Posts Tagged ‘Review of Michel Thomas Spanish’

Michel Thomas Spanish is based on the famous language teaching techniques designed and perfected  by the one and only Michel Thomas in his New York Language School. This course is one of the simpler courses around but this doesn’t mean that the content is not extremely valuable. This is purely an audio course and has slightly more limited aims than many other courses. It’s aim is to teach a student how to speak Spanish as quickly as possible using Michel’s teaching technique….

Michel Thomas Spanish is a fast track way to learn Spanish. In fact, I would say this is the best course if you are planning a business trip or vacation in a Spanish speaking country and want to get the basics of the language quickly. Michel Thomas has a teaching style that simplifies the language and gives you confidence to speak to Spanish speaking people. Granted, the things you will say are pretty basic, like simple questions and requests but it will probably be sufficient if you are spending a couple of weeks on vacation or such like.

The source consists of ten CD’s that last about 20 – 30 minutes each. The format of the lessons is Michel Thomas and two students. Michel is taking a lesson and sets up the topic, explains some of the concepts and asks questions. The students answer the questions and ask questions if they don’t understand something. You are encouraged to stop the CD whenever a question is asked and speak the answer out loud. Then start the CD and listen to the answer.

One student is better than the other. I’m not sure if this is staged so that people at all levels of understanding feel involved in the teaching…or maybe it is genuine.

Michel is a good teacher. He explains that it is his responsibility to teach rather than the students responsibility to learn. To this extent he suggests that you don’t write anything down, don’t try to memorize things and don’t try to consciously learn. Sounds weird, but to a certain degree it works.

He also simplifies the language for you. For instance, he explains how many of the common words in Spanish are the same in English (or similar anyway) so that you already know hundreds of Spanish words. He also explains that on a day to day basis most people only use a few unique words.

His lessons concentrate on these words and on the type of sentences you would use in everyday speech or simple questions that you may ask a person. As I said, his teaching and his explanation of the language instills a fair amount of confidence in you that you can speak the language.

The lessons cover quite a bit of vocabulary and go over present, past and future tenses. You probably have to listen to the last lessons a few times to get the most benefit out of them. I recommend this course if you need a quick solution to speaking Spanish. Take it on the plane as you leave for Mexico and you’ll be surprised how quickly you pick things up.

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