Customer Reviews

Michel Thomas Advanced French (5-Hour Course) (Bk. 1) (French and English Edition)

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Never having bought a Michel Thomas product before, I was pleasantly surprised to find a thoughtful, comprehensive and advanced French tutorial in the Michel Thomas product.

I have purchased Pimsleur courses, both the Spanish and French I, II, and III levels. And, I have cycled through the Pimsleur French I, II, and III, probably 8 or 9 times over the course of a few years. I found the approach that Pimsleur takes is good, but there is little explanation of what you are learning. It is mostly by rote... with the narrator asking to say something in French, then offering the French response after a pause. Frequently, the narrator will switch to asking the question in French, which always startled me, not really expecting it and the result was feeling like I made a mistake, or wasn't really learning, when the problem was that I was simply expecting a question in English.

The Pimsleur Course includes one booklet for each level. The books consist of reading exercises that softly parallel the course vocabulary, but there is no way to find a specific area to make it easy to find sections for review. I found that I needed to make notes while studying for this type of reference.

Michel Thomas, on the other hand, is a gentle and reassuring tutor, with an explanation for everything he is rendering. He includes very helpful mnemonics for helping to remember some of the subtle, non-logical tendencies of the French language.

I love his philosophy which is to relax and not TRY to remember, but to listen and have a conversation with him... and to take your time... the burden is on him to teach, not the student to learn.

And, the course includes a pocket-sized booklet that offers the gist of each lesson to make review of certain lessons, like using "will have, or would have" easy and accessible.

I find the Michel Thomas Advanced French a perfect progression from the Pimsleur III which is the highest level Pimsleur offers.

I wish you well with your learning.

I am a fan of the Michel Thomas language programs, having taken the Italian, German, and now the French in both the introductory and the advanced levels. The programs are excellent because they are simply fun to take, and having fun with a learning activity is half the battle towards mastering it.

The reason as to why this specific program is excellent, is that Michel Thomas offers interesting insights towards the structure of the language and more particularly the verb tenses themselves. From giving you mnemonics towards the structure of all conjugations in the form of "long box" and "short box" for each of the tenses, to a background as to how the tenses were formed in the first place ( for example the future tense in French and Italian were formed from the infinitive construction, plus the present tense of avoir..... Je parlerai) and the introduction of master keys, Michel Thomas gives you the mental anchors to progress and look up the missing pieces.

For languages particularly, I believe the key towards rapid progress depends on doing a little bit every day, listening to audio perhaps on your commute or on an MP3 when doing other activities. The first phase of language leaning would be acquisition of vocabulary and general language structure and the second, which is covered by this language course, is to master verb tenses. Understanding and using verb tenses puts you at least at 80% of mastery of the language I believe. The final phase is reading and vocabulary enlargement.

The format Thomas uses in these CD tapes is of two students participating in the dialog Thomas lead dialogue....." How do you day???. The improvement over his introductory course, is that the students here are better versed in the language and make the listening easier.

Overall an excellent course and highly recommended!

Just as good as the course for beginners. This one is more difficult but then the level is higher. I can't explain of anything. There are no long breaks. The two students are very confident and in my view it is a bonus that he doesn't introduce 100's of new words since it is enough to deal with the grammar. Of all the courses I tried this one is simply the best. Anyway, I now speak French.

I think I have almost every advanced French CD out there. I listen to them in my car every day on my way to and from work. This program has been one of the most enjoyable, in a category with the Assimil CD but for different reasons. The Assimil program helps with comprehension and provides background in French culture. The Michel Thomas program takes what we have learned of the language, often by rote in traditional French courses, and makes sense out of it. The way the program is organized makes me feel like I'm actually taking a French class. I have learned new shortcuts in the language that allow me to speak more fluently because it all makes more sense to me. I should have known "Ce qui n'est pas clair n'est pas français.

This course, like the basic Michel Thomas Course...is exactly like having a language teacher right in your living room. You actually get inside the language and get most of the little quirky questions answered. The ones that kept bothering you from other self-learn courses.

You also learn different ways to say the same thing, which is VERY IMPORTANT, because that is how a real language works. There is no rote learning.

For example, if you want to say "I have to do it", most french language courses will teach you how to say just that...by rote. You would say "Je dois le faire" but with Michel Thomas you learn the component parts of french...so you can say "I have to do it" or "It is necessary that I do it" or other combinations that mean the same thing.

This gives you a sense that you are in COMMAND and comfortable with the language. Face it, it helps to have multiple pathways to communication when one doesnt have complete command of the vocabulary of a language.. and this will lead, if you so will, to future learning by yourself.

Blows Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone out of the water!

This CD course is a great follow-on to Michel Thomas' first course in French. It gives you a good understanding of the French language. I also like the fact that you can do the CD's while in the car (just keep your eyes on the road!). Don't expect to be fluent or be able to listen to detailed conversations, but being able to read or to "get the ball over net" (as Michel says) so you can get around, this CD set does a good job of.

I have many tutorials, listen to them in my car everyday. This one was a huge disappointment. He is not a native speaker, the students are not natives either, so basically you do not even hear how the actual language sounds like. this approach is through 'brain' not through 'intuition and senses'. As we know, there are two approaches to learn the foreign language, and the first one, through brain, is usually used in school for adult students, is the least effective. The second one, used in bi-lingual schools, is through listening the music of the language, may be without 'learning' the grammar, just as a baby listens and learns to speak.
I can' t understand how a non-native speaker dares to teach a language. To listen to this CD was a torture, to say the least. He is an old person with horrible diction, chewing on the words and trying to 'explain' the language. Yeah, there were some valuable 'tips', but you will never learn to speak listening to him.
What is even worse, is that this is structured as a lesson, him as a teacher to two students, who repeat what he wants them to say. Not only they are not native speakers either, but you have to suffer through listening to their bad pronounciation and grammar mistakes!!!
What a crock.
I recommend: 'Tune up your french', 'Smart French'- much much better