Customer Reviews

Spanish With Michel Thomas (Deluxe Language Courses with Michel Thomas)

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The language learning system that Michel Thomas has put together is perhaps one of the easiest methods to learn a foreign language. Not quite as easy as one would be lead to believe from the cover, it is still one of the easiest methods I have ever had the pleasure of using. And pleasure is the operative word, just listening to the CDs is all that is required. No note taking, no study of vocabulary lists, nothing in the mode of traditional language learning. Instead of going straight through the complete system I listened to each CD twice before going on to the next one. The end result was that I could watch the Spanish channels and understand what is going on. After finishing six of the eight CDs I was at a local tourist attraction with a friend who had just completed a thirteen week course at a local college. A Latin woman approached us seeking help and he was totally useless while I was able to work through her conversation and provide her the answers that she needed. How long did it take? I just listened to it in my car instead of the stereo for two weeks. Will you be totally conversant after completing the course? No. But you will have a good strong background in basic conversational Spanish and be able to carry on basic conversations with others. The best way to learn conversational Spanish on the market today.

Michel Thomas's, the Pimsleur series, and the Barron's version of the Foreign Service Institute course are the three top-selling courses on Spanish, and I did extensive research on the various high end courses before buying his. I don't have the Pimsleur one but I did buy the U.S. Foreign Service Insitute course in addition to Thomas's, and so I thought I'd make a few comments by way of comparing them in case you find them useful in choosing the right course for you.

I have to say Thomas is a gifted teacher and he has a very interesting approach requiring no notes or rote memorization. He also stresses the importance of a natural, stress-free learning environment. Thomas is a savvy guy here as this is probably one of the major stumbling blocks for the new language learner, and so he puts the student at ease right from the very beginning--a nice touch there and I give him points for that.

The second cornerstone to Thomas's method is the simulated classroom environment where you work along with two other people in the class, a man and a woman. The third, and perhaps most important aspect of Thomas's course is his memorization and note-free system of learning. Thomas starts with very simple sentences and builds up from there so the student acquires the syntax almost intuitively as he goes along. Thomas also discusses differences in pronunciation as he goes, too.

You build vocabulary as you go along also, with Thomas empasizing cognates or words that are almost identical in the two languages initially. Overall, Thomas has done a very nice job here and I can see why people like Woody Allen and others say that his course is the only one that's ever worked for them.

The Foreign Service Institute course is more traditional but also very good, and I like it, too. The audio tapes present the sentences and conversations while you follow along with the manual/workbook, which provides the translations. The workbook is very extensive and also has a more detailed discussion of the grammar than you'll get with either the Thomas or Pimsleur courses. There is an advantage to this since, although I think Thomas's method is probably fine for teaching the basic verb conjugations, such as present, past, and future, you're really not going to get a good idea of how the several subjective moods work in Spanish without some systematic study of the grammar there. English has the subjunctive, but it's practical a vestigial construction, but Spanish has it in spades and is a very active part of the language.

On a side note, it would be interesting to see how Thomas's approach would work for a language with much simpler grammar than Spanish or French, such as Turkish or Japanese. Turkish has the wonderful distinction of being one of the few languages with no irregular verbs, and Japanese only has two. So at least as far as the verbal systems are concerned, they are much less complex than your typical European language, and the Indo-European languages in general. There are a few other more technical aspects to the two languages, of course, such as the case system in Turkish (which Japanese doesn't have), but verb conjugations are usually the most difficult aspects of the languages in most of the popular European ones because of all the irregular forms. And Spanish has at least 22 common verbs that are irregular in at least the present indicative tense, and many are irregular in several other ways.

One other thing the Institute course does is to provide substitution drill sections where you're required to substitute a particular word, and then give the sentence, with any needed changes. This is useful for practicing the verb conjugations and other things. I have a pretty strong background in grammar and linguistics in general so I don't mind slogging through dry discussions of grammar too much, but if you're not someone who enjoys that sort of thing, Thomas's approach may be the one for you. Overall, this is an excellent course from a talented teacher with a unique approach to language learning.

I have been browsing all around Amazon.com for a spanish language course to brush up on my skills. After reviewing the several courses available, I stumbled upon the Michel Thomas language course. I was most impressed with the reviews and decided to buy the 8 CD set. It's true that once you listen to the lessons you're able to retain most of the information learned. I love the idea that Mr. Thomas stresses relaxation and non-memorization. It definitely takes away a lot of the pressures and anxieties off the student to make the learning experience more pleasurable and rewarding. I was not annoyed at all by the male student as in some of the previous reviews. He was very helpful to me because I could relate to some of his mistakes. I give Mr. Michel an A++ because I really enjoy studying with him and I can't wait to buy the french 8 Cd set.

I have mixed feelings with regard to this course. In some ways it is absolutely excellent. Where it is particularly good is on underlining the importance of the right stresses in the language and also in the use of pronouns. If you don't know where to place 'lo' at the end of this course then you are a moron. The course really does give you a strong sense of self-confidence in your ability to construct your own phrases in the language. The value of this cannot be over-estimated. Whilst I certainly would recommend it I would say that before buying it you should bear in mind the following. Firstly this course will NOT make you fluent in the language and will give you only a very limited vocabulary. Michel seems almost allergic to nouns and adjectives so you will not learn many of those. Little attention is paid to genders which are an area of difficulty for many English people trying to learn foreign languages. Not looking at genders means no attention was paid to adjective agreements- something which doesn't come naturally to Anglophones. He also choses to ignore two tenses which are used widely in Spanish: the past historic and the subjunctive. For this reason I would recommend that you use this course in conjunction with another language cassette couse - I would recommend the excellent Routledge 'Colloquial Spanish' cassette course as the ideal supplement. This brings me to my second criticism of this course. Cutting corners is all very well but this shouldn't be at the expense of accuracy. Michel is very scepticle of verb tables but if he looked more closely at them he would realise that in his course the endings he gives for the 'tu' form of the imperative are actually incorrect. Native Spanish speakers also pronounce their 'r's much more strongly than Michel does which reminds you of the value of accompanying this course with one giving you access to native speakers. Finally he has a tendency to oversimplify. He gives us the very useful information that English words which end in '-tion' will be the same in Spanish except with an '-cion' at the end and he leads us to believe there are only two exceptions to this ('traducion'= 'translation' and 'explicacion' = 'explanation). A brief flick through a dictionary allowed me to notice that whilst most '-tion' words did indeed follow this pattern there were actually quite a few exceptions. He then gives us the information that nouns ending in '-cion' will always become verbs ending in '-ar'. Again this is true in most cases but what about 'distribuir' or traducir'? So Michel needs to be just a little bit more nuanced in his statements because the student's confidence may crumble once they realise that some of the simplifications he makes are actually over-simplifications. So if using this course make sure you check the accuracy of everything you have learnt at the end. This doesn't undermine the usefulness of Michel's approach, it just means you must be realistic in your expectations. If you are looking for a course because you want a few expressions to use on holiday this is probably not the right programme for you. You don't learn how to reserve a hotel room or how to ask for directions. However, if you want to actually understand the mechanics of the language then this course is very helpful. This is a course for students not tourists. One final word of warning: if you do not interact with the CD you will find his method extremely tedious. It is only if you pause the CD regularly to give your own answers that you will actually start to feel part of the lesson he is giving. Now two final comments. (1) The course claims that there is no such thing as a bad student, only bad teachers- the male student on here disproves that theory: if you are worse than him you have no hope. (2) The promotion around this course makes great play of the fact that Michel taught various celebrities to speak languages. Who cares??? I have never heard Woody Allen speak the langauges taught him by Michel. He is not famous for his ability to speak French or Spanish so why should it matter to us whether they were taught by Michel or not. Please change your ridiculous advertising.

Michel is a fabulous teacher. Buy the 8 disk course - its worth it!

I go through the lessons during my 1/2 hour drive to and from work and it's taken me about a week and a half to get through disk 3 of 8. (I took another reviewer's advice and listen to each disk twice before proceeding to the next) So far, the course has been wonderful. I completed 2 years of Spanish in high school 11 years ago and before taking the course, I could only remember a few verbs. My desire to learn Spanish increased when I married a latina, because want to be able to have a normal conversation with her family members/grandmother. I also want to be able to understand why they are all laughing at Sábado Gigante (Spanish TV is what they mainly watch). Being able to raise my kids in a bilingual household would be another plus.

You probably know that Michel conducts this audio course with two english-speaking students who purport not to know any Spanish. The female student is excellent. She is a quick learner who picks up accents and meaning very quickly. The male student is, for lack of a better word, a doofus. He has a difficult time pronouncing even the most basic sounds and never seems to learn from his mistakes. One of the first words we learned was Qué (prounced "k"), which in most contexts means "what". In the 3rd CD, the male student is still pronouncing the word as if it is "Té". Michel corrects him every time. At first I was patient, now I can't help cursing at him every time he screws up something easy. I agree with the other reviewers in that the male student is really annoying, but it doesn't detract from the overall quality of the course.

The best thing about the course is the way Michel structured the discussions to promote learning and not memorization. We started by talking about scenarios where "I" am doing the action. Then we learned "you" and applied that to all of the earlier topics. Now we learned how to say "he/she/it" and applied those. At the same time Michel broadens the discussion possibilities by adding verbs. I'm at the point now where I can ask my wife a question in Spanish without her looking at me crazy.

Overall, I can't say enough positive things about this selection. It focuses on the spoken language (which is what I care about) so there are no boring useless written exercises. Michel also stresses pronunciation, which makes all of the difference in Spanish. Learning a language takes a long time without immersion, but I predict at the end of this course, I will know enough to hold conversations with my wife completely in Spanish and be able to take my learning to the next level. If we ever make it back to Italy, my wife and I will certainly purchase the Italian course.

I am half way through this set up CD's, and I am very impressed. I would highly reccomend this to anyone who is just starting out in the spanish language or looking for a review of the spanish they learned years ago. I took 3 years of spanish in high school about 10 years ago and learned very little. I feel as if I have learned more in the first 4 cd's than I did in my entire 3 years of high school spanish. This CD definetly gives you a great start in the spanish language.
Why not 5 stars? Yes the male student is a bit annoying. There is a little too much time spent on pronuciation, and not enough spent on expanding your vocabulary. I also think there should be some work on comprehension. I hope that Michel Thomas does some follow-on lessons to this one, if so I will be the first in line to buy it!

Claiming that the Michel Thomas set of CD's is the best 8 hours of instruction a beginner could receive (short of one-on-one instruction from a comparable teacher) is an ambitious claim, but Michel Thomas stands head and shoulders above all the comparable courses I have tried so far, which include the Instant Immersion (8 hours), and Behind The Wheel Spanish (8 hours) by Language Dynamics (reportedly the same exact course as Conversational Spanish in Nothing Flat by the same publisher). It also surpasses the Learn to Speak Spanish Deluxe (5 hours) by The Learning Company, which is worthwhile for other reasons. I also tried the Pimsleur CD's, going through about the first 8 or 9 lessons of Level 1. While Pimsleur is good, it is also far more than 8 hours (and of course, is far more expensive). Hour for hour (and dollar for dollar), Michel Thomas beats Pimsleur hands down.

I have also tried Platiquemos, which is excellent, and highly recommended for continuing beyond the Michel Thomas CD's, but that is like comparing a magazine article to a book. In 8 hours, Michel Thomas gives an excellent overview of Spanish while Platiquemos is just getting started.

The reason that no other course on the market is going to beat what Michel Thomas does on an 8-hour set of CD's is that he takes a different approach. Most of the other courses focus on teaching vocabulary or phrases, which is easy to do, but you don't need someone to teach vocabulary or phrases. That you can teach yourself pretty easily, and in any event, that doesn't teach you to converse in the language.

Instead Michel Thomas sets out to teach the verb structure, which is, as he puts it, the skeleton of the language, the thing that everything else rests on. A verb in Spanish can take far more forms than in English. For example, in English, a regular verb ("to talk") will have five forms (inflections) (to talk, talk, talks, talked, and talking). In Spanish, the same verb, "hablar," has 47 forms (a handful fewer if you don't use the vosotros form, which, thankfully, Mr. Thomas does not cover). And what makes it even more difficult for an English speaker, Spanish often omits the subject pronouns (I, you, he, etc.) because the verb endings and context make it clear who the subject is. Getting a handle on the verbs is essential to conversing in Spanish, and while the course does not treat the entire verb structure of Spanish, it attacks the problem like no other short course.

Most of the audio courses (and books too) start out teaching the conjugation of the present tense of verbs by setting forth a table of verb endings and telling the student, O.K. here are the verb endings, now memorize them. Not so with Michel Thomas. He starts out with the "I" and "you" verb forms and builds from there. If I recall correctly, he doesn't even introduce the "we" verb form until the fourth hour. Before you know it, though, you are learning the verb endings, but you learn them through practice, not through rote memorization.

There is, of course, more than verbs. The course uses a building block approach, and right away, the student is learning phrases that are useful and that build up to substantial sentences. And the sentences are useful, though you will certainly have to supplement this set of CD's with additional study. There is only so much that can be done in 8 hours.

Now as to some of the complaints:

No native spanish speakers? So what! You're not going to learn to speak with a native accent from an 8-hour CD course whether or not the instructor is a native Spanish speaker.

Too much English spoken? Well, how else are you going to teach the concepts to a beginner?

Don't like the two-student approach, one adept and the other less so? Maybe Michel Thomas knows more than the complainers about how to teach. Because it is a CD course, the instructor can't be there to correct your mistakes. Hearing the students make their mistakes and be corrected is valuable.

My comments, by the way are directed to the true beginner. For those who are not beginners, this course may not be as valuable, though I think it would probably be more useful than other 8-hour courses.

This course offers a great overview of the language and a great jumping-off point for learning it. (Sorry, but you're not really going to become conversant in a foreign language in 8 hours. I recommend Platiquemos for continuing your self-instruction in Spanish.) When I finished this set of CD's, I was excited, and I felt that my goal of learning Spanish was attainable.

Amazing. My first study of Spanish. Listened to CDs in car for 2 weeks before trip to Cuba last December, and I was easily conversing in broken Spanish with Cubanos; in fact I occasionally helped translate for our group of 25... exceeding some who'd studied in high school, even college. Have listened (passively...) a few more times, and this unique approach to the language has given me such a good foundation that i'm able to pick up more and more with suprising ease. Learning new verbs, and conjugating them... obviously not with perfection, but i'm able to understand, and, especially, be understood. My friend who's marrying a Latina used it to be able to communicate with his mother-in-law on his wedding day. I've never written an online review, but this CD demands it. If you want to quickly and easily start learning, this is the way.

Me: English speaker living and working in Spain for the last five years, during which time I've acquired a good level of competency in Spanish (aided by lessons from the local Berlitz school and the Ayuntamiento, but mostly from working in a totally Spanish speaking, technical environment)

Over all, this seems too be a good and effective method of learning spoken Spanish - better than many other systems I have looked at. A good structured exposure to the language with revision and recapping built into the ongoing lessons with the two students Mr. Thomas uses on the tape. I liked this "teaching two students on the CD" format, it's easy to fall into the roll of a third student, and the many mistakes (natural and genuine, not scripted) the two students make aid the teaching, and also make you less uptight about your own errors.

But, I've a couple of reservations:
1. Where the accent or stress falls in a word, is an extremely important point in Spanish. Unlike English, in Spanish a change in where the accent/stress falls in a word can and will completely change its meaning and/or tense. Mr. Thomas rightly puts considerable effort into re-enforcing this point again and again. Unfortunately his method of illustrating and teaching stress/accent is to stretch-out the vowel of the syllable where the stress falls. So, for example:

Caro (expensive) becomes caaaro.
Hablo (I talk) becomes haaablo.

English frequently places the stress the first syllable of a word, but nooobody speaks Eeenglish like this, and native Spanish speakers don't do this to their language either. If you do, well, at best you will have a very weird way of talking, at worst people will think you've had partial lobotomy (believe me - I tried it on my colleagues ... :-) I wasn't surprised to hear on CD 7 that M.T. taught Doris Day - her "Kay seraaa, seraaa" song has made me cringe ever since I realised she was trying to sing Spanish.

2. Mr Thomas is a little inaccurate at times. e.g.
When he teaches what he calls the imperative (an order) he actually uses the subjunctive (more of a polite suggestion). Contrast:
a) Spanish: ¡Come! -> English: "Eat!" (imperative / order)
b) Spanish: Coma este, está bueno! -> English: "Eat this, it's good!" (subjunctive / suggestion, MT calls this form the imperative - it's not).
It's ok to use the subjunctive to tell/request someone does something, but don't then call it the imperative.

Point 2. may not be that important in the scheme of your language acquisition, but point 1. probably should be. Over all, I would recommend this course (for it's structure and content - which really are very good) but I would also *highly* recommend that you find yourself other aural resources to use: tapes/CDs/InternetRadio/TV etc. with native Spanish speakers.

From what I've listened to so far, this is the most horribly pronounced Spanish program I've ever heard. The Spanish is not spoken by native speakers, and one cannot even make allowances for the poor pronunciation by considering that it is a non-native who is speaking. This is Spanish spoken with a British accent. A British accent is lovely if you're speaking English in England. It doesn't fly well if one is making a real effort to learn to speak Spanish correctly and well. To add to this, listening to Michel Thomas, himself, is tedious and boring. Don't waste your money. Go for Pimsleur or Spanish Now! or Living Language. I am glad I only borrowed the CDs from a friend to preview them.