|
| German With Michel Thomas Complete Course CD | 
 enlarge | Author: Michel Thomas
Publisher: Hodder Arnold
Category: Book
List Price: £69.99
Buy Used: £37.50
You Save: £32.49 (46%)
New (1) from £49.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  44 reviews
Sales Rank: 60967
Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Items: 8
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.2 x 2
ISBN: 0340780657
Dewey Decimal Number: 420
EAN: 9780340780657
ASIN: 0340780657
Publication Date: May 1, 2000
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Discs and Case in excellent condition. Dispatch first available post (First Class)
|
| Customer Reviews:
Excellent but... March 31, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
...but the devil is in the details!
I am really enjoying the course. It is really helpful and makes me feel like firing my teacher! BUT the course needs some digital re mastering. The voice of the late Michel Thomas is wonderful to listen to but the slurp and mlts sounds must be cut of. He was already an old man when he recorded these CDs and probably wore a plate (artificial teeth).He also speaks very close to the microphone so to record the detailed accent in words. When you start listening the course is a little bit annoying and distracting. But do not be discouraged by this! He was so good in teaching languages that you are going to be one of his funs.
Also, a little text book would be handy. The course concept is no text book but I had to jot down every know and then. I hope that his successors will continue and improve his method.
 Fabulous: Like having a personal tutor March 16, 2007
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I was rubbish at languages at school - I wasn't even allowed to study German. 25 years later I find myself going to Germany on business so I decided to try and at least master the basics. Michel Thomas is a hero. Within 15 minutes of the first CD I felt I was making progress. I just couldn't get enough. I really enjoyed it. A fortnight of fairly intense study and I felt I was had a good grip of basic sentence construction, having worked through the first 4 disks. Michel's method is to focus on verbs and sentence construction. The rest, as he says, is "just vocabulary". He is right. There isn't much vocab here but you will get a great grip of the way the language works in present and future tenses. Get a dictionary for the vocab. The course is really great. If a hopeless case like me can manage it so can you !. His approach is fairly intensive though and you need to devote a fair amount of time to do it justice. Listen to each CD two or three times.
I can't recommend this course enough. I may even try the advanced course at some point. I am certainly moving onto the Italian foundation course. Fantastic !
Handles and vile situations February 8, 2007
24 out of 24 found this review helpful
I've tried language courses on CD before. Usually they start off with `Hello, my name is James and I am from London', that sort of thing. Actually, the sort of things you never say to anybody when you go to another country. And you get those ridiculous conversations in shops, or at the railway station... they don't help at all do they?
It would be better to have somebody who knows what they are doing to teach you how to speak a language, and this is what Michel Thomas does. You become part of his little class, along with the two students.
Michel Thomas famously says on here that if you can handle verbs, you can handle the language - everything else is just vocabulary. So he doesn't waste any time teaching you vocabulary, though you will pick up the odd word here and there. He teaches you how to make sentences, how to use verbs, how to communicate. You may wish to pick up a book on vocabulary to help with `everything else'.
I found the method very exciting because it is immediately different from other methods. He explains everything with a new clarity so you grasp it straightaway, more or less. You need to listen more than once. After four or five listens to each disc, I found I didn't need to listen again, and each disc builds on the previous one.
It seemed to me that people travelling on business would find this particularly useful because the kind of things you'll be saying are to do with doing, possibilities, time, direction, requests. There's never anything about asking for an ice cream or buying stamps. You will, on the other hand, be able to ask why somebody hasn't done something yet, and when they are going to do it. It's more like real language.
The two students are a learning device. I think they help greatly and don't find them annoying. Often you'll be cleverer than they are, but spotting when they're wrong is part of the learning process. There are times when Michel Thomas seems dismayed at their inability to grasp a concept or a pronunciation, and you may end up shouting `Stupid!' at them, but it does help you learn. It really does.
In any case, the last two discs are sans students (or should that be 'ohne'). It's just Michel firing a stream of questions at you. At this stage you will know if you picked it up or not. Can you say: I can't tell you if I will do it today but I will tell you tomorrow? Yes, you should be able to say things like this.
Michel Thomas himself I find very entertaining to listen to, with his aides memoire like the handles and vile (weil) situations. His reputation as a teacher is entirely deserved. It's just a shame there aren't more CDs to go onto when you finish these.
The highest recommendation I can give is that I got truly excited at the thought of starting the next disc. Language courses are usually a chore. This one is just the opposite.
WOW! November 23, 2006
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
I have been living in Switzerland for the past 6 months and despite taking German lessons I found that my language skills were not improving at all. Within one week of listening to these cd's I was able to form full sentences and even make my Swiss friends understand me and have small conversations. I have now completed the foundation course and I am moving on to the language builder and then the advanced course. If you need to learn German quickly I would strongly recommend this course, although as previous reviewers have said it does only teach you the formal "you" so it is handy to take the time seperately to learn how you would say the informal "you" version of the sentences (I did this as I listened to the course and formed both the formal and informal versions before continuing). Also, although the course does not teach you a lot of vocabulary it does teach you how to understand the language which is far more important and once you know this it really seems so easy to pick up words.
The ONLY way to learn German! November 20, 2006
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I have used Michel Thomas's French Language course also and his style is right for me. It enables you to quickly learn sentences rather than trying to construct them word-for-word. This is a much more sensible way to learn a language - he adds words in bit by bit. It never seems daunting, but even at the end of an hour's "learning" you really feel like you have advanced.
I was sceptical that the German one would be as easy as the French as hadn't spoken any German since I was about 12 but found it really easy - even enjoyable.
Sadly Michel Thomas has died in the past few years but his learning method lives on!
Buy this set and learn german the easy way!
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
