Language Transfer vs the original Michel Thomas courses

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Cainntear
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Re: Language Transfer vs the original Michel Thomas courses

Postby Cainntear » Sun Jan 09, 2022 5:41 pm

Thanks for the input -- I've been meaning to try out the LT stuff for a while. I think I started one a few years back, but didn't follow through if I did. I certainly tried the very first version when it came out a long time ago.
TSS42 wrote:With LT Greek most of the lessons feel crammy, rushed, and all in all it's quite a stressful experience.

Quite often Mihalis covers a huge amount of complex grammar in a single session, speaking quite fast.

This seems to be one of MT's principles that other people don't grasp easily, as even the "Michel Thomas Method" courses written after his death fail to deal with it: teach one thing at a time.

It's tempting to say "but these three things are all one thing -- one rule" but that's not what Thomas did.

While I admire the fact that it's all free and he runs off donations, he also claims, and I quote: "The Thinking Method, with all its peculiarities, is a product of the Language Transfer project". No dude, it's not. The method is exactly the same as the Michel Thomas method, and he executed it WAY better.

To be fair to the guy, I'm pretty certain he used to explicitly reference MT as a major influence until Hodder & Stoughton and/or Thomas's estate sent a cease and desist letter on their trademark. They also went after him claiming he was infringing their patent, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation stepped up and defended him against one of the most ridiculous patents ever.
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Re: Language Transfer vs the original Michel Thomas courses

Postby jmar257 » Sun Jan 09, 2022 7:16 pm

FWIW it's been years since I used either, and the only LT ones I've completed are Spanish and French, but I really preferred the Spanish one to the MT Spanish version. I feel like Mihalis covered some things in Spanish better and MT had a guy student in the Spanish course that was absolutely awful at the language and took away from me being able to concentrate on the course. That said, in addition to having used both years ago, there was a several year gap between my usage of MT and LT, so take my comparison with a grain of salt. I do think LT French is bad and would recommend sticking with MT for that language.
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Re: Language Transfer vs the original Michel Thomas courses

Postby garyb » Sun Jan 09, 2022 8:42 pm

I agree about the Greek one. It started off great but I really struggled to keep up with it after the first third or so. I can't remember if I finished the course or just gave up, but in either case not much of it stuck. I also remember that most of the transcripts didn't use accent marks, which isn't ideal for learners.

I thought that MT Greek, on the other hand, was very well done and I felt I got much more benefit in a shorter time. It taught much less language overall than MT, but taught it well. But I realise that it's not an "original" course done by Michel himself so doesn't answer the question.

LT Spanish does seem to have a good reputation but I've not looked at it.
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Re: Language Transfer vs the original Michel Thomas courses

Postby Cainntear » Mon Jan 10, 2022 9:03 am

jmar257 wrote:FWIW it's been years since I used either, and the only LT ones I've completed are Spanish and French, but I really preferred the Spanish one to the MT Spanish version. I feel like Mihalis covered some things in Spanish better and MT had a guy student in the Spanish course that was absolutely awful at the language and took away from me being able to concentrate on the course. That said, in addition to having used both years ago, there was a several year gap between my usage of MT and LT, so take my comparison with a grain of salt.

...and there's the danger when comparing courses -- no one person can approach both from the same starting point. MT's policy of literally one thing at a time means that it appears to be less thorough, whereas pretty much every other course bundles everything together and can explicitly talk about similarities and differences and appear more thorough. But would it have stuck if it was your first encounter with the language? It's hard to know.
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Re: Language Transfer vs the original Michel Thomas courses

Postby David1917 » Tue Jan 11, 2022 1:15 am

I quite like the LT Greek, and prefer it to the MT French I did.

- MT had worse students that muddied up the process. People on here have said "That's the point! You might screw up in the same way they do!" Well, it felt like a massive waste of time. There is nothing beneficial to me in hearing that many mistakes. One or two, as in the LT, are good, but one of the French students was ridiculously bad.

- The MT courses made after his passing (I have sampled: the end of the French series, the Russian series) are less good. The French one was unlistenable - it was like advertising the MT method within the course. Hello, I've already bought it??? Total travesty. So in terms of people being "inspired by" MT, those who own the name did it worse.

- The Russian one was a little better and actually did a good job at explaining and patterning some of the prefixes. I could see how a beginner would benefit from it.

- I have not noticed Mihalis explaining too many points at a time. I do think the times he has chosen to cut the recording into separate lessons can sometimes be confusing.
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Re: Language Transfer vs the original Michel Thomas courses

Postby cito » Tue Jan 11, 2022 4:30 pm

This will be related, but bare with me here:

My family is Italian-American, my grandparents and great-grandparents and their families came from Italy, so we have often felt a connection to Italian culture. My grandmother never taught her children how to speak Italian, however, as they were ashamed and (as far as I know) somewhat discriminated against when they first arrived in America for being Italian. Seeing my interests in languages and the work I've put into French, my siblings have been kinda saying that they are interested in learning Italian, and almost all of them said something along the lines of "Italian is the only language I would be motivated to learn." This excites me as a language learner, however, knowing my siblings, they won't want to put in the same amount of time or the same type of work I might want to (for example, I might do Anki and they might just not be with that, which is totally okay!). I've been compiling resources for Italian over the last day or so to make a little guide of resources they might wanna use to learn. I think podcasts and audio-courses might be their best bet, and knowing them, I think that is what they would like using the most. That being said....

Do you think I should recommend the original MT or LT? I am going to recommend Pimsleur as well (I think they take different approaches to the language, as I used Pimsleur for French and did some of LT Arabic, so they might be good to mix), and I was wondering which of the two might be more effective.
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Re: Language Transfer vs the original Michel Thomas courses

Postby lemonbird » Tue Jan 11, 2022 7:08 pm

Do you think I should recommend the original MT or LT? I am going to recommend Pimsleur as well


I think the advantages of LT relies in that it's a free method. If money is not a problem, I would recommend going for MT instead. The fact that the LT teacher has a strong foreign accent (that's what I noticed at least for the French lessons) puts me off. My experience with MT was better although I think it's mostly useful to get some feel for the language and general understanding before actually studying it. Afterwards, I prefer Pimsleur and other ressources :)
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Re: Language Transfer vs the original Michel Thomas courses

Postby kanewai » Thu Jan 13, 2022 6:45 pm

I lost my way in LT Greek also, though to be fair there are a whopping 120 lessons. I really appreciated the first half; I felt Mihalis gave better descriptions of the way the grammar work than I got with other courses. However, somewhere around lesson 60 it became harder to progress, or to recall old information, and I think I finally gave up around lesson 80. If / when I return to Greek I'll give Michel Thomas a try.

I've used both for the Romance languages, but it's hard to compare. I used MT years ago, when I was starting off, and LT recently, as a review. I liked Language Transfer much better for French / Spanish / Italian, but I was using them at a different stage in my learning.

My major complaint with both is the lack of an index. Sometimes I just wanted to review one thing - perhaps an irregular verb, or the aorist tense - and I would have no idea where to find it.
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Re: Language Transfer vs the original Michel Thomas courses

Postby Le Baron » Tue Jan 18, 2022 4:10 pm

I've never tried Language Transfer though I downloaded the Spanish one ages ago and never used it. Judging by the preceding posts it's apparently good, so maybe I should have.

Years ago I thought I would have a listen to Michel Thomas German after hearing about his reputation. I found it dreary and the set up just irritating. He has a tiresome impatience like old-fashioned schoolteachers who prompt you for the correct answer after only minimal input. Maybe he's better in person, but that one-on-one instruction is only for film stars and rich business people who then turn up in the marketing materials. It's also a bit expensive for what it is. I'd rather do an old Linguaphone course.

I'm suspicious of those courses that only teach speaking - and a limited version of it at that. I'm all for speaking asap, but the lack of concern for writing/reading in MT and those Pimsleur courses eventually must lead to some disadvantages. No doubt the 'pros' here use it in their own way alongside other learning, but that's not how the course is presented.
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Re: Language Transfer vs the original Michel Thomas courses

Postby Cainntear » Thu Jan 20, 2022 12:03 am

Le Baron wrote:He has a tiresome impatience like old-fashioned schoolteachers who prompt you for the correct answer after only minimal input.

Personally, I think that is a very good thing -- while it may seem old-fashioned in practice, in theory it matches a core fact about learning: the sooner you use it, the sooner you practice it, the better. Of course, it hangs on the teacher giving the actual minimal input required to allow the student to get the correct answer -- there's no point asking for a student to give an answer based on insufficient input. Thomas seemed to get this more or less right most of the time, but definitely not always.

kanewai wrote:My major complaint with both is the lack of an index. Sometimes I just wanted to review one thing - perhaps an irregular verb, or the aorist tense - and I would have no idea where to find it.


Le Baron wrote:I'm suspicious of those courses that only teach speaking - and a limited version of it at that. I'm all for speaking asap, but the lack of concern for writing/reading in MT and those Pimsleur courses eventually must lead to some disadvantages. No doubt the 'pros' here use it in their own way alongside other learning, but that's not how the course is presented.


Both of these are valid. My key problem with MT's courses is that there's no path set out for what to do after them. Thomas himself seemed to believe they were self-complete, but I think everyone hears agrees they're not. I only recommend them as a start or an early part of learning.

Unfortunately what would be needed as a real follow-up would seem really off-brand given that they'd be heavy on written work, so I doubt Hodder would ever go anywhere near them.
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