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Mistakes in Michel Thomas courses | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| drfeelgood17 Bilingual Hexaglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6448 days ago 98 posts - 117 votes  Speaks: English*, Tagalog*, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Japanese, Latin, Arabic (Written) | Message 17 of 52 15 September 2009 at 2:53am | IP Logged | |||||
Exactly! I just hope MT's successors are more accurate than he ever was. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 18 of 52 15 September 2009 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't know about their accuracy, but they're all a bunch of waxworks. None of them can do what Thomas did, and the old MT fan forum was full of excuses from the publishing team and the authors saying "ah, but Language X is different" and "I know what my students find interesting". The Dutch course and the Portuguese course are basically carbon copies of Thomas's courses. I've done the Dutch, and it's OK, although the course ordering isn't perfect. I've never done the Portuguese (well, who would do Portuguese during their final year Spanish?). The courses for French speakers were recorded by actors following tapes of courses Michel used in his language school. Everything else is a superficial attempt to cash in on the commercial success of an effictive but poorly understood (and frequently misunderstood) language teaching methodology. Hodder have stated previously that Greek's the last language on their list and that the range won't grow in the foreseeable future. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jimmymac Senior Member United Kingdom strange-lands.com/le Joined 6152 days ago 276 posts - 362 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 19 of 52 15 September 2009 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank god. I forced myself to sit through the Mandarin basic course and it turned out to be the most boring 8 hours of my life. The teacher's voice alone bored me to the point of anger and his 'mnemonics' were an absolute joke. On top of this the Spanish vocab builder had some American woman who had arguably the worst Spanish accent I've ever heard. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| drfeelgood17 Bilingual Hexaglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6448 days ago 98 posts - 117 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog*, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Japanese, Latin, Arabic (Written) | Message 20 of 52 15 September 2009 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
I can't really blame you. Who would remain sane after hearing "lo siento, pero no es posiiiiiiiiiiiible" over and over again? I sat through the so-called Advanced Spanish and Italian and felt much the same. You would be about as "advanced" as an African Grey Parrot. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6893 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 52 15 September 2009 at 9:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
I am sorry but I have to respectfully disagree, as can be seen in the following links. As far as I can see it means "you must not" in all these cases: 10 COSAS QUE NO TIENES QUE HACER CUANDO ERES PASAJERO Lo Que No Tienes Que Hacer Al Conducir (Parte 1) Restaurantes que no tienes que perderte Drogas que no tienes que tomar mientras conduces Por que no tienes que poner tu foto en la web Apparently Fernando was quite right above when he said it can mean both. It's interesting to note that this "must not"-meaning only occurs in a very particular grammatical context. See how all the examples above have "que" before "no tienes que", except the last one, where it is a "por qué" (they left the accent out in that webpage but it should be there). Edited by Hencke on 15 September 2009 at 9:41pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| fandres Triglot Newbie Costa Rica Joined 6435 days ago 8 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English Studies: Italian | Message 22 of 52 10 October 2009 at 4:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi,
I think there is certain degree of dialectal differences in this. "No tienes que" could mean "you must not" in the sense that something is forbidden, and I have the impression I have heard it more times from Spanish people than from Costa Rican people. Anyway, if you say someone "no tienes que robar", it does mean "you must not steal", as it would " no debes robar". However you can also say "no tienes que molestarte": you should not worry (about doing something not obligatory, like bringing in something for dinner or a present; or doing a favor, etc. In all this examples, it does imply "must",: 10 COSAS QUE NO TIENES QUE HACER CUANDO ERES PASAJERO 10 things you should not do when you're a passanger. Lo Que No Tienes Que Hacer Al Conducir (Parte 1) What you don't have to do when driving Restaurantes que no tienes que perderte Restaurants you don't have to miss. Drogas que no tienes que tomar mientras conduces Drugs you should not take while driving Por que no tienes que poner tu foto en la web Why you should not post your photo in the web. Regards, Fernando. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jimmymac Senior Member United Kingdom strange-lands.com/le Joined 6152 days ago 276 posts - 362 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 23 of 52 10 October 2009 at 8:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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What about 'no tienes por que hacerlo'? Does that mean 'you don't have to do it'?
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gray Parrot Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5595 days ago 41 posts - 44 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Portuguese | Message 24 of 52 11 October 2009 at 11:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think that overall the MT courses are quite good, but there are problems with pronunciation. I'm using the course
for Portuguese, which I like. I listened to part of the Mandarin Chinese advanced course, which, incidentally is not advanced, but beginner part 2 perhaps. That aside, I thought it was not bad, but there were some problems. Things that were not completely wrong, but were misleading. For example when attracting someone's attention they use the English word 'buddy' and translate this into 'shi fu' which is not exactly the same, being a much more respectful term, more like 'sir'. However, I still quite like the courses. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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