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Tony Buzans Language Books | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6372 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 8 14 July 2008 at 12:58pm | IP Logged |
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Tony's Language Revolution. Usually I like tony's book coz his mind mapping technique is superb. But flicking through the french and Italian books, they seem over priced, laughably inefficient, and a waste of time.
It might be a good 'dip you toes in the water' book but that's about it, nothing more. You certainly wouldn't end up speaking much of the language at the end of it... I'd rather get a 'teach yourself instant x' course or save up a bit longer and get an Assimil course. Anyone seen these around? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 8 14 July 2008 at 5:36pm | IP Logged |
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Yup. Tony Buzan's a one-trick pony: a memory man.
A list of words is called a dictionary, not a language. A language can't be memorised -- only learnt. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| J-Learner Senior Member Australia Joined 6030 days ago 556 posts - 636 votes Studies: Yiddish, English* Studies: Dutch | Message 3 of 8 15 July 2008 at 3:22am | IP Logged |
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I really enjoy his other methods and have put them to use and will continue to in the future.
But I think that someone came to him and he saw he could make a few bucks out of it. Can't blame him really. Perhaps for some people that is more than enough to learn over 6 months of language learning and it does actually help them. Remember we are hardcore language learners. Phrasebook, tourist level learning is not good enough for us. So it not matching up is hardly surprising. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4909 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 4 of 8 28 August 2011 at 7:24pm | IP Logged |
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It has been a long time since this was first posted, but there hasn't been a valid response yet. Has anyone actually used Tony Buzan's language courses? How many words does he cover? Does he include gender? (It is remarkable to me how many vocabulary courses do not!)
By the way, his books include a grammar book for each language as well. EDIT: by "valid" response, I mean a response by someone who has actually seen the books and heard the CD's. Edited by Jeffers on 28 August 2011 at 7:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5022 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 8 28 August 2011 at 8:39pm | IP Logged |
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Yes , I have used the Spanish version. They are beginners books for people who have never learned a language before. As such, I found them quite useful for the first week or two. They helped me understand what conjugation was, and simple things like that.
Yes, he does deal with gender, quite a lot really. He has you associate male and female characters with masculine and femine words. He also gets you to use silly mnemonics for the simplest of words. I really have no time for that, surely its just much quicker to just repeat the word a few times? I also see no point in this whole "mind maps" busisness, its maybe a good idea in principal, but I think it will just slow you down. They are great tourists books. You will learn how to ask for different types of food and things like that. I dont know how many words he covers, but its not many. I would NEVER pay full price for it, I paid £10 for both editions in a sale. In conclusion, they are only useful if youve never learned a language before, but even then you would be much better served by Teach Yourself. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4909 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 6 of 8 28 August 2011 at 9:26pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you for your response, dbag. By they way, both books run for less than £10 on Amazon. But your review confirms what most of us already thought.
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| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5560 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 7 of 8 29 August 2011 at 12:25am | IP Logged |
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I picked up a copy of Italian a couple of months ago in the remaindered books store for 5 or 6 quid, so I guess it's being discontinued.
I can't tell you much about it, because I haven't read it and have no plans currently to learn Italian. However it comes with quite a nicely printed thin book/workbook (or thick booklet) of 208 A5 pages in matt colour, that certainly must be worth at least a fiver in printing costs. Paul Noble is extremely cheap on Amazon too at the moment (22 quid), but I don't recommend that either. Maybe it's being discontinued too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 8 29 August 2011 at 11:01pm | IP Logged |
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Amazon quite often cut things substantially, and you used to see Michel Thomas at 50% off quite regularly. I imagine that language is one of those things that everyone "is going to do someday", so a promotion on a language course probably brings in a lot of business....
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