Discovered The Michel Thomas programs (Language Programs, Books & Tapes) Language Learning Forum

Discovered The Michel Thomas programs
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Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes

35 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5

july22_m
Newbie
Australia
Joined 5908 days ago
19 posts - 22 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, German, Italian

Message 33 of 35

13 October 2008 at 9:35am | IP Logged

I have been using Michel Thomas German 8CD Basic course. To overcome the long pauses in response time I play the audio in Media Player at 1.4 play speed. I also have an MP3 player that can play the audio at a quicker pace. This eliminates to long pauses and encourages me to give quicker replies. It also covers over the noises Mr Thomas makes when speaking - he was a very old man after all!
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mike789
Newbie
United States
Joined 6333 days ago
39 posts - 51 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: French

Message 35 of 35

13 October 2008 at 4:09pm | IP Logged

Volte wrote:

I've never met anyone else who's used minimal pairs the way I do, hence I'm the only data point I have. I'd be glad to hear the experiences of anyone else who tries. I'm not going to conduct a formal study - though if someone else does, I'd love to see the conclusions.

While not exactly the same as Volte uses minimal pairs (eg. listening to the same pair hundreds or thousands of times) there are programs that use a minimal-pair approach. I know of at least two.

The first is a program called "The Rhythm of French" and is aimed at teaching English speakers to hear differences in french sounds that don't exist in English. The rationale is exactly the same as what has been discussed here; to produce the different sounds you first need to hear them. A link is http://www.amug.org/~a108/index.html

The second is a program intended for older adults to help them keep/recover mental function, called "Brain Fitness" by Posit Science. One of the learning exercises is telling similar-sounding phonemes apart and you can't move to the next level of that task until you master the current one, so someone who can't distinguish sounds is going to hear the same sets until he/she does! Link is http://www.positscience.com/science/program_design/

Lastly, formal studies HAVE been done. A classic is teaching native Japanese speakers to distinguish between the "l" and "r" sounds; use google and you can find several studies conducted on this task.

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