Words, Words, Words - a review of sorts
I mentioned in an earlier post here that I was trying to learn another language. The original book I was using was good, but didn't inspire me a great deal, consisting mainly of sample dialogues and long lists of verb forms and so on. Workable but hard-workable. From time to time in the past I'd heard of the Michel Thomas method of language learning and noticed that my local bookshop had some examples of his product for a variety of different languages.
The hyperbole on the packaging has to be seen to be believed. It claims to give you an understanding of the language in question, and a working knowledge of structure and grammar within twelve hours of audio lessons with no need for note taking or rote learning.
Pah. Finn is not easily fooled by such marketing nonsense. But the Michel Thomas website does have a wide range of free downloads covering the first hour of the course for most of the languages available (www.michelthomas.co.uk/soundclips.htm) and so I tried out the Dutch one.
By the end of that I was convinced enough to give the course a try.
The format is ridiculously simple but seems to hit the right spots required for rapid learning, certainly for me. I can say that my experience of the course matched that in the 'hyped up reviews' in that the lessons just seemed to sink in without much conscious effort, and by halfway through the course I was able to intuit the correct responses to new concepts based on forms that had apparently taken root in my mind without me realising.
The Dutch course is the only one I've been exposed to so far, but the Method is I believe consistent across the range. The teaching is led in this case by a native Dutch speaker, and the CDs also feature two other students - genuine first time learners of the language who are doing the course for the first time. As the teacher puts it "you become the third student in our little unit" and that's how it feels. She starts of by stressing the similarities between English and Dutch and introduces a few basic words and sentences, then asking "How would you say..." and asking the two students (and the listener) to work out and give the correct response.
The simple sentences become more complex as the course goes on of course, but amazingly this simple method really seems to work as conditional clauses, different tenses, formal/informal modes and more (not that linguistic jargon is ever used!) are introduced effortlessly piece by piece and step by step.
Any flaws? Not really. The course doesn't build much vocabulary (though probably more than I'd learn from a written course) but what it does do is teach grammar and structure so that it then becomes relatively simple to simply add in new vocabulary correctly once it is needed and learned. And I'm sure there are more complex depths to the grammatical structure of Dutch that weren't covered - but the course fulfils its aims and gives a working knowledge and confidence in a ridiculously short period of time. By the end of the eighth CD I was amused to notice that large portions of my internal dialogue were in attempts at Dutch, frustrated only by not knowing the correct words for (for example) "Fridge" and "sausage" as I was making dinner. I'm not fluent by any stretch of the imagination, still learning, but this course has set me further on the path in a much shorter time than I would have imagined and I would recommend this method to anyone with an interest in learning a language rapidly..
The hyperbole on the packaging has to be seen to be believed. It claims to give you an understanding of the language in question, and a working knowledge of structure and grammar within twelve hours of audio lessons with no need for note taking or rote learning.
Pah. Finn is not easily fooled by such marketing nonsense. But the Michel Thomas website does have a wide range of free downloads covering the first hour of the course for most of the languages available (www.michelthomas.co.uk/soundclips.htm) and so I tried out the Dutch one.
By the end of that I was convinced enough to give the course a try.
The format is ridiculously simple but seems to hit the right spots required for rapid learning, certainly for me. I can say that my experience of the course matched that in the 'hyped up reviews' in that the lessons just seemed to sink in without much conscious effort, and by halfway through the course I was able to intuit the correct responses to new concepts based on forms that had apparently taken root in my mind without me realising.
The Dutch course is the only one I've been exposed to so far, but the Method is I believe consistent across the range. The teaching is led in this case by a native Dutch speaker, and the CDs also feature two other students - genuine first time learners of the language who are doing the course for the first time. As the teacher puts it "you become the third student in our little unit" and that's how it feels. She starts of by stressing the similarities between English and Dutch and introduces a few basic words and sentences, then asking "How would you say..." and asking the two students (and the listener) to work out and give the correct response.
The simple sentences become more complex as the course goes on of course, but amazingly this simple method really seems to work as conditional clauses, different tenses, formal/informal modes and more (not that linguistic jargon is ever used!) are introduced effortlessly piece by piece and step by step.
Any flaws? Not really. The course doesn't build much vocabulary (though probably more than I'd learn from a written course) but what it does do is teach grammar and structure so that it then becomes relatively simple to simply add in new vocabulary correctly once it is needed and learned. And I'm sure there are more complex depths to the grammatical structure of Dutch that weren't covered - but the course fulfils its aims and gives a working knowledge and confidence in a ridiculously short period of time. By the end of the eighth CD I was amused to notice that large portions of my internal dialogue were in attempts at Dutch, frustrated only by not knowing the correct words for (for example) "Fridge" and "sausage" as I was making dinner. I'm not fluent by any stretch of the imagination, still learning, but this course has set me further on the path in a much shorter time than I would have imagined and I would recommend this method to anyone with an interest in learning a language rapidly..