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Michel Thomas Mandarin Foundation Course | ||
Tags: Michel Thomas | Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 6809 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes  1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 33 of 70 27 November 2007 at 5:56am | IP Logged | ||
Hi, Volapuk Harold ! I requested a demo CD on the michelthomas website. But the website does not allow to chose a demo CD of either arabic chinese russian but : Arabic, Mandarin Chinese & Russian as a whole Should I infer the demo is for all three languages ? Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| volapuk49 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 6076 days ago 73 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Yiddish, Modern Hebrew Studies: Esperanto | Message 34 of 70 27 November 2007 at 9:21am | IP Logged | ||
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You know more than I do about this. I would just request whatever they are offering.
They just contacted me to let me know that they will shortly offer downloads for free of this material on their website. When I get the details I will post the information. Take care. Harold 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Maxwell Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6491 days ago 29 posts - 29 votes Speaks: French, English* | Message 35 of 70 27 November 2007 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Zorglub,
The demo CD contains tracks from all three of the new languages i.e. Arabic, Russian and Mandarin. It contains the first two tracks of each language and the last two tracks to see how far the students have progressed. Maxwell. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 6809 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 36 of 70 28 November 2007 at 1:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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This sounds interesting. Maybe I'll start chinese before I'm done (not with Arabic) with Pimsleur Arabic 2 ?
Maybe this should be thought about with the mirror neurons system physiology in mind. For those interested in this breakthrough discovery by an Italiean research group in the 90ies, I can send you some material found on the internet. But there was a 2006 Scientific American on the topic and books in English and Italian are available by some of the italian searchers. Nobel Price ahead deserved, this is my guess. Mirror neurons are the basis for imitation learning, probably for language acquisition, for empathy , for guessing the intentions of others, also for rivalry and wars according to some philosophers/anthropologists, through the mechanisms of "mimetic desire" a mind mechanism at the root of human behaviour, of the scapegoat phenomenon, according to rené Girard, who stated his hypotheses based upon literature / religious texts. That was 40 years before the mirror neurons were discovered almost by accident.
Edited by zorglub on 28 November 2007 at 5:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| volapuk49 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 6076 days ago 73 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Yiddish, Modern Hebrew Studies: Esperanto | Message 37 of 70 28 November 2007 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the information on mirror neurons.
I have been independently studying learning for many years since I was early on labeled a slow learner and penalized for it ( I sat in the corner of the class). Later in life I trained as a physician and have practised as such for the last 17 years. I have often noted physiologic changes in patients when working with them. Much of what I have developed is based on my own observations and hunches. I also have training in other disciplines which were helpful. Michel Thomas often told me that we know next to nothing about how people actually learn. I agree with him based on my experiences. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6279 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 38 of 70 03 December 2007 at 9:52am | IP Logged | ||
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I just received my free CD with Arabic, Russian and Mandarin sample lessons (17 tracks, 15 of them language lessons!). They sent it air mail to Germany at no cost, I just filled out the form...
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| volapuk49 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 6076 days ago 73 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Yiddish, Modern Hebrew Studies: Esperanto | Message 39 of 70 09 December 2007 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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We just completed the trial of the Advanced Mandarin course. The student we used went through the Foundation in
June, 2007 and was asked not to review ( revise) or use any of what he learned thereafter. He told me that he didn't attempt any use of Chinese, as requested. Today, six months later, he began the Advanced. For about the first half-hour he was a bit rusty and needed prompting. Then he just opened up and it all came back. For the rest of the course he needed surprisingly little reminding or help with the old vocabulary and sentence patterns. When he did he connected quite fast. Both Jingtao ( my Chinese co-teacher) and I were very happy with the trial. She had told me many times that she couldn't believe that after six months of absolutely no review the student would remember anything. Today she told me that she wants to use this method to learn a language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6347 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 40 of 70 11 December 2007 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Volapuk49, why exactly is the Michel Thomas name used for these new courses? This is how I see the method:
At the level of observation, the language learner hears/reads a complex sound/script system(a few sentences) and it is mostly unintelligible. The language leaner can solve this problem by studying what the sound system is really composed of, finding out that it's reducible to an elementary form. This is simply Locke's "elementary sensations" or Newton's corpuscularian world view on physics. I'm amazed as to why there are not scripts or homebrew language programs following this language learning model. I think what makes these courses so popular is the ease of forming complex ideas from elementary grammar concepts. A lot of other courses assume that the language learner somehow has innate knowledge of grammar that can assimilate a language just by listening and repeating/guessing. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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