Learning A Language Using The Michel Thomas Method

[OnionTerror]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Thomas_Method

A friend of mine tried the French & German versions, and he swears by them. He said that he learnt more over 8 hours doing German one, than the 5 years he spent at school learning it..

Apparently if the student can't pick up a language, its the teacher not teaching it properly rather then the fault of the student.

Has anyone tried this method & were you successful?

[noddage]

Yes - did the spanish CDs. Excellent. It really is quite amazing how much you pick up. I think it helps if you already have a smattering of the language - I'm tempted to do the French one to see if the six years of french that I didn't learn at school comes back to me.

Thoroughly recommend him. He's got an interesting life story too, I believe.

[Oliver Sutton]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Thomas_Method

A friend of mine tried the French & German versions, and he swears by them. He said that he learnt more over 8 hours doing German one, than the 5 years he spent at school learning it..

Apparently if the student can't pick up a language, its the teacher not teaching it properly rather then the fault of the student.

Has anyone tried this method & were you successful?

I've been learning German and use several different sites/books/recordings etc and find myself increasingly using the stuff I learnt using Michel Thomas.

He seemed to concentrate on the important stuff. e.g the cases and persons that you'd actually use in conversation.

[OnionTerror]

I've been learning German and use several different sites/books/recordings etc and find myself increasingly using the stuff I learnt using Michel Thomas.

He seemed to concentrate on the important stuff. e.g the cases and persons that you'd actually use in conversation.

The stuff I kept buggering up on, was working out whether a word was masculine, feminine or neuter, and then putting the right ending on...Do these courses help you work all this out?

[indirectapproach]

I would say Michel Thomas is excellent despite his exaggerated claims about the student not having to "work" at it.

I've done his French and Spanish courses.

His great strength is his concentration on the core, the relevant stuff.

Personally, I noted his courses so I could refer back swiftly for clarification and revision.

Of course, I lost my notes but .... that's just me.

I would recommend MT highly.

[Oliver Sutton]

The stuff I kept buggering up on, was working out whether a word was masculine, feminine or neuter, and then putting the right ending on...Do these courses help you work all this out?

Not much until the advanced bit.

I think that's the point. It's not that important until later. You can be understood up to a point without it.

Inflection is undoubtedly more important in German because you convey whether the noun is a subject/diret object/indirect object through the inflection as opposed to the word order in English and other languages. But you can usually get away with it.

It's not one of the easier languages. Everything seems to inflect - numbers,adjectives,definite and indefinte pronouns etc and I find it quite daunting at times.

[tahoma]

I've used the French and Spanish CDs (there are 8 in each set), and they are good. Great to have on in the car on long drives, make the time fly by.

Do make notes though, you don't want to have to listen to the whole CD just to find some little phrase or rule you can't remember.

Plus, the student you hear him teaching has a sexy voice which is a pleasant respite from Mr Thomas, who sounds like Jabba the Hut would if he had been taught English by a Hungarian.

Edit: just to clarify, I was talking about the female student. Don't want to 'do an absolutezero', ahem.

[Bloo Loo]

I saw this guy on the telly some while ago..I beleive he is dead now.

Just ordered the basic course for Mrs Loo....she can out french the daughter when she comes over in November...From France.

[redwine]

French is a very easy language to learn its as simple as saying "bonjour"

One year in France and you should be able to speak fluent French

Apart from the British Ex-Pats in France who live behind Sky TV and do not mix with the local paysans

There love of France goes no further than 'cheap property often in poor regions etc

With there so called "Happy France" forums even though they have nothing in common with the local paysans

Hence no French news on there websites after all they came here only for cheap property not to mix with the local paysans or sc*m

[Bruce Banner]

I saw this guy on the telly some while ago..I beleive he is dead now.

Just ordered the basic course for Mrs Loo....she can out french the daughter when she comes over in November...From France.

Our daughter now speaks English with a slight French accent.

[indirectapproach]

"The stuff I kept buggering up on, was working out whether a word was masculine, feminine or neuter, and then putting the right ending on...Do these courses help you work all this out?"

Isn't one of the good things about Michele T that he encourages one to discard rules of gender and stuff and tries to teach language more as if it were a mosaic, which is what it is.

Infants don't learn language the way it's taught to adults.

I wouldn't worry about "gender" or "ending", I'd just try to remember the word.

[Bruce Banner]

"The stuff I kept buggering up on, was working out whether a word was masculine, feminine or neuter, and then putting the right ending on...Do these courses help you work all this out?"

Isn't one of the good things about Michele T that he encourages one to discard rules of gender and stuff and tries to teach language more as if it were a mosaic, which is what it is.

Infants don't learn language the way it's taught to adults.

I wouldn't worry about "gender" or "ending", I'd just try to remember the word.

We spend a lot of time in France and our French friends tell us not to worry about the gender. They say all non French get it wrong as it follows no rules, is not intuitive and really needs to be learnt from childhood. In French, there is no neuter, everything is either masculine or feminine.

[OnionTerror]

"The stuff I kept buggering up on, was working out whether a word was masculine, feminine or neuter, and then putting the right ending on...Do these courses help you work all this out?"

Isn't one of the good things about Michele T that he encourages one to discard rules of gender and stuff and tries to teach language more as if it were a mosaic, which is what it is.

Infants don't learn language the way it's taught to adults.

I wouldn't worry about "gender" or "ending", I'd just try to remember the word.

So should school kids be taught this method, rather than the old & stale current methods? If I'd used Michel's method at school, I'd probably be fluent in German by now.. Although how many language teachers would it make redundant?

[Oliver Sutton]

"The stuff I kept buggering up on, was working out whether a word was masculine, feminine or neuter, and then putting the right ending on...Do these courses help you work all this out?"

Isn't one of the good things about Michele T that he encourages one to discard rules of gender and stuff and tries to teach language more as if it were a mosaic, which is what it is.

Infants don't learn language the way it's taught to adults.

I wouldn't worry about "gender" or "ending", I'd just try to remember the word.

You're right. Whenever I talk to Germans about inflection they just look blankly. They just "know" it.

[indirectapproach]

All kids would be tri-lingual like the kids in Scandinavia or Holland if you stuck them in front of top quality cartoons in the target language for a few hours a week.

How do you think the Scandos and Dutch do it?

Language teaching is awful. Ask a Scando.

[Oliver Sutton]

All kids would be tri-lingual like the kids in Scandinavia or Holland if you stuck them in front of top quality cartoons in the target language for a few hours a week.

How do you think the Scandos and Dutch do it?

Language teaching is awful. Ask a Scando.

They don't dub as much in Scandinavia and Holland. Which also helps a lot.

[Bloo Loo]

Our daughter now speaks English with a slight French accent.

eet ees very eezy too get ALLO ALLO tres vitement.

[redwine]

eet ees very eezy too get ALLO ALLO tres vitement.

Vraiment ? peut etre un bande des cons bon a rien ou les moins qu' rien !

Les anglais en france sont aussi bienvenue que une merde dans une piscine !

[Pope Benedict XVI]

Do they have a course which helps you to speak Latin without a German accent?

[frozen_out]

All kids would be tri-lingual like the kids in Scandinavia or Holland if you stuck them in front of top quality cartoons in the target language for a few hours a week.

How do you think the Scandos and Dutch do it?

Language teaching is awful. Ask a Scando.

I think this is a great point, and one I make myself regularly. When kids learn a language they don't start by asking where the train station is, or learning the various vagaries of the verb 'to be'. Why don't schools start with children's books and cartoons in a foreign language?

It wouldn't take long to become fluent. My son is 5, so he's been learning the language for about 3 years and I'd hazard a guess he's got about 80% of the vocab he's ever going to use and can make about 90% of the phrases he's ever going to use. Of course when you're learning your native tongue you get total immersion, but at school that should be counterbalanced by the fact that the kids have well developed brains.

[Oliver Sutton]

I think this is a great point, and one I make myself regularly. When kids learn a language they don't start by asking where the train station is, or learning the various vagaries of the verb 'to be'. Why don't schools start with children's books and cartoons in a foreign language?

It wouldn't take long to become fluent. My son is 5, so he's been learning the language for about 3 years and I'd hazard a guess he's got about 80% of the vocab he's ever going to use and can make about 90% of the phrases he's ever going to use. Of course when you're learning your native tongue you get total immersion, but at school that should be counterbalanced by the fact that the kids have well developed brains.

The trouble is you start to lose the ability to learn languages after the age of 20 (probably not needed) and unless you learn a language by 10 you will probably never be totally fluent.

I speak 2 languages fluently (English is my second langauge) and I can instantly tell in either language whether a person is a native speaker.

[Bloo Loo]

Vraiment ? peut etre un bande des cons bon a rien ou les moins qu' rien !

Les anglais en france sont aussi bienvenue que une merde dans une piscine !

non, les garcons francais aime beaucoup ma fille.

[indirectapproach]

"Les anglais en france sont aussi bienvenue que une merde dans une piscine !"

The French, not all by any means but maybe some, maybe more than a few, hate everyone, themselves, their families, their friends, their neighbours, the English and all other foreigners as well as all other French.

It's a part of being complex.

If you think they love you, you are either a dummie or the exception.

[OnionTerror]

After five years of German, all I can incessantly remember is "mein hund is kaput"

[frozen_out]

The trouble is you start to lose the ability to learn languages after the age of 20 (probably not needed) and unless you learn a language by 10 you will probably never be totally fluent.

I speak 2 languages fluently (English is my second langauge) and I can instantly tell in either language whether a person is a native speaker.

I don't disagree, but my point is you only ever really need to get to the standard of a 5 year old, probably not even that.

It is pretty easy to tell a genuine native speaker, there are so many clues and giveaways, like you can usually tell if some has lived in the same area all their life.