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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6445 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 25 of 35 06 October 2008 at 10:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Wonderful. I'll check it out this evening. Thank you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6544 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 26 of 35 06 October 2008 at 1:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've mentioned before in some buried thread on this forum time and time again that the MT method is great, but the company Hodder and Stoughton limit the products so that very little of the language is covered. Because of financial issues, I don't think that H@S will ever expand on their products. This is understandable; it's just unfortunate that they have to be the ones in charge of the MT method. I think that Universities are the only ones that are able to pull off a full-fledged MT type course done right. Would such a MT course be appropriate for a student majoring in a foreign language and a teaching degree? Or would there be too much conflict? What about someone majoring in Linguistics? I don't know much about what is entailed in a teaching degree, but wouldn't one of the courses be field work in the classroom? Why not on the side have volunteer students to test the MT method on, collecting empirical data and the like.
In the end of a successful expanded MT course, one could have a universal test derived from literary and newspaper sources so as to prove the course just isn't fluff and hype like so many language courses are. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6445 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 27 of 35 06 October 2008 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I can't draw any conclusions from it, unfortunately; I can easily tell all the minimal pairs apart, so there's nothing for me to try to learn to differentiate. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6157 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 28 of 35 07 October 2008 at 5:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I took a quick look ahead, and Unit 2, Practice 1, is probably a better example. It contrasts the long and the short vowels, faj - fáj kar - kár agy - ágy part - párt vagy - vágy and Practice 2 contrasts the single and double consonants. halatt - hallatt kelett - kellett tolat - tollat [EDIT - Sorry if this thread is a bit off topic now.] I agree with Kugel. An expanded MT course covering a lot more grammar, vocabulary and idioms would be ideal. I think that Hodder are planning to do further work in the original four languages, but I'm not sure what exactly. Edited by DaraghM on 07 October 2008 at 6:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6445 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 29 of 35 08 October 2008 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Again, I had no trouble with any of that. Japanese has vowel length, and Italian has geminate consonants, so there was nothing new to me there. I need to take a look at 'breathy' and 'tense' consonants - ie, Hindi and Korean.
It would be interesting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Rollo the Cat Groupie United States Joined 6040 days ago 77 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Russian, Ancient Greek | Message 30 of 35 08 October 2008 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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You guys miss the whole point of the Michel Thomas method. It isn't to hold your hand for several years while you
"learn" the language. It is to give you the basics of the verb system, enough to get you reading simple texts, so you can get out on your own and read something enjoyable. That is how you are supposed to learn a language according to MT. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6544 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 31 of 35 08 October 2008 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
But the whole point was that the MT course was cut short on the objective to read something in the target language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6445 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 32 of 35 09 October 2008 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've now had a chance to compare the Sinhala 'normal' and 'breathy' d sounds. I could easily differentiate them at first. After repeating the short sound file they were in (a bit under 2 minutes) several times, I had the beginnings of a mild headache and could no longer differentiate them. The format was to announce the sound, then give several words with it, then announce the other sound and give several words with it. For me, this format utterly does not work for new contrasting sounds.
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