Customer Reviews

Michel Thomas Method Italian Advanced, 5-CD Program (Michel Thomas Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Although I am a big fan of Michel Thomas, there are unfortunately some errors in the Advanced Italian course that make it dangerous for people who seek to use the course to learn Italian. The first problem is that Michel Thomas' has a very heavy foreign accent in Italian, and since one of the most important ways to learn to speak a foreign language correctly is to imitate carefully the exact pronunciation of a native speaker, it can be downright counterproductive for a learner with a keen ear to be influenced by Thomas' poor pronunciation. However, this is not where the real danger lies. Thomas appears to have overlooked an important point of Italian grammar, one where it differs from French and German. Specifically, the verb "dovere" (to have to, must) uses the auxiliary "essere" (and not "avere") when the infinitive following dovere is conjugated with "essere." For example, they should have gone is not "avvrebero dovuto venire" (which is what Thomas teaches on this CD), but "sarebbero dovuti partire" (because 'partire' is conjugated with 'essere' rather than 'avere'). This is a point where Italian differs from French and German, i.e., in French you do say "ils auraient dû partir" (even though "partir" is conjugated with "être" in French) and German "sie hätten gehen sollen", and presumably Thomas erroneously assumed that Italian worked the same way. This strikes me an inexcusable, and it should be corrected in future releases of this CD course.

This course is relatively short compared to most Learn Italian levels. Because what he explains in the course is worth hours and hours and hours of time repeating phases other courses make you repeat with you understanding what is going on. If you prefer an iPod or mp3 version, I would recommend getting the audiobook version which helps you pick up exactly where you left off. This will help in completing the course instead of hearing 1/2 hr or so until you realize that you've heard that part before. At first, it will take a while to get used to His accent and kind of quit way of speaking, but your ear gets atuned to it quickly. I have tried other courses for years and this is the quickest progress i have been able to make. That is why I gave it 5 stars.

My wife & I tried Rosetta Stone & Tell me more Italian and made no headway at all. After spending hundreds of dollars on those programs we spent $50 and tried Michel Thomas's 10 CD course for beginners. I couldn't believe it, but we were up and speaking some basic Italian in just a few weeks. I mean it! His approach to teaching really shows you the structure of the language and how to put the words together to make sentences. We just finished the basic course and are awaiting arrival of the advanced course.