Customer Reviews: Read 128 more reviews...
 Unbelievably effective November 4, 2008
I've just finished listening to this in its entirety, and it's been absolutely fantastic.
Prior to undertaking the Michel Thomas method, my knowledge of French came from 5 years of it in school quite some time ago (little of which stuck), and bits and pieces I had picked up from family holidays in France. But looking back, I realise that what these experiences left me with was just a basic knowledge of names for various things (days of the week / numbers / food / items of clothing / very simple phrases) and next to no knowledge of grammar, ie how to actually construct a sentence properly.
Michel Thomas has changed all that - although his course doesn't actually teach you a whole lot of vocabulary in terms of nouns, his ability to get you to understand grammar in a thorough but practical way, is superb. By feeding it to you bit by bit, and making sure you understand what has just been covered before moving on to the next thing, he really builds your knowledge and confidence and has you working out how to say quite complex sentences in next to no time.
The only negative things I have to say are that the vast majority of what you will learn will be how to say things in the present tense and how to ask questions, although there is also quite a bit on the "je vais" method of speaking about the future. Very briefly at the end he does touch on other ways of forming the future tense, and then even more briefly goes into the past tense. But I guess more on tenses is what the Advanced course is for - I'll certainly be listening to that one next.
Also, the female American student on the tapes is incredibly annoying, as other people have pointed out. I tried to tune her out and ignore her most of the time. The other student (the British male) is much less offensive.
Michel says all the way through that you don't need to write things down or try to remember anything, but I have to say that I made notes the whole time - I know that for me personally, writing stuff down helps cement it in my mind. The fact that he frequently tells you how to spell the words he is introducing was a big help for me in this respect.
Basically though, this course has been a revelation for me: I just wish I had been taught French this way in school...
Great! October 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
My French was always a bit ropey to say the least, but, if your serious about leaning French, you need just spend 10 minutes a night with this and do exactly what the chap says..... and within two weeks you will have a fairly good grasp.....and its very addictive too. So about 10 minutes, thats all you need....you can easily spend more time than that on the john in an evening....so do it!.... or even combine the two!
BRILLIANT September 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I learnt more from the first CD than from five years at school. Without doubt this is the easiest and most effective way to learn French. I recently returned from France on a family holiday. I certainly had more confidence than ever before when speaking French.
You are advised to pause the CD and try things out for yourself before the students attempt it, but to be honest you can usually get there before them. I've used the CDs in the car and when out jogging, with no need to pause. If I had to find a groan it would be at the 'not so good' student. Sometimes you get the feeling that she isn't listening and is in her own little world. There are times when I think Michel is thinking the same thing about her.
If you're serious about learning French then this is the only place to start.
A very very clever man indeed May 12, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Let me start with on a good point and say that michels technique is a true work of art
Its only when you have listened to the tapes a few times(and you will need to in order to completely digest it) that you realise how clever he is at making his point.
It really is as close as you can get to painless language tuition.
When I had ingested this course i was convinced that I could speek fluent french,however it is only the introductory course so you will be needing the avanced course after.Which is also exellent,and much more involved.
Now for the bad bit:
I can not for the life of me understand how Michel could have let the course be published with the female american student!!
SHE IS A MORON.
I have never in my whole life been forced to listen to someone as irritating as her.i dont even know her,yet i found myself wanting to strangle her.
It is a shame because she did make it hard to listen to after not a very long time.In fact I edited her out of my cds,now the course is more like the Michel Thomas language builder, which I actually prefered,you can only listen to someone elses mistakes for so long before they start to get annoying especialy as you are improving at the same time.
Having said that I still got a great deal from this course and I highly recommend it.
I want to recommend this particular course April 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This audio course is very important for someone who wants to learn to speak French. Many of the other materials on offer may not be very helpful because they seem to start at a level too difficult, like trying to reach the bottom rung of a ladder and finding it too high, the student is likely to give up. This course fills this very crucial gap and if you have tried before to learn a foreign language and decided you cannot quite make it, then this is the course for you! I was delighted with it for making something achievable that was before potentially too difficult for me. There are minor criticisms which you can pick up from reading some of the other reviews but I would say this is not the important part. What is important is that this course is a significant breakthrough and it is exciting to be enabled to speak French!
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