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The Michel Thomas Method? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| BenMilim Triglot Newbie Germany benmilim.blogspot.co Joined 4703 days ago 25 posts - 30 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishC1, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Modern Hebrew, French | Message 1 of 30 27 July 2012 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've been reading a lot about MT courses in various languages. As with all other
courses, some people seem to prefer this method, while some people can't stand it. I'm not too familiar with it myself, but from what I gathered so far it's basically audio only: you listen to "authentic" classroom discussions with no or very few grammar explanations. You listen to the teacher and repeat what they say. You also listen to the students who tend to make mistakes which the teacher corrects. I guess that's the short version of it. Could someone perhaps elaborate a bit more on the method? And share their experiences? I mainly used Assimil so far and I love their way of teaching to bits. I prefer having descriptions of grammar, though not in textbook format. I also love that they take excerpts from classics (at least in their current Russian course) and help you tackle the language that way. I'm eager to try the MT method but I'm full of doubts. Could someone maybe compare the two with a pro/con list? How is grammar explained in MT courses? How do you find out about the spelling of things if it's audio only? What level does a complete MT package take you to? Assimil claims to get you to B2, though I'm not sure I believe that. I could agree with B1 + limited vocab. Are the MT vocab courses any good? Sorry for the wall of text, I'm kind of bad at summarizing my thoughts... Please share yours. :) 1 person has 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 2 of 30 27 July 2012 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you've already done Assiml, MT will be boring.
I tried the Portuguese course recently and was pleasantly surprised... at how much I knew hehe. Um. I was surprised that the pronunciation is quite good (it wasn't recorded by MT himself who's known for his strong accent) and they used a native speaker, also the students' accent didn't sound American at all, from their mistakes I think they both have studied Spanish, and one has also studied Italian. IDK, the main thing I dislike about this method is that it's translation-based. Also I found it a bit unstructured, so that even if I wouldn't have minded working more on a couple of grammar topics, I'd have to listen to the review files in order to find which CD (ahem, folder in my case) they were on, then find them in the folder and then listen to a large part of the CD, including irrelevant things that I already know. I've been mostly learning Portuguese naturally, so naturally that I haven't even done much Assimil. So after trying MT and online exercises for grammar, I finally came back to good old Anki and cloze deletions. (doesn't have to be massive...) I think it's the best way to work on your grammar if you have a lot of passive knowledge. Oh and the spelling!!! At least in the Portuguese course, they spell words using English names of letters. Ewww. It wouldn't take too long to teach the Portuguese ones! I was surprised that they taught about the corresponding Latin/Romance affixes and carefully led you to guessing the Portuguese translations, but that's something that wouldn't work so well in a non-Romance language. In what sense are you "eager" to try it? As in: "I'm very curious about the course and I want to do it"? Or: "I really want to learn the language and if MT is a must, I'm ready"? If you're curious, satisfy your curiosity. Edited by Serpent on 27 July 2012 at 5:09pm 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 3 of 30 27 July 2012 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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While Assimil takes you "only" to B1, that's still further than any course alone will take you.
If you supplement Assimil with extensive reading (graded readers/easy and/or familiar books) and listening, I can't see why it won't take you to B2. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BenMilim Triglot Newbie Germany benmilim.blogspot.co Joined 4703 days ago 25 posts - 30 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishC1, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Modern Hebrew, French | Message 4 of 30 27 July 2012 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for the input, Serpent! I'll probably give it a try, just to see how it
works, maybe it's -the- method for me. Like you said, it's probably best to satisfy one's curiosity and then simply move on if it's not one's cup of tea. Don't get me wrong, I love Assimil to bits, especially because it actually takes you further than any other coure I've encountered. And I simply love the way it works. Though I wish it would teach a little more vocab, but I guess there's more emphasis on vocab in the "Using XY" courses? Any idea about the MT vocab courses? I don't mind if they spell words using the English names of letters, I guess that does reduce confusion in the early stages of learning. I just hope it's unlike Pimsleur, which might teach you to speak vaguely accent free, but you won't be able to read anything in the target language. Always looking for more opinions, please share yours. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5559 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 5 of 30 27 July 2012 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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You don't repeat after the students, you pause the audio and have to come up with the translation before them.
There aren't in depth grammar explanations, but you are obviously told sufficient practical grammar that you can do the translations. It is introduced in a simple step by step way, so, for example, rather than telling you all the verb endings right away, he just starts with the simplest and commonest and then when that pattern is learned, he introduces the next concept. It sounds fairly obvious, but the way he gradually builds up your knowledge almost unconsciously is the core of the technique. (his continually trying to avoid mentioning grammatical terms is a bit annoying, like having to think of new ways to say "infinitive" all the time: "the base verb", "the dictionary form" etc) He also uses a relatively small vocabulary and lots of cognates, so that you can spend more time practicing grammatical structures, while not being confused by having to remember new vocab at the same time. I did the Spanish course, which is good but his voice is really annoying, and the (with different author) Dutch course, which was excellent. Edited by schoenewaelder on 27 July 2012 at 6:09pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7143 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 6 of 30 27 July 2012 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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You can get a feel for the actual contents, as well as the structure, for the Michel Thomas courses in the four "original" languages offered (French, Spanish, Italian, and German) from this website: http://web.archive.org/web/20091027000314/http://geocities.c om/joekane765/ Edited by daristani on 27 July 2012 at 5:56pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4664 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 7 of 30 27 July 2012 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | ||
I've used MT Foundation for Japanese and Pimsleur I,II,III for Japanese. Both were good for getting me to actually speak. MT was stronger on grammar but the course was much shorter (~8hrs vs ~45 for Pimsleur). Pimsleur almost ignores grammar but teaches by breaking words down into syllables. Neither of them taught any spellings. I found them both to be very useful; I'll certainly try to go over them again when I get the chance. Whether I'll want to use them again six months from now is unclear. So, as a near-absolute beginner to Japanese I found them useful. If you want vocab I'd look at Memrise. If you want grammar then I expect you'll need some language-specific resource. The really cool thing now that wasn't around twenty years ago is obviously the wealth of (mostly free) Internet resources for language learning at almost all levels. 2 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 8 of 30 27 July 2012 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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As for the vocab builder, as far as I understand it's basically like an audio phrasebook. It was done after his death and goes against his principles. I don't think I've seen a good review about it.
I know using XYZ teaches an idiom in every lesson... Audio courses aren't good for reading:) You do need extensive reading, whether you initially use simple texts, translations, popup dictionaries and whatnot or just dive straight in. It also seems like a more traditional textbook with dialogues and long(ish) texts would be a good choice for you. In general, I'd recommend trying out MT for a relatively new language, supplemented by a lot of listening (so that your accent didn't suffer). However if you have Russian in mind for this... there's probably no such thing as too much practice, eh? ;) Even we native speakers practise some things a lot, like declinations of numbers for example. (that's falling into disuse really, but it'll take a few more generations before it becomes unnecessary to know) Also, he was a native speaker of Polish so his Russian accent can't have been too bad. I'd avoid it for French in which it's supposedly really important to have a good accent, at least if you go to Paris:-) Yeah, spaced repetition is great though Memrise may or may not be your thing. Edited by Serpent on 27 July 2012 at 6:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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