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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 |  | |
| Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4548 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 25 of 39 02 July 2012 at 12:04am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Random Review wrote : Do you know of any other course that 13 hours in has students
forming their own sentences with the imperfect subjunctive?! ************************************************************ *************************** ** Well, no....Unless you mean just something like "Yo quisiera un café," in which case both Behind The Wheel and Learn in Your Car Spanish do teach the use of those kind of constructions even quicker than that. But if Michel Thomas effectively teaches trickier uses of the imp. subjunctive (meaning pretty much any other type of construction in it) in that length of time, that's truly impressive. I knew that the course wasn't appropriate for my level, and the sample I listened to was probably from the beginning of the course as well. I was just curious about it, mainly because people I know sometimes ask me for advice as to what resources they should use when starting to learn Spanish. I believe that I can remember what it was like in my own beginning phase well enough to form some sort of judgement as to whether a not a program for that level seems worthwhile. It's true that the sample I heard was likely too short for me to have a fully informed judgement, but it definitely was sufficient to convince me that the course should not be used with the grind/over- learning method (and from what you've written, I see that you agree on that.) I guess I hijacked the thread a bit, and was somewhat too vociferous in what I wrote. It was in the wee hours and I'd had a few drinks:) Edited by Gala on 02 July 2012 at 12:06am 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 26 of 39 02 July 2012 at 1:07am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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No, I mean proper sentences using the imperfect subjunctive such as in "if clauses".
This is a public thread, not a log, so I don't see how you could hijack it, I think this is a really important topic so the more viewpoints the better. I hope it wasn't me who made you feel that way (far from my intention). :-) EDIT: If anything, on reading this thread over it's my posts that sound a bit aggressive (totally unintentionally!), not yours. One of the reasons I have such strong views on this is that I really love this product, so can I take this opportunity to encourage you to try this in a language you don't know well.
Edited by Random review on 02 July 2012 at 1:42am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| csidler Diglot Pro Member Australia chadsidler.com Joined 4821 days ago 51 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 27 of 39 03 July 2012 at 12:29am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The real issue with repeating the course, is that you might start to learn/memorize the phrases, rather than
genuinely respond to the questions. So you arent really answering them (thinking it out, as Michel puts it) but simply parroting/echoing a response that you have already heard from having already done it. The reason Michel says to not try remembering or repeat it is because this induces tension that prevents effective leArning, an example Michel refers to is when people "forget" a phone number or fact and say things like "it is on the tip if my tongue..." but try as they might they can not remember, and that knowledge is pushed further and further away. The minute you stop trying to recall (no pun intended) that persons number, and turn your thoughts elsewhere, that is when u generally remember it without consciously trying, "it just comes to you" The real issue I think is some people do the first 5tracks of a cd, and before finishing the rest of the cd, come back the next day to redo the first 5... This will not help. I know you have your own way of doing things, but Michel is amazing, you must respect him, listen to him and do not disobey him! Michel in his teaching always told his pupils not to put any expectations on themselves at the end of a day to remember anything the next day, and those students were surprised when they got there the next day that they remembered... Everything. If you aren't finding this to be the case for yourself, then I suggest that perhaps when you Dio the courses your mind is distracted - perhaps you are driving, browsing the Internet .. It is important to remove all distractions and give it your complete attention, then it will work! 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5189 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 28 of 39 03 July 2012 at 6:56am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I don't get all the hate on MT's accent. Am I the only one who actually enjoyed listening to his voice? My goal from following the course wasn't to learn mimic a native accent or memorize his material by listening to it 500 times. I just wanted an introduction to the grammar and important verbs and then move on to other materials. I find that I thrive on variety, not repetition. I feel that if people are letting MT's accent get in the way of learning, then they probably aren't all that eager to learn his concepts, regardless of purity of pronunciation. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4669 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 29 of 39 03 July 2012 at 8:09am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
People think the course is great because it teaches a hell of a lot of grammar in just a few hours. That’s all. Everything else is pretty controversial. Personally, I love the course, and I hate to see people treat it like some sort of magic trick. I always get a kick out of being pegged as a “program X” hater just because I don’t buy all the propaganda, and often criticize it.
I agree that to get maximum benefit from the program, you shouldn’t struggle with the vocabulary. In fact, I think I already said something like that. That’s why you should memorize the vocabulary.
I think most true beginners who don’t memorize the vocabulary beforehand are going to struggle with it. Occasionally with similar languages, and more often with dissimilar languages. False beginners and above might be just fine, but it’s a good idea to scan the transcript beforehand to make sure. For an example, here’s what I did the first time I went through MT Russian. I went to the transcript, about 4 lessons ahead of my current lesson, and wrote out the unknown vocabulary for that day. I memorized it, reviewed it daily until the lesson came up, then stuck it into an SRS. The lessons went as smooth as silk.
I’m not sure what your straw man is doing here, so I’m going to assume that you think it’s bad to jot down an unknown word when you stop the CD. I disagree. I don’t do it this way, but I see nothing wrong with jotting down the words, and learning them after the lesson. It wouldn’t be as smooth as learning them ahead of time. But it’s always a good idea to repeat the whole course at a later date, maybe a month or two down the road, so you will be paving the way for a seamless run at that time. That’s one of the great things about the course – it’s very short; repeating it isn’t much of a burden, and every time I’ve done it I’ve felt it’s worth my while.
If you want to do a single language learning activity for 6 or 7 hours straight, more power to you. But please don’t hold others to your standards. One CD a day is fine. Even skipping a day on occasion is fine. Implying that there is something wrong with learners who don’t want to do your marathon sessions is odd.
Did you really mean to say “you” here? I think you meant “my straw man”.
My reason is the only correct reason. And someone would need to repeat the lessons frequently to develop this problem. The course definitely should be repeated for maximum benefit. I recommend at least a month before repeating, just to be on the safe side. I bet Cainntear did it a lot more frequently than that, and I bet that problem would go right away as long as he was getting enough exposure to actually learn the language. And who uses Michel Thomas to model pronunciation? Your straw man? It’s a very short program. Advise your beginners not to try to speak Spanish with a Polish accent if you must, but please don’t tell people that there is something inherently wrong with repeating the course. It’s impossible to Murphy-proof any course, but provided they don’t go repeat-happy in short intervals, repeating is good. I did the Russian Foundation course(8CDs) twice, the advanced course(5CDs) 3 times, and the vocabulary course(4CDs) 4 times. Like I said, I got something out of each repeat, and was glad I did it. I waited at least a month between each repeat. All the repeats of the Basic and Advanced courses were done without stopping the CD – that is what the course is designed for. Repeating is not a sign of failure. The courses are so chocked full of information, it’s almost guaranteed you will pick up something that you missed before. Even just doing the review is a great help. After all, it’s been proven that it’s good to mix some easy stuff in with the hard stuff. I have done MT French, Mandarin, Japanese and Russian, all approximately the same way. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4548 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 30 of 39 03 July 2012 at 9:51am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Who could argue with that logic? Edited by Gala on 03 July 2012 at 9:51am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| gravityguy Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4535 days ago 56 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 31 of 39 03 July 2012 at 10:30am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Doing 6 or 7 hours for me is just not possible. I leave the house at 7:30 in the morning and I'm not back until about 18:30, by the time I've had my dinner it's about 19:30. If I did 6 hours that would take me to 1:30 in the morning! Maybe if I was out of work and on benefits I may be able to spend that much time doing it but fortunately I'm not. Also as a personal point, if I do more than hour at a time (2 at the most) then I begin to feel like it's not going in as effectively. With regards to repeating, I had to go back 3 tracks on CD 2 as I just couldn't answer his questions when I got to CD 3 and I feel that this helped a lot; so I don't see how this can be a bad thing. I have also had a couple of days off here and there and I still don't think that it has hampered my learning. Hopefully I will have CD 5 finished by the end of today :) 2 persons have 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 32 of 39 03 July 2012 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
It shouldn't be necessary, I started Spanish and German with MT and also did the French and Italian courses for fun. I have no talent for languages and don't have a particularly great memory. If you just relax the course is designed so that you won't have that trouble
OK, now I get what is happenning here, MT Russian is not a real MT course, I struggled to remember vocabulary with MT Greek. I even repeated the course! With the exception of Dutch you need to adapt the new MT Method courses and your suggestions might be good ones. I'm even currently trying to think of a way to edit out the voices of the students so that I can go through the Greek course for a 3rd time. With the original 4 courses (Spanish, German, French and Italian) that were done by MT himself I stand by what I said earlier.
I'm not trying to set up a straw man: you are trying to remember (regardless of how you are doing it) and that creates tension, MT said so himself. Where's the straw man?
Many good reasons have been given on this thread why repeating should be treated with caution.
My standards?! I can't and don't do that with any other material (except L-R), but with MT it's just easier that way and I believe it works better and wanted to help people. If it's not easier for them then so be it. I never said that there was anything wrong with people who don't do it that way; what I was trying to say was that if you are not enjoying it enough that you don't want to put it down (regardless of whether you do or not) you're not getting the full power of the method. I stand by this.[/QUOTE]
I mean you. I never set up a straw man: were you trying to remember or not?
But some people DO repeat frequently. And some people DO complain about the accent. I'm trying to help these people. I don't think your reason is the only correct reason, but as you don't develop any arguments against the other reasons I don't know what else to say.
Who said it was? Notice, though, that what you say above implies you are trying to learn the contents of the course and THAT is precisely what I claim is a bad idea.
I love MT's accent and agree 100% with what you write above, that is exactly how I think the courses should be used.
I don't agree and I think MT is such a great product that half of what I have written above is with these people in mind, to try and encourage them not to miss out. @ gravityguy: I also work. If you can't do it on your days off then you can do it when you're on holiday, if that's not possible then obviously you have to do sessions that are possible for you. I wasn't saying it only works if you do it that way, what I meant was that if you are not enjoying yourself so much that you WANT to keep on going (regardless of whether that is possible for you) then you are not getting the full power of the method IMO. EDIT: @gravity guy: if you feel it stops going in as effectively after an hour or so then of course you should do what works for you. Continuing would only create tension and interfere with your learning. Sorry, dude. I didn't mean to sound dogmatic about long sessions.
It's not. It's exactly what MT recommended. I was talking about repeating the whole course. Edited by Random review on 03 July 2012 at 3:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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