Carmody wrote:Many thanks for the clarification and good luck with the Russian.
Just wondering which French course you liked the best and why between Michel Thomas and Hugo.
Thank you.
I like both, but if I could use only one I'd chose Hugo's French in three months without any hesitation. I use Michel Thomas as my very first introduction to a language and it serves that purpose well, but realistically it teaches very, very little vocabulary and offers very few examples in the target language. Not only that, but Michel Thomas is not good for multiple reviews because you'll quickly become annoyed by the students' mumbling and the wasted time where the teacher explains things 20 times that you already understand. Don't get me wrong, Michel Thomas is good as an introduction to a language—it gives you a decent grammatical skeleton of the language—but it's very limited in content.
Hugo's French in three months just offers far more substance. My French book didn't state how much vocabulary it teaches, but my Russian one says around 800 words, and I imagine that the french course taught a similar amount of vocab, which is far more vocabulary than you'd learn from Michel Thomas. On top of that, with Michel Thomas I'd constantly get flustered with the students making mistakes because it was slowing me down and wasting my time, where as with Hugo's you can truly go at your own pace with no wasted time listening to other students mess up. It's also much easier to review Hugo's because you can simply turn to the page you want to review, read the notes, and then do the exercises.
If you're above B1, though, and I believe that you probably are right there at that B level, Carmody, then there are probably better grammar books for you, books targeted towards intermediate and advanced learners. As I said, I'd recommend Michel Thomas to an absolute beginner, and I'd recommend Hugo's French in three months to A1-A2/false beginners who want to get up to the B levels. Of course, there is the Hugo's Advanced French, which goes further, but I haven't used it yet, so I can't comment on that.
There's a lot of members on here who enjoy the conciseness of the Hugo's Courses—peter Mollenburg and Smallwhite come to mind—so it seems to have a good reputation beyond my opinion. It's just a really solid course for helping students reach the B levels.