German update #1
Ok, so here are some thoughts on the Michel Thomas method of language learning after a month following the German course.
I have to say I do like the method. One of the areas of language learning I always find challenging is making sentences from scratch. Not so much the words, but the order because of course German sentence structure is different to English. In other courses that I've tried, you get some example sentences and usually some grammar rules for the construction of those sentences, but it isn't natural and it doesn't sit well in my head. Michel Thomas does a great job of breaking sentences down and reconstructing them in the target language - in this case German - so that the word order starts to feel natural. I really like this aspect of the course.
One thing you don't learn a lot of (so far anyway - I am only a couple of CDs into the Total German course) are nouns. The sentences you build make major use of "it". This obviously avoids learning lots of words for things and their associated versions of "a" and "the" and I can see why people would be unhappy about this: if you can't point to something you're a bit snookered. What the Michel Thomas method gives you is the tools to construct the sentence you want - it is a fairly easy step to replace "it" with the relevant word once you have learned it (you can always supplement your learning with a more book-based course). The key is that you know exactly where in the sentence that word goes.
One of the claims made by the Michel Thomas method is that, by the time you have completed the Perfect course you will "become a fluent speaker". I watched a YouTube review of the method and the reviewer questioned that claim because of the lack of vocabulary covered in the course. I have to disagree with this. I don't think fluency is about the number of words you know, but about how confident you are at speaking and how fluid your speaking is. I think by the time I get through the whole series of German courses, I should be able to speak quite comfortably because the focus is entirely on listening and speaking. So I think the fluency claim is probably a fair one. I'll come back to this in a few months and see.
So what can I say now after a month? Things like:
How long can you stay here? - Wie lange können Sie hier bleiben?
I'm sorry but I can't give it to you today because I don't have it - Es tut mir leid aber Ich kann es Ihnen nicht heute gaben denn Ich habe es nicht.
I will give it to you, but I can't bring it to you now because I don't know where it is. - Ich werde es Ihnen gaben, aber Ich kann es Ihnen nicht jetzt bringen denn Ich weiß es nicht wo es ist.
What time will you arrive here tonight? - Um wie viel Uhr werden Sie heute Abend hier ankommen?
No doubt these sentences will seem a little "Janet and John" to a native speaker, but it's early days. The important thing is that I now feel fairly comfortable with basic sentence structure, I know a few verbs and I can tie bits together using "but" and "because". I think that is good progress. At some stage I will start following the Teach Yourself course in parallel to cover reading and to give me more vocabulary, but I'm holding off for now so I don't confuse my brain.
I have to say I do like the method. One of the areas of language learning I always find challenging is making sentences from scratch. Not so much the words, but the order because of course German sentence structure is different to English. In other courses that I've tried, you get some example sentences and usually some grammar rules for the construction of those sentences, but it isn't natural and it doesn't sit well in my head. Michel Thomas does a great job of breaking sentences down and reconstructing them in the target language - in this case German - so that the word order starts to feel natural. I really like this aspect of the course.
One thing you don't learn a lot of (so far anyway - I am only a couple of CDs into the Total German course) are nouns. The sentences you build make major use of "it". This obviously avoids learning lots of words for things and their associated versions of "a" and "the" and I can see why people would be unhappy about this: if you can't point to something you're a bit snookered. What the Michel Thomas method gives you is the tools to construct the sentence you want - it is a fairly easy step to replace "it" with the relevant word once you have learned it (you can always supplement your learning with a more book-based course). The key is that you know exactly where in the sentence that word goes.
One of the claims made by the Michel Thomas method is that, by the time you have completed the Perfect course you will "become a fluent speaker". I watched a YouTube review of the method and the reviewer questioned that claim because of the lack of vocabulary covered in the course. I have to disagree with this. I don't think fluency is about the number of words you know, but about how confident you are at speaking and how fluid your speaking is. I think by the time I get through the whole series of German courses, I should be able to speak quite comfortably because the focus is entirely on listening and speaking. So I think the fluency claim is probably a fair one. I'll come back to this in a few months and see.
So what can I say now after a month? Things like:
How long can you stay here? - Wie lange können Sie hier bleiben?
I'm sorry but I can't give it to you today because I don't have it - Es tut mir leid aber Ich kann es Ihnen nicht heute gaben denn Ich habe es nicht.
I will give it to you, but I can't bring it to you now because I don't know where it is. - Ich werde es Ihnen gaben, aber Ich kann es Ihnen nicht jetzt bringen denn Ich weiß es nicht wo es ist.
What time will you arrive here tonight? - Um wie viel Uhr werden Sie heute Abend hier ankommen?
No doubt these sentences will seem a little "Janet and John" to a native speaker, but it's early days. The important thing is that I now feel fairly comfortable with basic sentence structure, I know a few verbs and I can tie bits together using "but" and "because". I think that is good progress. At some stage I will start following the Teach Yourself course in parallel to cover reading and to give me more vocabulary, but I'm holding off for now so I don't confuse my brain.
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