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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7090 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 25 of 405 20 September 2005 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | ||
Luke, I cannot definitively comment on the Advanced Spanish course, but I have a copy of the Advanced French course and the French Vocabulary builders. The Advanced French course picks up where the 8-CD course left off and covers all the major verb tenses up to the subjunctive and includes the major irregular verbs. Overall, the French Advanced Course has about 4-5 times more material than the 8-CD course. The students he uses are much stronger than the students in the 8-CD course, which is a big help. Still, they are non-native speakers and you cannot master the language based on the course. At best the course is an all-audio grammar workbook. Michel Thomas covers so much grammar I don’t regret buying it from Amazon UK, but I am just using it to supplement other audio courses. The vocabulary builders are not bad if you like Michel Thomas, but for the money they don’t compare to the advanced course. If you have a limited budget I would skip the builders. I hope this helps. If some else has experience with the Advanced Spanish course I would be interested to hear your feedback. Edited by Farley on 20 September 2005 at 10:23pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sir Nigel Senior Member United States Joined 7102 days ago 1126 posts - 1102 votes 2 sounds | Message 26 of 405 20 September 2005 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've done the Advanced Spanish and it was a little different than the French course. It dealt more with the verb tenses, likely because Spanish is more complex with verbs. Still had the similar format as the others, but the French course was a little better. Yes Luke, it does expand your Spanish knowledge much more than the original 8 hour course, so I do recommend it.
Too bad Michel isn't around to do more courses. He had a really good format to break you into the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7101 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 27 of 405 21 September 2005 at 2:41am | IP Logged | ||
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To reiterate the comments of both Farley and Sir Nigel. I have the Advanced Courses and Language Builders for both French & Spanish.
If, as you say, the original course was well-recevied by your beginners and if the budget is limited, then I would definitely purchase the Advanced Spanish as opposed to the Spanish Language Builder. The Language Builder courses are a change in format - there are no students (something I found a distinct blessing after the original courses) and use of the pause button is an absolute requirement. Some people who I know enjoyed the first courses immensely didn't like this at all. The key is that Advanced Spanish concentrates on structure and the production of that structure and the Language Builders focus on vocab/lexis. Hope that helps. Andy. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| makaveli1989 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6741 days ago 69 posts - 73 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 28 of 405 09 June 2006 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||
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I have not seen this guys tapes mentioned anywhere across the site, have any of you guys used his tapes or even heard of them?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6912 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 29 of 405 09 June 2006 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||
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I've used the whole French course, about 4 CD's of the Spanish course and started the Italian course. I think it is mentioned on this website, try searching for it.
Anyway, I'll explain a little about it. There are 4 languages available altogether (French, Spanish, German and Italian) and 8 1 hour CDs. The courses are entirely audio based, no paper and no need to memorise anything. Michel Thomas teaches the course to two other students who don't know the target language, he asks questions, you have to answer in the target language and then you can check your answer afterwards when one of the students replies as well. He uses the similarity of the 4 languages to English to create little shortcuts to guessing vocab. For instance, words ending in -ical (political, economical) have their endings changed to -ique in French (politique, economique). This helps guess vocab and avoid memorising. He also explains grammar very well, and students will find themselves creating their own sentences straight away. He focuses on common words, giving a good base when you want to learn more vocab later. So, he brings you up to a good basic level with good foundations to carry on learning afterwards. It's a good course for people new to learning languages, it doesn't scare off any potential students with long lists to revise. You will need to find a more advanced course afterwards but you'll probably find the going easier with the basic grammar and little tricks taught to you. Also, there is an advanced Michel Thomas course afterwards, I haven't tried it but I've heard that it focuses mainly on tenses. Anyway, it's a very good course, I highly recommend it! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| makaveli1989 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6741 days ago 69 posts - 73 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 30 of 405 09 June 2006 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi, I am a massive Michel Thomas fan, he has taught me everything I know about Spanish. When I completed his advanced course I started Pimsleur and am on lesson 38 and to be fair I could have skipped all of these lessons becuase Michels teaches you everything you need to know.
I highly doubt I would be able to learn Spanish witout his course, in essence once you have finished the advanced course you can string together an sentence as long as you know the verb. If you are good at memorization you could learn different words each day and become fluent like this but I am not good at memorization which is the reason I am completing Pimsleurs course. Its true that the course does have limited vocabulary but I think that the Language builder course is a answer to this although I am not going to use until I finish Pimsleur. I hope to learn many languages and they are all going to be the ones that Michel has availible (Spanish,Italian, French and German) and after these, well all I can say is I will struggle to learn any other languages that he does not offer. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cadomniel Groupie Canada senseandsanity.com Joined 7193 days ago 88 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Esperanto, French, Italian | Message 31 of 405 09 June 2006 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have done the German advanced course, it is similar to the french in that it is basically covering all verb tenses.
In the advanced German course the 2 students are somewhat weak and it gets annoying listening to Michel correcting their silly mistakes all the time. However, I think that this is an excellent review of all the verb tenses. I've also done the French advanced, and at least to me, it seems to move a long a little bit faster. I haven't tried the Spanish yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mike82 Newbie United States Joined 6734 days ago 14 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English* | Message 32 of 405 18 June 2006 at 4:47am | IP Logged | ||
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I completed his German course a long time ago. I found the method to be pretty interesting. He basically has you construct sentences and learn some basic vocab. The emphasis is on constructing the sentences, rather than simply rote-memorizing them. Whether "thinking through" your answer in constructing a sentence is good, I'm not sure.
Of course one could make the case that if you are thinking through your answer so to speak, then you aren't really fluent but are rather translating. However, I think there is some value in being disciplined enough to give a response that is accurate. The best feature of this course, really though, is the two "students". They are hilarious. The guy, if I remember correctly, actually has decent pronunciation and ability. The girl on the other hand, is just godawful. But because her pronunciations are so comical/sad, it actually adds value. There was one pronunciation in particular... I think it was of "möglich". Basically, she could not stop pronouncing it "Merk lick". Classic. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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