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Has anyone tried the new MT Japanese?

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orion
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 Message 1 of 9
05 August 2008 at 12:11pm | IP Logged 
If so, how is it?
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Cainntear
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linguafrankly.blogsp
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 Message 2 of 9
05 August 2008 at 5:18pm | IP Logged 
Not bad, but you can tell it wasn't written by Thomas.

Too many so-called mnemonics, too much repetition.

A couple of things are taught before the students are ready for them.

Michel's overpronunciation used to annoy me on the Spanish course, but there's no overpronunciation here and I now know why Michel did it -- sometimes I don't catch the subtleties of the Japanese stress system and get it wrong. On top of that, the students don't seem to be getting corrected enough.

However, I am learning stuff.
The nature of the medium forces the teacher to go at a workable pace.

Not as good as the courses by the old bugger himself, but still reasonable.
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orion
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 Message 3 of 9
05 August 2008 at 7:16pm | IP Logged 
Thanks for the reply. It is on my Amazon wish list, but has not been released in the US yet.
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madass88
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 Message 4 of 9
15 August 2008 at 3:38am | IP Logged 
Just buy it from England. You can get it at a reasonable price at www.play.com

It will be released in the US in march, so thats a long time to wait
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orion
Senior Member
United States
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622 posts - 678 votes 
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 Message 5 of 9
16 August 2008 at 9:58am | IP Logged 
madass88 wrote:
Just buy it from England. You can get it at a reasonable price at www.play.com

It will be released in the US in march, so thats a long time to wait


I am leaning heavily toward this option. I am not sure why there is such a long delay.
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lucy_luck
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 Message 6 of 9
17 August 2008 at 8:38pm | IP Logged 
This is the first time I have used the Michel Thomas method. I do like the approach, and I can see why people rave about it so much.

The only other Japanese audio program I have used is Pimsleur, but I prefer this. Pimsleur is so scripted that it sounds like the narrator is in an ad, whereas MT is much more relaxed and easier to listen to. Also, I like the way the the discs are divided up into short little tracks, it's very convenient if you want to repeat a section. I also like how the focus is on verbs and grammar, rather than nouns and phrases, because I feel the former is more useful to me at this stage in my learning.

Pimsleur still wins out in the pronunciation/speaking practice department, however.

The main thing I don't like is that the MT Japanese course is so short. I wish it were more comprehensive. I guess I will be moving on to Assimil after MT.
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alfajuj
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 Message 7 of 9
18 August 2008 at 5:42am | IP Logged 
I've just listened to the first lesson.
It seems to be excellent and follows the basic MT method.

The "host" speaks with a pleasant British accent but there is another, separate person who is the native speaker. It found that to be a bit strange and awkward. Normaly in MT courses (where it isn't taught by MT himself), the teacher is the native speaker. (like the Russian course, for example). In this course, the teacher will say something like: "Can we hear it from the native speaker..." and then a voice will say the word in Japanese.

So far it seems to be a great course. I definitely recommend it.
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madass88
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 Message 8 of 9
18 August 2008 at 7:05am | IP Logged 
there is a native speaker in the mandarin, arabic, portuguese, and japanese course.


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