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Michel Thomas

5/21/2012

Review of MichelThomas.com
Audio CDs, No pronunciation scores, Cheap, ★
The audio CDs use English to teach 12 languages. Mr. Thomas (born Moniek Kroskof) was raised first in Poland; at age 7 he went to Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland), so he is not a native speaker of other languages and has a noticeable accent. The CDs have voices of other learners too, to let you feel you are in a class, though exposing you to more non-native accents. Prices vary widely from $10 for an introduction, to $70 each for many languages, and hundreds for some.

3 Comments

Jeanine H.

12/6/2013 11:43:12 pm

I have used the Michel Thomas Method CD set extensively in French, Russian, and Spanish. I also used the French CDs while driving around in the car with my children, who gained the ability to understand some of the language basics. I think that is the key: this method has you practice basic sentence construction and common phrases in the target language quite easily and naturally. Like all methods, you will want to combine it with other kinds of practice and study. This one will help you get a good start in comprehending how the language works and you can add on skills from there. I recommend the 8 CD sets since the 2 CD sets go by too quickly, tho' you can try them to see if you like this method.

Jacob B.

2/26/2016 01:19:38 pm

I've recently completed the ENTIRE German course by Michel Thomas. The results are nothing short of incredible!
(By the entire course I refer to all 'sub-courses': Start, Total, Perfect, Masterclass).
At many points along the way there's a substantial sense of accomplishment. First, when finishing the first 2 hours of the course, you are already familiar with several sentence structures. By the end of the Total course, You reach a point where you have a solid grasp of basic to intermediate sentence structures, and by the end of the Perfect course you get a very firm grasp of all sentence structures in use, being able to both understand sentences in German, and construct your own, no matter how complex they may be.
It took me around 70 hours of listening, spread over 3.5 months to finish the courses, mostly listening to the recordings while driving! By 70 hours I refer to the time I spent on the courses, which includes pausing the recordings, rewinding, etc. No homework was required, no extra work of any kind.
Note, as you'll often read in reviews of the method, Michel's accent in the 4 languages he taught was far from native-like. However, this poses little to no problem. This is because he does put an emphasis on pronunciation key points, which, if mastered, allow you to be perfectly understood. To further help with pronunciation, on the segments that focus on vocabulary, you have native German speakers, who read in German the sentences you are asked to translate from English.
So, in conclusion, I highly recommend courses by Michel Thomas!

André S.

3/14/2016 04:56:30 am

I took French lessons as a kid, at school, and later learned a bit more by actually talking to native French speakers, but I was never quite fluent in it. That's when I decided to learn the language and started with the Michel Thomas 8CD program (Foundation).

The first thing that I noticed is how horrible his pronunciation is. For instance, he can't pronounce the "ai" sound at all. It was amazing to me how someone who can't pronounce a language is trying to teach others.

The method is good, you can learn a lot of vocabulary in a short time, but if you're a beginner you're bound to fall into bad pronunciation habits. I'd suggest using the Michel Thomas CDs later, after you already know some French... or avoid it altogether.

Michel Thomas

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