Any thoughts on the Michel Thomas Speak Japanese materials? I have used the original Michel Thomas materials for French, Spanish and German in the past and really liked them. The Michel Thomas Method materials were made after his death and involve other teachers, and I have heard some uneven things about those, but nothing yet about the Speak Japanese (8 discs, I assume roughly 8 hours) materials.
I am a beginner and struggling with the short Pimsleur conversations at full speed even in Level 1.
Thanks for any thoughts.
2 comments
From the little I’ve seen on the Michel Thomas method it’s heavily reliant on how close the language is to your native language, for an isolated language like Japanese this just doesn’t really work too well I’d guess. Unlike Spanish, French and German, and other languages that are very close to English, there’s not going to be any massive short cuts. If you intend to learn Japanese you’re just gonna have to do it like everybody else. Learn the fundamental grammar, learn words, reinforce/acquire those words through encountering them in graded readers/native media, repeat for hundreds to thousands of hours until you’ve reached where you want to stop.
The “students” on the recordings make lots of mistakes repeatedly. I understand this is part of the Michel Thomas method but in my humble opinion the specific mistakes they are making in the Japanese course do not give any educational value to the recordings. In the best case they are a waste of the listener’s time. In the worst case they will confuse the student. It is many years ago I listened and I do not remember what mistakes they were. But I remember feeling like it was not a good product.
If you want confidence in spoken Japanese staying with Pimsleur is a much better option as although it has some issues it is many times better than Michel Thomas Japanese course recordings. I completed the Michel Thomas course over a weekend after completing the three levels (90 lessons) of Pimsleur’s Japanese and did not feel I gained anything from it.