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Average Customer Rating:

Worthwhile - but extremely irritating

Customer Rating:

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!

Not worthy of the Michel Thomas brand

Customer Rating:

I'm a massive advocate of Michel Thomas's work. I'm constantly recommending his courses to my friends for their ease of use, simplicity and the positive feeling you get from learning via his method. The only problem is that the success of his method is totally dependent on Michel himself, particularly his own in-depth knowledge, his limitless enthusiasm for languages, and particularly his adaptability, empathy and personable nature, all of which are in evidence in his CDs. This is a problem because Michel Thomas did not make or present this course. This French Vocabulary course is superficially similar to those that Michel Thomas made and presented. However, they lack all of the subtlety, ingenuity, instinct and personal connection that made his courses so enjoyable and effective. On the positive side there are certain aspects of the method that still work. The building up of phrases around basic structures and the structured repetition of vocabulary remain the same and help you to learn without too much effort. And the 'tricks' taught to help transform English vocabulary to French are often very effective. On the negative side, the whole thing comes across as fake, forced, and ultimately downright irritating. The woman presenting is truly awful, she couldn't possibly sound more insincere if she tried and her continual 'encouragement' comes across as trite, scripted and patronising. The choices of phrase have been noted in other reviews as being curiously dull and uninspiring and I entirely agree. Often the sentences chosen are expressions of displeasure or irritation (e.g. 'that noise is insufferable', or 'the dinner was tolerable'), while at other times they are obtuse or almost pointless. I am at a loss as to why they thought it was a good idea to have so many sentences that are either dull or have a negative slant, and I am 100% sure Michel Thomas wouldn't have endorsed it. Finally, they have chosen in this course to ditch the real students that were used in Michel Thomas's course in favour of recordings of native French speakers. This was presumably in order to aid pronunciation, or perhaps more likely to avoid the complexities of face-to-face teaching. Whatever the reasoning, the result is that the 'method' and the recording don't match, adding to the feeling of inauthenticity. It is ridiculous to hear native French speakers being congratulated in a sickly ingratiating voice for correctly pronouncing words in their own language. Additionally, the empathy that you feel with the students in Michel Thomas's courses, which also makes you feel like Michel Thomas is teaching you personally, is completely lost. In my eyes this was an important part of the method. The consequence of all this is that when listening to this course you are inclined to do the one thing that Michel Thomas dedicated so much effort to stop you from doing - you turn the CD off and do something else instead. The whole point of the Michel Thomas method was to make learning fun, stress-free and rewarding so that people would enjoy language learning and devote more time and energy to it. By producing something that doesn't meet this simple criterion the makers of this CD have, in my view, completely betrayed the biggest single principle on which his method was based. I am not at all impressed, and the words 'cashing in' come strongly to mind. Perhaps if you've never heard a genuine Michel Thomas course you won't be so disappointed by this, and if you don't find the woman annoying then you may well get more out of it. However, I would recommend anyone to stick to the recordings that Michel Thomas made himself - which are exceptional - and to find other methods for building up your vocabulary. After all, building a large vocabulary was never what his method was designed to do. His aim was to give you the fundamental building blocks of your target language, before passing you the responsibility to build on that structure yourself.

Michel Thomas Spanish vocabulary course

Customer Rating:

I completed the various Michel Thomas Spanish courses and it is only natural to compare the vocabulary courses of his various "disciples" (in this case Dr Rose Lee Hayden) with those. As a preliminary point, this is both difficult and uinfair because the courses teach fundamentally different things: MT taught grammar and very little vocabulary. Indeed, he taught vocabulary only to the extent that it was necessary to teach the structure of the language. This course aims to teach, frankly, as many different words as possible in 6 hours, with the result that grammar practice is cursory and it is necessary to do the course at least three times if you wish to internalise every word. I suspect many of the criticisms other have made spring from a failure to see this point. That said, as I see it the negatives are: 1. Dr Hayden's manner at times. Oh dear, the toes do sometimes curl - the endless "well done", "correct" and "yes!" after you have filled the gap in the recording with your answer, be it right or wrong, is bad enough. The various references to Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady" - "You've got it; by George, you've got it" (yes, really!) is the worst - are hard to stamach. 2. Dr Hayden's accent. I am a relative beginner in Spanish but I have not the least doubt that, just as my English accent is better than Dr Hayden's, so is my Spanish one. The Spanish and South American assistants save the recording to some extent but the last voice we hear is always Dr Hayden's. Far more could have been put on the recordings if she had limited herself to the Spanish translation of an English word and the "how would you say...?" bit in English and left the Spanish answers to her assistants. More positively: 1. Dr Hayden's teaching method is pretty good. It is not possible to replicate MT for the reason I give above but she does her best to reconcile the teaching of vocabulary with some repetition and grammar practice, which were MT's hallmarks. 2. For £30 (less on Amazon) you do get a lot of vocabulary for your money. The question surely is not: is this course as good as it could be? (No) but: is it good value for £30. To that question, the answer is a definite yes.

An excellent addition to the series.

Customer Rating:

I have completed the French Foundation, Advanced and Language Builder courses and found them excellent. Based on other reviews of the Vocabulary courses, I didn't really know what to expect, but I have to say that I find this is a great addition to the series. While the original Michel Thomas courses were very good at teaching sentence structure, the emphasis on verbs meant there was very little opportunity to practice some other basic aspects of grammar, such as gender agreement. This was touched on, but there was very little opportunity to practice. This course makes up for these shortcomings, and I believe this is even more important than the amount of vocabulary taught. I have to say that I don't find presenter Helene Lewis annoying, nor do I find her accent off-putting; she has a rather neutral English accent. While the constant congratulation obviously irritates many listeners, I find it easy to ignore. So, all things considered, I believe this is an excellent course that not only teaches vocabulary, but also encourages the formation of grammatically correct sentences.

Haydenised Spanish.

Customer Rating:

This vocabulary course was a big disappointment to me after the excellent Michel Thomas CDs. Even as a beginner, I found the Hayden-American pronunciation of Spanish excruciating: in this respect it seemed to contradict, at times, the teaching of Michel Thomas. Similarly, I did not appreciate her patronising tone. However, if you can suppress your annoyance, the course is good value for its factual material