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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6042 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 25 of 35 16 June 2008 at 6:55am | IP Logged | ||
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Find a language course. If you have no experience it is a great place to start. Also get yourself one of those teach yourself books. The rest is up to you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| runnerbean Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6151 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 26 of 35 25 June 2008 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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| runnerbean Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6151 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 27 of 35 25 June 2008 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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How refreshing! Thank you. If you enjoy what you are learning then you will. If you don't you will give up and do something else.
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| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6244 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 29 of 35 28 June 2008 at 6:26am | IP Logged | ||
This is spam, in the sense of unsolicited publicity for a commercial site by a member of that site. Edited by charlmartell on 28 June 2008 at 6:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mark0704 Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6103 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 30 of 35 02 July 2008 at 6:32am | IP Logged | ||
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If you have no knowledge (or very little) of the language you wish to learn, particularly if you are not an experienced language learner then start with MICHEL THOMAS' courses, foundation and then advanced in the language you wish to learn.
They are remarkable, interesting, stimulating and extremely motivating. They require little conscious effort and are auido only so that you can listen anywhere in any spare time you have. They are only 12 hours in total. (8 hrs foundation, 5 hrs 'advanced') They will get you to a very good grammatical standard in remarkable little time. You will be able to go anyhwere with your learning and do any course after this. Mr Thomas really was a genius for easily breaking a beginner into the language and implanting effortlessly in ones brain all the important structural patterns of the language especially all the verb tenses and patterns. Choose a course that Mr Thomas taught himself (French, Spanish, German or Italian). Others are available but were recorded after he died 'using his methods'. I have heard good reports of the Mandarin and Russian ones though. After that you WILL BE HUNGRY AND ENTHUSIASTIC for more. Mr Thomas will have turned you into an avid language learner without you realising! You can then continue with Assimil, linguaphone or any other study material with bilingual text and audio in the target language only. You should read and listen repeatedly until you can 'shadow', anticipate and understand as soon as you hear every word, if you wish whilst also repeating simultaneously - although I do this in my head only. This works well. After this read, read, read and listen to any native materials that you can, radio, tv, etc and interact with native speakers as often as possible. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| runnerbean Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6151 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 31 of 35 02 July 2008 at 6:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Mark, thank you for your comments. Do you prefer Michael Thomas to Pimsleur?
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| Mark0704 Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6103 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 32 of 35 02 July 2008 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my opinion (having learnt from scratch with both) there is no comparison.
Michel Thomas' teaching method is far superior, more enjoyable, much less boring, requires a lot less effort and is MUCH quicker. The basic difference is that MT TEACHES you everything that you need to know in the simplest, easiest to remember, least complicated and fastest way. His approach is quite ingenious and is a wonderful example of simply outstanding ACTIVE TEACHING. Pimsleur is a long, drawn-out PASSIVE process (90 hours+). Very little (almost nothing) is explained. You are supposed to try and work out grammar rules and patterns for yourself from what seems like endless and quite tedious repetition. I simply cannot see any sense in this. Surely it is much more efficient to have someone TEACH you the rules in the quickest, simplest and most efficient way possible. At the end of either 90 hours of Pimsleur, or 12 hours of MT, you will only have a vocabulary of a few hundred words and so will need to dramatically increase this with material such as I described above (previous post). The difference is that after Pimsleur, you will only have a foggy, vague understanding of of few of the verb tenses through your own guesswork, whereas just 12 hours of MT will clear all the fog completely. After MT you will have a clear, crisp, concise understanding of the structure of the language, especially relating to the verbs in virtually all tenses and pronouns and this knowledge you will not forget because of the way MT teaches it. There is no need to do Pimsleur after MT although by all means do it if you wish. But I would move straight on to something much more useful and advanced like Assimil which will teach you much more vocabulary and many idioms. So in summary, MT then Assimil, a very powerful combination. In my personal opinion and experience the very best way to begin a language. Others may disagree. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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