|
| Michel Thomas Method: French Vocabulary Course (Michel Thomas Series) | 
 enlarge | Author: Michel Thomas
Publisher: Hodder Arnold
Category: Book
List Price: £29.36
Buy New: £15.00
You Save: £14.36 (49%)
New (16) from £15.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 135621
Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 2
ISBN: 0340939826
EAN: 9780340939826
ASIN: 0340939826
Publication Date: May 25, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Sealed and Direct from the Publisher
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Bad... very very bad... September 7, 2007
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
I'll admit it, without the reviews on Amazon.co.uk, I wouldn't have bought this (or known it existed).
I love the Michel Thomas method of learning, I have done the 8-CD German course, the vocab builder and the 4-CD advanced course.
However, this course fails miserably on two counts:
1. Like the MT courses, this course has two students, aswell as the teacher. However, whereas Michel Thomas had students who were learning German, and you would listen to them making exactly the same mistakes as I would make (so you would learn as you hear them being corrected), here, the two students are completely fluent in German.
Why ?! Why would you do this ?
This simply doesn't help at all.
In fact, you can tell this is a problem - after the students have replied to the "how would you say this..?" question from the teacher, the teacher has to REPEAT what they've just said, but slower, to clarify their answer.
Pointless, completely pointless.
2. The vocabulary. One major complaint of the Michel Thomas course was that there wasn't too much vocabulary. My German-speaking partner and I joked that all I could say was "it" sentences. "I want to buy it because I would like to have it and it pleases me."
Now, in this course, yes, they introduce a lot of vocabulary, but they do it in the same way as one of those awful "Learn German in my car" style CDs do.
They introduce a phrase, you use it, then they move on and you never hear the words again.
The result..? Whereas, with the Michel Thomas course, you would be reminded of previous vocab, and remember the new words, here... well.. it just goes in one ear and out the other.
And, frankly, some of the phrases they teach you, even on CD1, is just ridiculous.
This isn't a terrible course... but I'm only giving it 1-star as it sells itself under Michel Thomas' name, but ignores the most fundemental rules of the way he teaches.
As such, I simply wouldn't recommend it.
 Great addition to the Michel Thomas series August 24, 2007
22 out of 26 found this review helpful
I bought this course not knowing quite what to expect but hoping it might be an easy way to learn all the food/household/shop type vocabulary that I can never remember.Well it's not and at first I thought I'd be disappointed, but I was in for a surprise so read on..
The teacher is Rose Lee Hayden - an American. I found her voice and presentation very clear and the accent was no hindrance. There are no pupils for this course but two native speakers,one from Spain and one from South America, are used to provide the correct version of a phrase, and essentially pronunciation practice. This was very useful as it had been absent on previous Michel Thomas courses. Another reviewer mentioned that Rose Lee Hayden does talk to you as though you were there: " yes, I think you've got it". Well maybe you haven't! But I didn't find this irritating at all, so it must be down to personal choice and learning styles.
This course continues with the philosophy that you learn a language by understanding how it works. In other words you have to understand its form,its syntax, in order to generate new sentences and express what you want to say.I found that evening classes I attended preferred to teach great reams of vocabulary in the context of some set phrases, and grammar was taught very gradually. Again, maybe it's down to personal choice or mix and match, but personally I find the Michel Thomas method very effective. One problem with using the C.Ds in the car is that there's no pause button and I'm driving anyway so there isn't always enough time to answer before the correct version is given.
The first two C.Ds look at vocabulary which is very similar in English e.g -ible -able words,-tion to -cion words. There are hundreds of these words and they tend to be the more 'grown up vocabulary'.They are easy to remember and straight away Rose Lee gets you practising these words using all the tenses you've learned in the previous courses.I also found it enabled me to start having a guess at what a Spanish word might be(in the context of those similar to English words)and Rose Lee also did this- she would throw in a word to encourage you to have a go. She then moves on to verbs, covering old ground in terms of-ar,-er,-ir,gogos but covering more vocabulary,practising reflexive verbs, and spending time on irregular verbs through all the various tenses. There is a really good section on the subjunctive or command tense where she teaches which verbs and expressions trigger its use.
Segment 3 teaches everyday expressions, starting with verb-plus expressions such as 'cambiar de'-to change your mind.These are important to know because if you look at any Spanish dictionary with a grammar section, you find long lists of verbs followed by a preposition, that isn't always the one you might expect. Then there are expressions with 'hacer' and 'tener'-all quite common and worth knowing. Expressions using the dreaded por/para are taught, and also those with'lo',which I'd never understood before.Also expressions using 'ser' versus those with 'estar'are explored,followed by comparisons,opposites, prepositions and generally useful everday stuff like'sin embargo'-however.Spanish double negatives and using the passive are also useful to know how to use.
Now the proof of the pudding is in the eating; we went to Spain this summer and had meals with two Spanish families. Although my attempts at speaking were tortuous, this method did help because it gave me the tools to try and work out what I wanted to say. I didn't need to say that the shower doesn't work (evening class Spanish)but our friends were interested in discussing our opinions of Spain and cultural/social differences etc(Michel Thomas Spanish). When we went to our chalet accommodation I looked at the equipment list in Spanish and only understood about 5 words. I even had to look up the words for knife,fork and spoon!
So clearly I still have some way to go and would welcome a Michel Thomas course that includes vocabulary for kitchen equipment. My conclusion would be that this course helps you learn vocabulary in the context of practising use of words in a wide range of grammatical structures. I recommend it.
Michel Thomas would turn over in his grave August 23, 2007
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
If he could hear this.
To qualify my review, let me say I have been a huge fan of Michel Thomas for the past 6 years and am the proud owner of ALL his French courses.
The only thing "Michel Thomas" about this is the uncountable number of times the presenter refers to his name and method.
The patronising voice of the presenter and the fact that the male native speaker has obviously completed a Parisian style course in monotone speed talking, soon become very irritating.
The content would probably be suitable if one intended becoming a Paris yuppy but is extremely far removed from typical everyday language.
My advise would be to use your money to buy a radio that can receive long wave and tune into Europe One and listen to the real language of ordinary people.
Mike Clarke
 a little irritating August 22, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Michel Thomas is mentioned 36 times on first CD....I got so annoyed I started counting instead of listening to the course.
Having said that his voice and way of speaking were far more interesting to listen to than this lady (other reviewers of these courses disagree) .
I find her voice grating and scripted as mentioned below.
Having said that as far as language courses go it is good enough to be average. Everyone knows that the sentences themselves are nonsense, but it is like this to try and include as many words and as much practise as possible. That is similar to the original courses - I think it is the German vocab course where 1 reviewer says his German friends burst out laughing when they heard it as nobody spoke like that. It is just a method to let the listener experience the order of words and grammer etc...
To be honest, this course is boring, but you can learn something at least
Really disappointing August 12, 2007
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
I did French A-level at school 38 years ago, and I learnt to read and write French but not to be able to speak it or hear it in conversation. My first introduction to Michel Thomas was through his Italian and Spanish courses and despite one or two reservations (like some mistakes and poor editing of the Advanced Review courses) I'm an evangelist for these courses because they boosted my self-confidence in a way which it never was at school. Also my son went from being bottom of GCE Spanish to near the top within a fortnight of using the courses so the results were impressive and observable. I was going on holiday in France so decided to work through all the Thomas French materials before I went. The big disappointment was this vocab course. I sailed through the other ones and couldn't wait to get back to them, but with this one I've been gritting my teeth and it's become a chore to use it. My criticisms are - a) the teacher seems to be reading (too fast) from script with humourous spontaneity written in - and it just irritates without being spontaneous b) she spends much too much time explaining it and there isn't enough speaking from the native French speakers c) the teacher's voice is lacking in sonority, whereas Michel and the two speakers on these cd's have wonderful sonorous, guttural voices which give you confidence in themselves d) two much time on 'cognates', and not enough on idioms. The cognates after all are relatively easy to learn, what makes you good at speaking a language is the idioms. e) too much going on about how wonderful Michel Thomas and his method are - I know that already, and we could maybe be reminded once or twice but not all the time - he's not Mao-Tse-Tung. Unfortunately I just can't bring myself to use the rest of this course and I'm selling it. I've bought the Italian vocab course and I am praying that it's not as bad as the French one.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
