Surprisingly Effective

Surprisingly effective, although I would worry that the style of teaching is limited; Michael Thomas says things like 'posso' = I can, but this might mean that one has trouble with any verb / noun that he hasn't explicitly taught you. I also don't think the level is particularly high, but it must be good if you have never encountered the language before.

5 people found this helpful

I did have high hopes for this.

After buying the Hindi version which was great, I was looking forward to this title unfortunately it's not great, I listened to it on my phone and I had to have the volume quite high to listen to the people talking so that I could understand them better, unfortunately the beep to let you know when to reply is so sharp and loud, it really made it uncomfortable to listen too, so will be returning.

The Way to Learn

I was frankly hopeless at non English languages in school, even my native tongue Gaeilge. I teach History and on a visit to Austria in 2007 was mortified that I only had two or three words of German. Never one for grammar exercises I tried Michel Thomas German and so began a love affair with the method. I became competent and confident in German and French due to this method. The courses gave me confidence in my approach to many to tongues not on the courses including Gaeilge. In my opinion this is the way to learn another language by speaking the tongue by listening repeating and forming sentences. After all that is how we all learned to speak from birth.

Clear pronunciation

I hear them talking so clear and it is easy for me to repeat after.

My Italian friend burstout laughing

Would you try another book written by Michel Thomas or narrated by Michel Thomas?

Emphatically not.

Has Michel Thomas Method put you off other books in this genre?

No

How could the performance have been better?

Have a native speaker - this is simple.

What character would you cut from Michel Thomas Method?

Michel Thomas

Any additional comments?

My Italian friend howled with laughter at Michel Thomas' "Italian" accent. She said that if I spoke like that in Genoa I'd be laughed at - and she was right!
Please change this to a NATIVE Italian speaker: this is not a bad course per se, but the pronunciation is poor. I'd love to big this course up, but I trust mt Italian friends more than a publisher's sales spin.

3 people found this helpful