Michel Thomas Method: Spanish Vocabulary Course (Michel Thomas Series) [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

I've been a huge fan of Michel Thomas for years and would recommend any of his CD audio courses to anyone wanting to learn Spanish, Italian, French or German.
Were Michel alive today however, I wonder what he would make of this latest batch of language products - I mean the Vocabulary Courses - which bear his name.
Take the Spanish for example. With regard to the content I find little with which to quibble - although the endless repetition (like a mantra) of Michel's name becomes increasingly annoying as the course progresses. Indeed the inclusion in the course of two native speakers (one Castillian, the other Latin American) is a welcome and wholly positive aspect.
The problem is Rose Lee Hayden who presents the whole thing. On the box she is quoted as being Michel's 'most trusted teacher'. If this 'trust' - as one assumes - is based on her apparent linguistic ability, then such a claim is extraordinary because frankly, in my opinion her Spanish pronunciation is absolutely appalling. The impression given is that she had half an hour's crash course on the language before recording began - she seems to keep forgetting and remembering the pronunciation rules of Spanish (which are not particulary difficult, incidentally) arbitrarily, as one would expect from a child after a couple of lessons.
I would imagine that Ms Hayden was in charge of this project herself because otherwise I cannot imagine how anyone in his right mind would let her loose on it!
In conclusion, my advice to anyone considering buying this product would be 'approach with caution'. Yes, it will improve the breadth of your Spanish but tackle the course in small bites - else the sound of Rose Lee Hayden drawling along interminably in broad New-Yorkese while pausing only to massacre the beautiful sounds of the target language, might send you over the edge!

The classic format of the Michel Thomas Spanish series, as represented by the Foundation and Advanced courses, is `live' lessons given to real students. This works for as long as the students' abilities exceed or match your own. Repeated plays of someone else's mistakes will eventually wear anyone down. This does not detract from the quality of the courses: proper use of the CDs will ensure a sound and solid grounding in the language.

The series also includes 'Review' and 'Language Builder' editions. The Review courses are edited versions of the relevant original course, while Language Builder expands on vocabulary and colloquial knowledge. The common factor in these deviations is they feature Michel Thomas alone, talking directly to you, the only student. One-on-one is generally deemed the most effective way of teaching and these courses are no exception: the lack of distraction is a welcome contrast to the Foundation and Advanced courses.

The format in this latest edition is different again: two native speakers replace the students - a great improvement on a good idea - while Rose Lee Hayden takes the role of the great man. One strives to be objective, but from a personal angle, this is where it all starts to come apart.

Even with the conversational possibilities inherent with two students live in a studio, Michel Thomas very rarely strayed from the business of teaching the language and certainly never descended into small talk, all the time keeping a coherent path and displaying impeccable manners, even when his patience was being tested. Rose Lee however, despite only having the microphone for company, takes every opportunity to inject a 'personality' into proceedings, which as the template demonstrates, is utterly unnecessary. Over time and with repeated plays, this constant eager sincerity can become very irritating indeed.

The sort of thing that happens is: you're invited to speak an answer; you respond and get it right. Your teacher says "Right!". Do you feel encouraged? Bear in mind you are conversing with a CD. You try answering another, but maybe this time you get it wrong. Don't worry, because teacher excitedly shouts "Good for you!!!" and never fails to respond positively to every answer. It becomes hard to know which is the most annoying: being congratulated for getting it right or for getting it wrong.
You try hard to resist the invitation to answer back, but then you notice yet another sentence beginning with "As Michel Thomas told us..." - OK, no big deal, she's just pushing the brand, but more than once you will hear Rose Lee claim that she just knows how good your Spanish is (how?) and that you should feel free to go back and check out the Michel Thomas courses and a whole lot other stuff you already know, until it gets really crazy and it sounds like she's being equally patronising to the native speakers, saying "Yes!" or "Right!" every time they chip in with their idea of how it's said, so that in the end, your challenge becomes how to find a way of stopping yourself shouting at your CD machine - "For the love of god, wouldya please just cut the cra p and get on with some godda m Spanish!!!".

Did I mention that Rose Lee speaks in a very broad American accent? Do you think that could be part of the problem?

Obviously, this is a very subjective review and it should perhaps be emphasised that there is no intention to put anyone off the idea of buying this set of CDs, though if you're already a Michel Thomas fan, that's hardly likely anyway. It's great value for money and despite some other minor inconsistencies, a worthy addition to the series, containing a mass of excellent material that will help any diligent student improve their Spanish.

The thing is, they may have to work for it. If you are comfortable in the role of small schoolchild, grab it with both hands. Others of a less malleable nature, be sure to take my tip - practise deep breathing exercises before and after each session and you'll get through.

I bought this course not knowing quite what to expect but hoping it might be an easy way to learn all the food/household/shop type vocabulary that I can never remember.Well it's not and at first I thought I'd be disappointed, but I was in for a surprise so read on..

The teacher is Rose Lee Hayden - an American. I found her voice and presentation very clear and the accent was no hindrance. There are no pupils for this course but two native speakers,one from Spain and one from South America, are used to provide the correct version of a phrase, and essentially pronunciation practice. This was very useful as it had been absent on previous Michel Thomas courses. Another reviewer mentioned that Rose Lee Hayden does talk to you as though you were there: " yes, I think you've got it". Well maybe you haven't! But I didn't find this irritating at all, so it must be down to personal choice and learning styles.
This course continues with the philosophy that you learn a language by understanding how it works. In other words you have to understand its form,its syntax, in order to generate new sentences and express what you want to say.I found that evening classes I attended preferred to teach great reams of vocabulary in the context of some set phrases, and grammar was taught very gradually. Again, maybe it's down to personal choice or mix and match, but personally I find the Michel Thomas method very effective. One problem with using the C.Ds in the car is that there's no pause button and I'm driving anyway so there isn't always enough time to answer before the correct version is given.

The first two C.Ds look at vocabulary which is very similar in English e.g -ible -able words,-tion to -ción words. There are hundreds of these words and they tend to be the more 'grown up vocabulary'.They are easy to remember and straight away Rose Lee gets you practising these words using all the tenses you've learned in the previous courses.I also found it enabled me to start having a guess at what a Spanish word might be(in the context of those similar to English words)and Rose Lee also did this- she would throw in a word to encourage you to have a go. She then moves on to verbs, covering old ground in terms of-ar,-er,-ir,gogos but covering more vocabulary,practising reflexive verbs, and spending time on irregular verbs through all the various tenses. There is a really good section on the subjunctive or command tense where she teaches which verbs and expressions trigger its use.

Segment 3 teaches everyday expressions, starting with verb-plus expressions such as 'cambiar de'-to change your mind.These are important to know because if you look at any Spanish dictionary with a grammar section, you find long lists of verbs followed by a preposition, that isn't always the one you might expect. Then there are expressions with 'hacer' and 'tener'-all quite common and worth knowing. Expressions using the dreaded por/para are taught, and also those with'lo',which I'd never understood before.Also expressions using 'ser' versus those with 'estar'are explored,followed by comparisons,opposites, prepositions and generally useful everday stuff like'sin embargo'-however.Spanish double negatives and using the passive are also useful to know how to use.

Now the proof of the pudding is in the eating; we went to Spain this summer and had meals with two Spanish families. Although my attempts at speaking were tortuous, this method did help because it gave me the tools to try and work out what I wanted to say. I didn't need to say that the shower doesn't work (evening class Spanish)but our friends were interested in discussing our opinions of Spain and cultural/social differences etc(Michel Thomas Spanish). When we went to our chalet accommodation I looked at the equipment list in Spanish and only understood about 5 words. I even had to look up the words for knife,fork and spoon!

So clearly I still have some way to go and would welcome a Michel Thomas course that includes vocabulary for kitchen equipment. My conclusion would be that this course helps you learn vocabulary in the context of practising use of words in a wide range of grammatical structures. I recommend it.