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Why not try to remember MT material? | ||
Tags: Michel Thomas | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| SnowManR1 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5486 days ago 53 posts - 95 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 9 of 39 28 June 2012 at 6:25pm | IP Logged |
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As you mentioned above, I don’t see any harm in replaying the audio…even multiple times. Sometimes I prefer the “grind” method with certain language programs. The only consequence of doing this would be a wonderful pronunciation.
Also, if you like you could go to Michel Thomas’ website and download the PDF booklets. They have one for each program: Introduction, Foundation, Advanced, Language Builder & Vocabulary. Click the “FAQ” section and its there under a “here” link. I read along to assign the correct pronunciation with the word. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| osoymar Tetraglot Pro Member United States Joined 4734 days ago 190 posts - 344 votes Speaks: English*, German, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Spanish, French Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 39 28 June 2012 at 6:45pm | IP Logged |
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On a side note, I try to avoid recalling certain things unless I have the means to test
whether I'm correct or not, at avoid fossilization. The best example of this is gender in nouns. I often use idle time to think about recent things I've watched, read, or listened to in my TL, and try to recall and reformulate them. It's barely conscious at this point. However, since I'm not talking to a native speaker there's no way to check that what I'm saying is correct- and really trying to remember whether, for example, I should say "der Hai" or "das Hai" can leave me with a jumbled memory. So if I don't have the patience or means to check which is correct, I try to let it go, and trust that I'll look it up later. I don't think this is what MT is getting at (he says so himself) but I've found it invaluable to avoid fossilizing incorrect patterns. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6781 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 11 of 39 28 June 2012 at 8:45pm | IP Logged |
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I find this formulation very odd. "You must not try to remember" could mean two things a)
do not memorize b) when I ask you "how do you say" don't try to remember. Clearly it doesn't mean b) so why not state it more clearly? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 12 of 39 29 June 2012 at 12:00am | IP Logged |
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If you try (or try excessively hard) to remember then that will cause stress and worry,
and that is not compatible with a healthy learning style. But I think it goes without saying (or it did for me) that you will want to repeat the course, as many times as seems useful, or as a refresher after being away from the language for some time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4669 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 39 29 June 2012 at 8:31am | IP Logged |
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For the same reason Pimsleur says not to use a transcript. Idiotic marketing scheme. But my favorite MT line is
"learning is not your responsibility". 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nakrian keegiat Diglot Groupie Thailand Joined 4905 days ago 70 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English*, Thai Studies: Russian | Message 14 of 39 29 June 2012 at 10:08am | IP Logged |
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Mine is:
"There are no bad students...just bad teachers" 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| freakyaye Senior Member Australia Joined 4836 days ago 107 posts - 152 votes | Message 15 of 39 29 June 2012 at 3:51pm | IP Logged |
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I think he means, during the recording, that he wants one to focus on sound and trying to
develop an instant recall instead of translating in your head (which can slow everything down) or writing things down in the lesson (which again, slows everything down). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5781 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 16 of 39 30 June 2012 at 2:22am | IP Logged |
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Great idea for a thread!
Numerodix is spot on with his/her distinction between remebering as in memorising and remembering as in recalling. 1) As regards trying to memorise it's absolutely counterproductive with these courses and as someone who has used them and loves them (and who does indeed try to memorise with other courses) I strongly recommend that you just do not do it! (a) The course is designed to teach you grammar, a few phonemes that are difficult for English speakers (as they don't exist in English) and certain core thought patterns, it is not designed to teach vocabulary let alone idiom and natural speech. IMO it is by far the best thing out there for this, but using it for anything else is like trying to cook an omelette with screw driver. There is enough practice in them that the grammar will stick. There is not enough for all the vocabulary to stick but if you're serious about the language this doesn't matter. It's not what the course is for. (b) As has been pointed out MT's accent is not great. This is absolutely not a problem if you use the course as designed; it is a problem if you start trying to learn the course. (c) Like all courses there may be the occasional mistake, more importantly quite a few of the sentences (while technically correct) are not natural. This is deliberate. The grammar is presented in a certain order and with a certain timing for a very good reason and if he had waited until he had taught you enough to use natural-sounding sentences it would have screwed up the timing and order. The grammar knowledge you come away with is entirely correct and normal; but, to take an extreme example, you're really NOT going to want to put these sentences in your srs deck! 2) Remembering as in recalling what you previously learned so as to use it. Obviously the course would not work without this, but most people only use the phrase, "trying to remember" when effort or strain is involved (otherwise we tend to just say, "I remembered"!). Again the course is designed for you to relax and not strain. If you couldn't remember the right word but you could remember the grammar correctly then don't sweat it- you're not learning vocabulary here. If you couldn't remember the grammar then do not strain to remember, press play and listen to the answer. If you then get an "aha" sensation then Thomas recommended that everything was fine and you should continue; if you still don't get it then you drifted off for a moment- simply take the CD back a few tracks until you find where you drifted off and then start again from there. In sum: please don't try to remember ;-) One last thing, be careful with repeating these courses for two reasons. The first is what I outlined about unnatural sentence patterns. The second is that people have found they start learning the mistakes the students make. If you absolutely must repeat them use the review courses. Unnatural sentences: a friend of mine (a very intelligent, well-educated man) has a Spanish girlfriend and wanted to learn a little Spanish. I recommended he start with Michel Thomas. He then (and remember this is an intelligent, well-educated man we're talking about here) spent several months learning the first 2 CDs of the foundation course before regaling his girlfriend with such gems as: "es posible pero no es aceptable para mí así" in the genuine (I'm not kidding!) expectation that she'd be impressed. Her unsurprising response was that nobody talks like that and the course was rubbish. What happened next is a bit off topic, but I can't resist the urge to give the story closure: resisting the urge to pull my hair out I suggested he try Assimil (if I remember correctly he said she had recommended the same thing), but he said he couldn't spare half an hour a day. At this point I realised he wasn't seriously interested in learning the language and left the subject. Edited by Random review on 30 June 2012 at 3:18am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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