zack Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 122 posts - 127 votes Speaks: German*, English, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin
| Message 17 of 405 29 May 2005 at 6:27pm | IP Logged |
Eric wrote:
I did get something useful out of the CD though, Michel Thomas claims that every English word that ends in "ent" or "ant" is the same in Spanish you just add another e or a.
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Huh? Are you sure that's what he claims? Because if he does he's teaching you something false. A few counterexamples that come to mind: management, entertainment, containment, conversant, employment, ...
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morprussell Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7161 days ago 272 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French
| Message 18 of 405 30 May 2005 at 2:03am | IP Logged |
Eric wrote:
I did get something useful out of the CD though, Michel Thomas claims that every English word that ends in "ent" or "ant" is the same in Spanish you just add another e or a.
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Are you thinking of Spanish words ending in "-ción" that are often the same as the word in English with a "-tion" ending? Careful... they are not always the same though.
Edited by morprussell on 30 May 2005 at 11:32am
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arnz Newbie United States Joined 7203 days ago 38 posts - 44 votes
| Message 19 of 405 30 May 2005 at 2:43pm | IP Logged |
I'm sure Eric made a mistake by saying that Michel says "every word". I have the french one and he does the same thing basically, where he says words that end in -ary can be converted by making them go up the air...example military becomes militaire. However he makes it clear that it works for some words only. What he is doing is giving you confidence by letting the average listener know that they already know more words than they suppose in the target language.
By that rule, government would be governmente which is ridiculous :)
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lola Groupie Joined 7150 days ago 63 posts - 65 votes
| Message 20 of 405 30 May 2005 at 4:49pm | IP Logged |
I actually use that kind of approach to guess words I don't really know in English. Knowing the 'rule of thumb' about those endings, you can try to make a new word up when you need to use it (normally in an informal conversation with no dictionaries at hand), and sometimes you will be right. Even if you are not, by context your listener may be able to understand and give you the right word...
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Sir Nigel Senior Member United States Joined 7102 days ago 1126 posts - 1102 votes 2 sounds
| Message 21 of 405 13 June 2005 at 6:58pm | IP Logged |
manna wrote:
My fears, too... so really I wanted to hear from anyone who tried it... |
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My sister and I did the complete French 8 CD course, plus the 4 CD advanced one had just come in the mail when we left for France. Honestly it was the single thing that helped most with our French. If you get it skip purchasing the Language Builder but you should really get the advanced course (available from Amazon.co.uk) that finally gets into the "meat" of the grammar.
In addition I brushed up on my Spanish with both of the courses in that language. That also helped a lot too! My cousin also is now doing the Spanish course and she likes it too. So, his method does work, even thought it's still primarily for beginners.
Only in my opinion, I do consider I got much more practical language skills from Michel Thomas as opposed to Pimsleur and I actually knew what I was saying along with how to change the sentence up because I knew all the grammar to it.
A few people get too put off by some of the claims he makes and with some of the things he says. Even I found some faults with his method, but hey it worked for me so that's why I'm recommending it. :)
Edited by Sir Nigel on 29 October 2005 at 7:27pm
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patlajan Triglot Groupie United States Joined 7147 days ago 59 posts - 65 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Turkish Studies: German, Mandarin, French
| Message 22 of 405 14 June 2005 at 4:19pm | IP Logged |
I used the Spanish ones and while some of the dull students he uses are irritating,I gained enough to say it was worthwhile. I bought them from a local used bookstore for about $20 U.S. At 80 pounds I'd have second thoughts.
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mello Groupie Brazil mypolyglot.com Joined 7052 days ago 48 posts - 48 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English
| Message 23 of 405 02 August 2005 at 1:44pm | IP Logged |
I think this post is a little old, but I would like to say some things: I'm Spanish teacher and I'm using the Michel Thomas Method (or something like it) and I think it's fantastic, My pupils are brazilians , and portuguese and spanich are closer than any other language. and I can say like my pupils say "this method works" or better "esto funciona, muy bien para mi, en solo algunas horas ya hablo mucho el español"
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 24 of 405 20 September 2005 at 7:12pm | IP Logged |
Does the "Advanced Spanish" course cover something
different that what's in the 8 CD "deluxe" course? At
work they have a small budget for Spanish materials and
the beginners really like the deluxe course. So, I'm
wondering if anyone can say definitively that "Advanced
Spanish" is something beyond the deluxe course, rather
than beyond the 2 CD "introductory" course. From
reading reviews on amazon.uk, it looks to be a followup
to the 8 CD course.
I see the vocabulary builder course also says, "the
follow on to the 8 hour course". Any additional
comments on it?
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