I’ve got the Michel Thomas “perfect” cds for Spanish. It’s not perfect, of course, but it does do a good job of building the grammar. I’ve been listening to Spanish for about 5 years now, on and off, but I was having problems putting the past together. It does a good job of at least making you aware of that.
I think his courses are a fantastic introduction when beginning a new language. Give me a Michel Thomas course and an old Assiml book and I’m on my way.
My first second language was French, and I struggled with it for at least a year. I couldn’t seem to get anywhere; I wasn’t studying seriously, because I couldn’t seem to grasp anything, it seemed impossible. Then I discovered Michel Thomas and after listening to his beginner course for ten minutes I felt like I had learned more than in my year of prior study. It really changed everything for me instantly.
If you go through his beginner and advanced courses a few times, by the end you will be able to conjugate just about any verb into any tense, and when reading you will be able to tell the tense of any verb instantly even if you do not know the meaning of the verb. This is an indispensable skill to have when you begin to read native content.
The purpose of his course is really to lay the groundwork for reading, and at the end of the course that is exactly what he encourages you to do: start reading native content, make sure you choose material that interests you, and make sure to do it every day, because ten minutes a day is much more useful than one hour once a week. Sounds a lot like Steve to me!
That’s great Imyirtseshem. I think it’s the perfect combination in the beginning. Michel Thomas for the verbs (the ‘backbone’ of the language as he describes it) and Assimil to see the verbs in action and to acquire some nouns along the way. And neither course stresses grammar to any great degree. Throw in a little ‘Who is She’ on lingq (if it’s available in Polish) and it should not be difficult to move onto native content relatively quickly.
Michel Thomas Advanced Spanish course is one of the best I’ve ever done to improve my spanish! It made me more comfortable with using all tenses and gave me a grammatical base to build vocabulary on through home study (lingq)
Michel Thomas seems to be quite popular in North America. Most of my language exchange partners and/or friends from the US and Canada have heard about him but I know only very few Europeans who are familiar with this method. I have never seen a Michel Thomas course in any European bookstore either.
I just listened to some sample audio recordings from his “Total German” and “Master German” courses. It was only a 3-minute long audio which is not really enough to judge the quality of the material provided within that course I’m afraid. However, I basically like his method. I think it is especially helpful for people who are total beginners and need somebody to guide them through the first steps of acquiring the language.
What I don’t like is the fact that he seems to be speaking all the texts himself. When I listened to his English, I first thought his mother tongue was German because he has some sort of a German accent in my opinion. I then checked and learnt that he was born in Poland and spent some time in Germany before he left the country because of the nazi regime.
The little German I heard had a nice flow and he spoke with a charming accent. It was quite clearly non-native but pleasant to listen to. Some words he obviously mispronounced and unfortunately taught that incorrect pronunciation to his students.
I would have to listen to an entire course to really be able to give my opinion on the content but I think I would not want to buy a course where I have lots of audio spoken by non-native speakers. The main reason why I buy audio material is so I can acquire a hopefully naturally sounding accent or at least pronounce words in a way which avoids misunderstandings. This is not always possible if you listen to speakers who themselves have trouble with the pronunciation of the target language and that seems to be the case with Michel Thomas.
I have had a similar problem with an otherwise excellent Chinese course. In that case the problem was not the Chinese, which - even though spoken by a non-native speaker - supposedly was excellent (according to what a lot of native speakers told me). But the guy mispronounced the English translations in such a way that he sometimes was almost incomprehensible to me - pronouncing “food” like “foot”, the “ea” in “wear” like the “ea” in “feast” etc.
I found that so annoying that I actually stopped using that course.
I think if Michel Thomas gave the explanations but had a native speaker pronounce the example sentences etc. his method would be much more useful.
I don’t think that only native speakers can be good teachers. At school I had an excellent teacher for Italian who was Austrian. I’m sure he spoke with an accent and probably made some minor mistakes (we all do), but he managed to keep me interested in the language and that was great. However, if I buy audio material for my own studies as an addition to my written material, I want to listen to native speakers. Otherwise, I’ll just stick to a book-only method.
So, I think the method itself sounds interesting but I don’t like the way it is implemented (would prefer a native speaker to be involved).
The Michel Thomas course is excellent for some things and not so excellent for others.
The course is mainly designed to get you to be able to express yourself in an intelligible manner quickly. For that it is very helpful.
Thomas did an excellent job (in my opinion, in the two languages I used his courses for (Italian and Spanish)) at explaining all the verb tenses, how they are used, and easy ways to remember them.
The course is structured basically around verb conjugations. You learn a few pronouns and some vocabulary here and there, but the meat of the course is common verbs (especially common irregular verbs) and pronouns. He states in the courses that his philosophy is that the backbone of a language is in the verbs and how the verbs function, and that once you have that down learning words is the easy part. (He suggests you read books or newspaper articles every day in order to improve your vocabulary). Therefore, after 6 hours you are creating sentences with the subjunctive mood and compound tenses, rather than having memorized a list of common household words.
A typical sentence he may have you try to construct after 8 hours would be something like “If I were to do it now it would be necessary for him to be here;otherwise he might tell me later that it should have been done differently.” i.e. sentences full of common verbs in complex tenses, filled with pronouns and a common adverb here and there.
Overall the course does a good job at working your brain hard enough to where it isn’t boring but not so hard to the point of frustration.
Learning to express yourself these sorts of exercises are great, but unless you do the reading and listening Michel Thomas suggests (i.e. LingQ) you will be left with a false sense of competence and the assumption that your vocabulary is much greater than it really is.
The fact that nothing is pronounced by a native speaker (unless you are using one of the courses made by his proteges after his death) means that the course cannot teach you the proper pronunciation.
You are also basically listening to Michel Thomas teach the language to two absolute beginner adult students. I assume this mechanism is there to make you feel like you involved personally with Mr. Thomas and his students so you can see that you are not the only one who is struggling with concepts. The problem is that I found these people incredibly annoying and after a little while of listening to the tapes I wanted to slap them for being so stupid every time they made a mistake. I find Michel Thomas’s method of speaking very calming and reassuring, and he attempts to keep this calm and reassuring attitude throughout the courses, but at times even I detected hints of annoyance in his voice at some of the imbecilic responses of the learners on the tape.
In summary:
Michel Thomas courses are good for:
- learning to understand and conjugate all the verb tenses and moods
- learning to conjugate common irregular verbs
- learning pronouns
Michel Thomas courses are not good for:
- learning vocabulary
- learning to understand spoken speech
- learning correct pronunciation
- your tranquility if you are easily annoyed by people who constantly give incorrect answers to simple questions.
“…your tranquility if you are easily annoyed by people who constantly give incorrect answers to simple questions.”
I agree - in my opinion this is the number one drawback with Michel Thomas Courses. When I tried MT French some years ago, the sheer numbskullery of some of the answers by the students on the recordings drove me almost crazy! :-0
People might consider using the Paul Noble Courses instead? I believe these are put together in very much the same way as MT, but (as I understand?) one always hears a native speaker give the correct answer with PN. (I have to confess that I never used PN myself, but I think there are some quite good reviews out there.)
I have started French course and i think it’s good 
I can’t say so much opinion because I have started for some weeks.I understand everything but I’m not native English speaker.I remember and memorise the words quickly
sometimes irritating when the girl (learner) try to speak…I don’t know why …it’s irritating for me but I’m satisfied till this.
I have some French friends so it’s good to learn, mainly if I want to travel to France one day.
I don’t know it’s enough or not…I want to learn more seriously French in the future but i think it’s not enough if i want to do it later.
I’ve never understood the criticism about Michel Thomas’s accent. Yes, it is unusual, and yes he will not help you with your accent. But I can’t imagine anyone finding success in language learning if they are concerned with their accent on day one.
His course is designed for people who have zero knowledge, people for whom pronounciation should be of the lowest priorities. Even his advanced course is for absolute beginners, for people who have not studied anything except his introductory course.
In a way I find his course to be one of the only commercial products designed as a simple introduction for the potentially serious language learner. It is not intended to help you pass a test, or to give you a few perfectly pronounced expressions to impress locals you meet in a bar while on holiday. The course never claims that you will become fluent (unlike Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur in particular with their obnoxious advertising). It’s designed to introduce you to a language, and then leave you hopefully excited, motivated and hungry to do the rest on your own.
Personally I like the fact that the students on the tapes make mistakes- it helps you actually see your progress as you improve on repeated listenings. That girl on the French beginner tapes, oh I loved to hate her, and I loved it even more when Michel would shout at her. The way he would say ‘no!’ after she gave an incorrect answer, good times.
Imyirtseshem, I’ve never tried Anki, but people have recommended it to me. How does it compare with the flashcards on Lingq? (which I never seem to have the time for)
ad lapoubelle: (…) That girl on the French beginner tapes, oh I loved to hate her, and I loved it even more when Michel would shout at her. The way he would say ‘no!’ after she gave an incorrect answer, good times. (…)
I think it is great that there are many different products out there to help people learn a foreign language. This makes it easier for all of us to choose the type of course, study material etc. that best suits our personal learning style. Having said that, I probably wouldn’t be able to listen to the kind of recording you mentioned above for more than 5 minutes without getting a major headache 
As for the accent, I actually don’t put too much emphasis on it. I try to imitate native speakers but I consider an extensive vocabulary and correct usage of the language more important. However, speaking with an accent and mispronouncing words are two different things in my opinion. An accent can be quite charming (and I liked Michel Thomas’ accent in the German recording I was listening to), mispronouncing words may actually negatively affect your ability to successfully communicate with people. In most cases mispronounced words will still be comprehensible due to the context provided, but to be honest I don’t see why I should pay for a product where I am taught an incorrect pronunciation (not talking about accent here) which I then will have to get rid off again.
a bad ear is simply an untrained one.
Your statement is indeed correct as well.
I have also tried the French course, and I like it. It’s also based on verb conjugations and he does good job explaining things. It’s much more effective than just reading the grammar rules. There’s also a vocabulary course. I understood, that it’s done posthumously and only based on Michel’s work, but it’s also very good.
The only problem is, that I have just listened the tapes, so I’m able to speak few French phrases, but I have no idea how to write it
It’s not just that he’s not a native speaker, it’s too that he has something weird in his mouth, he’s not pleasant to listen to. It’s as if he produces too much saliva when he speaks, I really can’t stand it sorry.
I’ve tried the French course but I can’t overcome that thing he does with his mouth when he speaks.
Why a non native speaker and with a speech impediment would record himself in a language course is beyond my understanding 
Ah yes, there’s that too, I had forgotten about his quite audible salival swishing. This isn’t exactly a speech impediment though, its fairly characteristic of old people. I listen to a few radio programs where the presenters are older people and many of them make that exact same noise.
Berta,
For all the saliva in the late Mr. Thomas’s mouth, he still produced less verbal bile on his tapes than yourself in your last post.
lapoubelle I didn’t post it with any bile, I was just stating a fact.
For what I know MT didn’t produce any bile on his recordings either, so I really don’t know what you’re talking about.
I thought it was a speech impediment, now thanks to odiernod I know it’s something characteristic of some old people. I still can’t understand why would anyone with an unclear (and irritating, I may add) diction would make recordings for language learning.
I suppose money may have played a small part in that decision…
Actually, we had all his Spanish and Italian CDs from way back when they first came out. I had seen a tv programme here in Britain where he took it upon himself to teach some recalcitrate London teenagers French within a couple of hours, the lessons spread over a week. He gave them more than just a way into the language. He convinced some of them who had never thought they could do it, that it was possible for them to achieve a goal. I also knew of his past and his role as a tutor to the Stars.
He himself is/was fascinating, his voice is/was irritating like hell and those students on the CDs, especially the girl…! His ‘non-grammatical’ explanations seem to be very appealing to people who are afraid of grammar. My mind, unfortunately, does not work the way the MT method does - well, at least to a large extent. For us, it was an expensive experience. But if you are a grammar phobe, he’ll be just the ticket, I guess. For me the method died with him. I took the Arabic course out of the library, but it didn’t do it for me, perhaps because the people were blander, certainly without excess saliva? (By the way I hated it when I heard him shifting his bottom on the - what I took to be - leather chair.