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'a great way to learn; it's fast and it lasts' -- Daily Telegraph 'the nearest thing to painless learning' -- Times
Times
‘the nearest thing to painless learning'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
90 of 97 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The first presumption here is that you have already completed the beginner's course - which I had! So why on earth out of 4 discs, the first 3 are merely reiterating everything from the beginner's course? I suppose the main reason could be, that this time Michel has two new students (Not the ones from the beginner's course!) and for the first 3 hours they are useless, and we the buyer lose time and pick up the price!
The last hour is very good on the course, as Michel takes us into what he calls 'Sharpened awareness of your own language.' By this he means, translating your own language into Spanish by what you are trying to say, rather than word for word. A good example on the course: - If you wanted to say in Spanish "You don't have to wait for me" - you would not use: "No tiene que esperar para mi" because that would indicate to the Spanish speaker that you MUST NOT WAIT FOR ME, i.e. or else there will be trouble!! The more appropriate Spanish translation would be: "No es necesario que espereme."
The sound quality for some unknown reason is not as good as the beginner's course, and as already iterated; the two students this time are not as sharp.
If you have completed the beginner's course - then you will most likely be disappointed.
Synopsis: The last hour is very good, but overall, poor value for money! Would suit a person already very good at Spanish, but has not already purchased the Beginner's Course.
26 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I bought the Advanced course after a few months break from the first two courses. There is quite a lot of revision of the verb tenses previously taught, but I found this very helpful, because it is done at quite a pace and having two new students (who are good) adds interest. The revision also neatly leads into new topics e.g after a thorough grounding in the present tense,including the irregular verbs which Michel terms the 'gogos',there is a natural progression to the present subjunctive. The 4 C.D's have a logical feel to them and he moves back and forth through the tenses adding new information all the time so you have a continual sense of over-learning which is so essential to language learning. By the latter part of the 4th C.D he is encouraging his students to attempt wonderfully long and complex sounding sentences and I do get a buzz from being able to beat the students in translating these, as I drive along in my car ( sad, I know..)
The downsides are that I wish he could have used a bit more vocabulary. Every sentence seems to have 'lo' e.g 'si lo hubiera visto'. Not everyone will like Michel's voice, e.g my daughter can't stand his dry mouthed accented Spanish (Polish, I think)But it doesn't bother me.
Overall I think it's a very good language learning tool. I have a really duff memory, so his problem solving approach and the way he gives you'hooks'to help you remember and work things out is very useful.
The downsides are that I wish he could have used a bit more vocabulary. Every sentence seems to have 'lo' e.g 'si lo hubiera visto'. Not everyone will like Michel's voice, e.g my daughter can't stand his dry mouthed accented Spanish (Polish, I think)But it doesn't bother me.
Overall I think it's a very good language learning tool. I have a really duff memory, so his problem solving approach and the way he gives you'hooks'to help you remember and work things out is very useful.
57 of 63 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I'm a total devotee of this method. - All through the ears, no pen & paper, but solidly based upon grammar. The idea - with the earlier 8-CD beginner's course and the 4-CD advanced course covered here - is that Michel Thomas sits in a studio with two genuine students and asks them hundreds of questions on how to construct sentences. The accent is on everyday speech. e.g - "How would you say..er.. 'Will you please make it for me and tell me when it's ready because I'm going to need it very soon?'"
You 'sit in' on the lesson and, just before one of the students answers, press the pause button and answer yourself. Then you press play to see if you were right. Quite frequently the students get it wrong and that's helpful because they make much the same common mistakes that you do and, when Michel Thomas corrects them, it helps reinforce the grammatical point at issue.
Interestingly, on the intermediate 2-CD course - The Spanish Builder, which Amazon offer as a package here, the method changes and it is just Michel Thomas asking YOU the questions without the two students. He covers a lot in too little time and gabbles. I think this course was knocked out very quickly following on the succes of the beginners and it just doesn't work as well. Moreover the advanced course covers the ponts in Builder so I would get the beginner's course and the advanced and give Builder a miss.
A word of caution: don't think of "advanced" in terms of "Advanced GCSE" or fluency. - It's about 2/3 the way to O level GCSE. e.g. it covers order of pronouns, past and future tenses, the positive / negative imperative, the conditional and - just about - the subjunctive. HOWEVER, because there are lots of memorable hints, the course helps you to converse in well-constructed Spanish in a way that GCSE doesn't and helps you gather together a useful vocabulary.(e.g every English word ending in ION - caution / trepidation has the same stem and ends in ICION caucion / trepidacion in Spanish. - That little bit of info gives you several hundred words - just like that!) He comes across on the CD's as a warm-hearted enthusiast with an acute grasp of how languages are "wired up" and communicates this to his students.
We have a holiday home in Spain and it's helped me considerably - the only downside is that you come across with native speakers as having a better command of Spanish than you have in fact and they can shoot back rapid-fire responses!.
Finally I would say that, whilst it's easier and more fun than a text book, you need both these courses AND text books to make optimum progress.
You 'sit in' on the lesson and, just before one of the students answers, press the pause button and answer yourself. Then you press play to see if you were right. Quite frequently the students get it wrong and that's helpful because they make much the same common mistakes that you do and, when Michel Thomas corrects them, it helps reinforce the grammatical point at issue.
Interestingly, on the intermediate 2-CD course - The Spanish Builder, which Amazon offer as a package here, the method changes and it is just Michel Thomas asking YOU the questions without the two students. He covers a lot in too little time and gabbles. I think this course was knocked out very quickly following on the succes of the beginners and it just doesn't work as well. Moreover the advanced course covers the ponts in Builder so I would get the beginner's course and the advanced and give Builder a miss.
A word of caution: don't think of "advanced" in terms of "Advanced GCSE" or fluency. - It's about 2/3 the way to O level GCSE. e.g. it covers order of pronouns, past and future tenses, the positive / negative imperative, the conditional and - just about - the subjunctive. HOWEVER, because there are lots of memorable hints, the course helps you to converse in well-constructed Spanish in a way that GCSE doesn't and helps you gather together a useful vocabulary.(e.g every English word ending in ION - caution / trepidation has the same stem and ends in ICION caucion / trepidacion in Spanish. - That little bit of info gives you several hundred words - just like that!) He comes across on the CD's as a warm-hearted enthusiast with an acute grasp of how languages are "wired up" and communicates this to his students.
We have a holiday home in Spain and it's helped me considerably - the only downside is that you come across with native speakers as having a better command of Spanish than you have in fact and they can shoot back rapid-fire responses!.
Finally I would say that, whilst it's easier and more fun than a text book, you need both these courses AND text books to make optimum progress.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Masterclass of Spanish Verb Types
When you consider what it would cost to learn this amount of material from formal tuition, the course is worth every penny.
Published 10 months ago by Russell
Michel Thomas Advanced Spanish
Excellent. I find it useful to go over the content again and again (I am on about the 4th iteration), as there are many subtleties that I didn't pick up straight away. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Hugh Johnson
Great for Intermediates
This course follows on very nicely from the 8 hour foundation course. I can't speak highly enough of Michel Thomas and his courses. He has fun teaching and you have fun learning. Read more
Published 15 months ago by L. Malyon
Excellent customer service
The product was going to arrive late but before the due date had arrived the seller had contacted me to let me know and sent me a book as a gesture to apologise..... Read more
Published 17 months ago by caclin
Learning on the move
If you learn well through learning the rules rather than learning by rote then I recommend the Michel Thomas series. Read more
Published 18 months ago by David Castell
Classroom like course
After reading other reviews of this course I decided to give this a go. I have many times in the past tried to learn either French or Spanish and have tried so many different CD... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Aine McElroy
Very helpful
Having bought and gone through Michel's foundation course, this was a logical progression.
Without repeating too much that everyone else has said:- There are 5 CDs and... Read more
Without repeating too much that everyone else has said:- There are 5 CDs and... Read more
Published 21 months ago by K. Morris
Michel Thomas Advanced Spanish
For anyone wishing to learn a language without having to trawl through endless textbooks, there is no better way to learn. Read more
Published 21 months ago by DavidJones
Michel Thomas, a wonderful teacher
I cannot praise Michel Thomas' entire work, available on DVD. I have recommended this Advanced Course to my fellow students of Spanish, many of whom have been delighted with... Read more
Published on 26 Sep 2009 by Bannatee
Maestro of Languages
Michel Thomas makes learning a language very easy.
He makes it enjoyable and leaves you wanting more!
He takes all the stress out of daily learning.
He makes it enjoyable and leaves you wanting more!
He takes all the stress out of daily learning.
Published on 6 Sep 2009 by Nettiebed
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