Customer Reviews

Michel Thomas Speak French Advanced: 5-CD Advanced Program

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

i began studying german and french through the pimsleur system. this is a great way to introduce yourself with how to pronounce the different sounds of the languages and build up a decent vocabulary. after completing both courses i found myself looking for more. college classes were slow and very time consuming and other programs (living language and the berlitz methods) would only mention a word or phrase and move on. the michel thomas method broke down what i had learned in pimsleur and made me fully understand what it was i had mearly memorized. that is not at all a knock on pimsleur. both are great programs and i would highly recommend. if you are a little short on time, however, i might just pick up the michel thomas program. he gets right to it.

These CDs are great and much better than the original (introductory) series of 8 CDs. The two students are easier to understand and Michel has a much friendlier demeanor. This course is also very challenging. I listened to each CD several times before moving on to the next CD. I highly recommend the set. (I also purchased the 2 CD refresher set. It's fast paced and works well.)

This is an excellent way to learn a language. I have a home in France, but none of my neighbours speak English - or very little. I found this an easy way to learn some French so as to be able to communicate with them and integrate into the community. By listening and joining in with the students on the discs you feel you are learning good conversational skills. I would recommend very highly.

"Speak French Advanced" picks up more or less where "Speak French for Beginners" left off - that is, you don't really need to buy the booster package. The approach to learning is the same as for the beginner's course, providing comfortable continuity - although the students on the recording are different.

By the end of this course, you will have gained a rather thorough grounding in French grammar. You will have covered, for instance, all verb tenses except the past historic and the past subjunctive, which are rarely used in conversation anyway. Also, you will have increased your vocabulary somewhat, albeit with the caveats mentioned in my review of "Speak French for Beginners". Finally, you will have had ample opportunities to listen to Michel Thomas's pronunciation and use it to improve your own.

Like the beginner's course, this one neither promises miracles nor creates them. However, also like the beginner's course, it deserves five stars because of its very fair price, the efficacy of its technique, the efficient pace of instruction, and - above all - the confidence that it provides to keep learning.

By the end of this course, you will probably be able to get around France on your own, but a true comprehension of everyday spoken French may still lie beyond your grasp. But this course prepares you well for the next step: practice. After finishing this course, you can start listening to French radio, television, or Internet broadcasts, and although you may not pick up much at first, understanding will come eventually. The same goes for speaking. Much vocabulary and reinforcement of grammar comes also from reading (with the help of a good dictionary, of course). All of these additional measures are vital to learning any language.

There is not a single course on earth that can impart mastery of a language. The best ones provide the knowledge and inspiration that one needs to keep trying. "Speak French Advanced" is one such course.

Michel Thomas does a fine job with many interesting linguistic tidbits and with a fair degree of charm. His grasp of English is not perfect, and he sometimes succumbs to that teacher/Gallic hubris (E.g., "Que sera, sera" is Italian, not Spanish, Michel), but on the whole it is a very well done course. It is not, however, advanced at all. One of the great complexities in French, like English, is subtleties of verb usage (think in English of the differences for the verb "put" accompanied by "out," "on," "to," "through," and "aside," and you can get a sharp sense of how much a preposition can change a sentence). Thomas touches hardly any of this, but without such information it's very difficult to read a simple newspaper headline. A good intermediate grammatical review, but nothing advanced.

No language is easy to learn. Those of us that have never tried think we will take a couple of lessons or purchase a tape and instantly we will be able to speak another language. It doesn't happen that way. I have taken many classes in French and purchased a variety of tapes with little success. Michel's CD's do take time, lots of time. But they are worth it. He has a different way of teaching French and it makes since. I highly recommend ALL his CD's, but remember, if you want to learn French you will need to devote 100's of hours to it. But just an hour a day for a year will get you comfortable!

I would say that Michel Thomas helps you put the grammar together in your head with advanced grammar... So, if you are looking to practice along with two English speakers on this CD and test yourself with advanced grammar and fine-tune your weak areas this is good for that. However, if you are looking for something that focuses a lot on conversational French, then it won't fit the bill for that. I am frankly going to look at the Fluent French Audio stuff and buy stuff from their website later, because I need a variety of conversational French, and the French in Action materials are not so easily affordable. I would recommend listening to Michel Thomas over and over. It really takes time for a language to stick, but make sure you do find something that has French conversations. I think Smart French is promising so far... When it comes to fluency, this CD is good for advanced students who want to make sure they have their grammar down. I don't think it's good to have a very good foundation in French sentence formulation so you can advance properly and feel confident, in the end, in the language. If you already have the grammar perfectly down when speaking, then you don't need this.

I love Michel Thomas CD's. I am also using Rosetta Stone and it is very good, but Michel Thomas explains the very core and structure of the language. He makes it all understandable and relatively "easy." The two together are very very good as a way of emersion into the language.

If you want a relevant, thoughtful, and fun way to learn a language, this is the best that you can buy. Michel Thomas is a master at relating French to English. I found myself looking forward to inserting the CDs into my car CD player and not only learning basic sentence structures but also how to apply them to everyday life.

I haven't tried all of the French study programs out there, but of the ones that I have tried, Michel's method is clearly the best. If you want to systematically understand how to express ideas in French, rather than just memorizing phrases, then you will love his method. If you are looking at the advanced course, then you have probably completed the beginning course, so you already understand this method. The advanced course is actually much better in quality than the beginning course, and the two "students" that he uses for demonstration are much more capable, so it flows better. I highly recommend.