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Why does Michel Thomas work? | ||
Tags: Michel Thomas | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes  Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 17 29 September 2012 at 6:10am | IP Logged | ||
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There have been some very good points raised here. I wish I had more time to study
each day; it would have been easier to incorporate Michel Thomas/Pimsleur/FSI earlier. Since I wrote my earlier post, I spent some time reading Spanish with Ease. I seem to be processing object and indirect object pronouns differently and better than a few days ago, and MT hasn't even taught all of them so far. Very weird. Michel Thomas may be great, but I also think I needed a change from Assimil. Variety may be more important than I realized. It seems like there is plenty of material in Assimil, but maybe I really have beaten it into the ground, overlearning parts of it more than actually helps language learning. While I've learned languages before, I guess I'm a beginner at this "learn from a book/course" learning. This is very different from learning Samoan as a Peace Corps volunteer, or learning Tagalog in an refugee camp. steve corrected bad grammar Edited by sfuqua on 29 September 2012 at 4:38pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 10 of 17 29 September 2012 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 11 of 17 29 September 2012 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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The "multi-track" approach is what I use. See a word/phrase/idiom in a book- ok. Hear it in a podcast- better, come across it again in a song, a film or a conversation and it's mine. I enjoy that way more than I would flashcards or Anki. That's why I believe a course should be primarily used as a foundation and not as the "begin all and end all" of language learning- no matter how well liked the course may be.
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| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5390 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 12 of 17 29 September 2012 at 9:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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What I think is effective about Michel Thomas is that he pares his course down to a lot
of high frequency words (verbs especially) and gets you linking it together naturally. Once you go through MT, modal verbs (can, want, have to, would like to, etc) plus infinitives seem to roll off the tongue, relative clauses are pretty simple, direct/indirect object pronouns are simple and all these get drilled ad nauseum. From my experience learning language in high school, all these were taught as seperate units (and some took several years to get to) and so they just didn't flow together naturally. As for Assimil, I find that it is really dense compared to MT. One line in one dialogue will cover what he worked on for half a CD so you see a lot more but it's not mastered. Plus I think the focus on oral repetition makes you remember it better. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 13 of 17 30 September 2012 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Michel Thomas encourages you to think out sentences in the target language, not memorise lists of vocabulary (which is vital, but can be done on your own). I actually think many learners place too much emphasis on vocabulary in the early stages. They end up knowing a bunch of words but being able to do little with them. Building sentences with verbs is the key to unlocking a language and it gives you the impression you are making progress. Michel gets you building simple sentences from the outset and you start believing in youself, hey I'm speaking the language!
I know no Italian but I tried a short sample of MT Italian and I was saying things like "It is not possible for me to do it" within 10 minutes. I felt like I was actually doing well, despite the fact I'd only covered a tiny amount. Confidence is a huge factor in language learning. If you convince yourself that you "can't do languages" or that your target language is "the hardest in the world" then that will hold you back, big time. MT also focusses heavily on words that are similar to their English counterparts. Again, this demystifies the language and makes it less alien to beginners. Edited by beano on 30 September 2012 at 12:15pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 17 03 October 2012 at 5:23am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm about 20 minutes from the end of MT Spanish foundation, and I continue to be amazed
at the improvement in my Spanish. I'm repeating about every other track twice to get it perfect; I still haven't seen any completely unfamiliar grammar or vocabulary, but somehow when I get MT's little spiel about it, I start using it. What a profoundly satisfying learning experience! Have I spent the last 6 months needing to spend 20 hours or so getting my verb conjugation and pronouns straight? Was that all that was holding up my productive skills? I think I must have learned some from MT, or more likely organized what I already knew into a more coherent form. I also think that the constant need to produce accurate sentences, without time pressure, has forced me to put things together in my head. If anybody in the future sees this thread, and you are wondering why you can't break into the intermediate Spanish level, even though you've worked a lot, I would recommend giving MT a try if you haven't tried him already. Even at a point where there is little content that is actually new, MT can help. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Rout Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5711 days ago 326 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish Studies: Hindi | Message 15 of 17 11 October 2012 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
Haha, if only it were that simple. However, I can assure you that, unfortunately, this is not the case. I did things in the reverse order for Spanish, (MT first then went through an Assimil type course while, at the same, time doing Madrigal's), and while I agree MT is good, I now am pretty certain that it should be done after an annotated, observational, dialogue-like book (Assimil, Linguaphone, etc.). After doing MT alone, I could cobble things together but with zero fluency. Contrast this to my German (I did Pimsleur, Assimil, then MT) and I could speak pretty confidently throughout, each day adding new vocabulary and more complex structure to my thoughts and conversations. What MT does, is it gives you the gives you the ability to break things down and analyze, but it's not very helpful for speech if you don't already know how to speak. That is to say, if you work through Pimsleur or shadow Assimil (or preferably both, in that order, if you have the time) then you will be able to speak, albeit imperfectly. After working through MT, you'll have then added structure, review (in a very short amount of time), you'll have cemented your understanding of what you already know, and you'll be able to more flexibly (and confidently) manipulate and recombine words and clauses. I remember working through MT after doing some non-grammar intensive courses for German and thinking the same thing you thought - "where was this course when I first started!?" Afterwards, I decided to use it straight from the beginning for French, completed it, made it half-way through some other materials and then aborted the language. Everytime I'd try to speak, I'd over analyze things. I thought it was a fluke so I tried it again for Russian - same result. At this time, I chose instead to blame my mind for losing its sharpness, and, worse, blame the language itself for being boring (after my breakthrough in German with MT, I was certain this was the case). I gave it one more shot (at this point I was pretty pissed off at myself) and did MT Spanish, but this time I kept pushing, and though my Spanish is getting there, I don't feel it's where it would be had I started out in the order I'd prescribed earlier (the one I did for German - dialogues then structure). To test this hypothesis, I started Japanese (I know - a lot of languages - but have you looked in the mirror lately?) using the methods (and order) I did for German. And guess what? My Japanese is chugging along pretty nicely! The way I heard someone say it is, Pimsleur is like learning like a little kid (and sounding like one :p) and MT is like going to school (after you know how to speak [kinda]). If I might add, Assimil is like chatting with your friends between classes. ;) I guess I should add that this was with my own personal learning style, but I'm sure I'm not alone. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 16 of 17 11 October 2012 at 12:48am | IP Logged | ||
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