, the Portuguese course and part of thw Mandarin course) I put my money where my mouth is: I just would not use one of the new courses in a language I know nothing about (though they can be useful as a supplement if you already know some of the language). Let me give an example: I have an absolute burning curiosity regarding the Slavic languages (same goes for Arabic). I don't have time to study one but I'd really like to know how they work. If MT had produced a Polish course (a language he taught, I believe) I'd be using it so fast the CD's would have smoke coming off them...and yet I haven't used the MT Method Polish or Russian course because I do believe they would screw up my understanding of these languages (especially the sound system!) permanently (for the reasons explained by Cainntear). To be fair, Polish isn't even on my list of languages I want to someday learn (Russian emphatically is), so maybe it wouldn't matter so much if I did that course. It's not all doom and gloom, though. IMO the true heir to MT is the guy from languagetransfer.org (Mihalis). The best bit is that (while he's still learning), he already has found solutions to some of the problems with the original MT courses...and I'm talking real, creative solutions that don't undermine the whole method and make t into something completely different and less effective (Paul Noble, Rose Lee Hayden and Hodder & Stoughton, I'm looking at you guys here). 1) his Greek is native and his Spanish accent is superb. So no need for the confusion of having two teachers (one native). 2) No more annoying "slow" student. He teaches one student (the bright one). This avoids scripts (Paul Noble, Rose Lee Hayden) or heavy editing (the new MT Method courses) and thus keeps the method intact while making it less irritating. 3) by far the cleverest thing he does (at least in his Greek course, which is the inly one I've done) is to edit out some of the mistakes whilst keeping his corrections of them on the recording! This is nothing short of genius IMO. As Cainntear always argued, the student's mistakes are definitely necessary to force the teacher to pace the course right. With Mihalis' improvement, you keep this pacing mechanism but don't have to listen to so many mistakes. Sorry for the poor structure of this post. I'm working a lot as it's the festive season and wanted to say this while it was on my mind (rather than wait until January and maybe forget) Edited by Random review on 19 December 2013 at 2:31am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4673 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 22 of 26 19 December 2013 at 9:14am | IP Logged | ||
The Russian course is pretty good, although limited. Why would it screw up your understanding? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6381 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 26 19 December 2013 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think the Mandarin course is pretty good, too. It gives a good intro to the tones.
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| AKenny Newbie Ireland Joined 4015 days ago 10 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 24 of 26 19 December 2013 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah I listened through the first few discs of Mandarin and thought it was solid. I've
heard mixed reviews about the Polish one though. I don't know if it has been mentioned on here yet but it was interesting to see Hindi has been commissioned for release in Summer 2014 and according to their replies on facebook they have seriously been considering the production of a Swedish course. Cool to see they're going ahead with more courses anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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