Tristano's log 2017: Wanderland in the Netherlusts

[Tristano]

It looks like my speed of Michel Thomas consume is 2CDs per day, that means that I will finish it in maximum 2 working weeks.
I find this resource annoying but useful. I would rather cancel the learners from the method because they have an atrocious pronunciation and they make mistakes continuously. I can't sympathize with them because I'm much better On the plus side it teaches much more how the language works than what Pimsleur does, which at the other hand does a much better job with teaching the pronunciation.
Anyway Michel Thomas allow constructions that I find horrible, like
"Ich wil jetzt es sehen", which sounds to me not very good. I would rather say "Ich wil es jetzt sehen" or "Jetzt wil ich es sehen". But maybe is just my Dutch bitching in my head and I took this completely wrong. Michel pronounces the final r also differently from what I would do, for example: "wir" -> "wir"
I would pronounce it something like "wia".
I don't know IPA and don't want to study it so please don't correct me with a symbol that is not properly an a but looks like an a, because it wouldn't help me

But, I'm going to do it all, as I still find it useful.

[tarvos]

Ich will es jetzt sehen / Jetzt will ich es sehen (different nuance in German) are both ok. Ich will jetzt es sehen is just... very un-German.

The final r dropping in German is something typical of Hochdeutsch, and I would normally do the same, but many dialects tap or trill the r and especially in Austria and Switzerland you may hear this r sounded out. Bavarians may do it too.

[Tristano]

Ich will es jetzt sehen / Jetzt will ich es sehen (different nuance in German) are both ok. Ich will jetzt es sehen is just... very un-German.

The final r dropping in German is something typical of Hochdeutsch, and I would normally do the same, but many dialects tap or trill the r and especially in Austria and Switzerland you may hear this r sounded out. Bavarians may do it too.

I see! I'll continue to drop the r. It is less easy for an Italian but I find it more pleasant to hear.

I got progressively more and more annoyed about Michel Thomas, it is so incredibly slow. I decided to pass to the advanced, but even there... The first lesson of the advanced course explains that there is an informal second person "du". I cringe big times because it should be in the first lesson in my opinion.
I think I will continue to jump from exercise to exercise and in case I get too annoyed I'll stop it altogether. I need to learn more vocabulary and structures and not keep repeating the same ones on end on. I feel like in a cage where the beginner stuff are too easy but the intermediate ones too difficult.

[tarvos]

in German using du is not as common as Sie, although it has been on the rise. I would, as an adult, definitely want to know Sie first.

[Tristano]

in German using du is not as common as Sie, although it has been on the rise. I would, as an adult, definitely want to know Sie first.

I see That is quite a difference with Dutch. Here I rarely say "u".

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Lol Michel Thomas:
- MT: "no stress, don't worry, be happy, learn German"
* MT bitching against the stupid students because they make mistakes



If I still hear MT talking about handles and diving instead of using the normal grammar concepts like "past tense", I become aggressive. If I have an accident or a fight in the snelweg, it's MT's fault.

[Ogrim]

I got progressively more and more annoyed about Michel Thomas, it is so incredibly slow. I decided to pass to the advanced, but even there... The first lesson of the advanced course explains that there is an informal second person "du". I cringe big times because it should be in the first lesson in my opinion.
I think I will continue to jump from exercise to exercise and in case I get too annoyed I'll stop it altogether. I need to learn more vocabulary and structures and not keep repeating the same ones on end on. I feel like in a cage where the beginner stuff are too easy but the intermediate ones too difficult.

I have never used MT. From what I read about it I quickly found out that it was not an approach that would appeal to me. Maybe you should drop it and go for something else? There is no lack of good German resources out there, and it is not as if you were a monolingual beginner. I have studied other languages with the German Langenscheidt method and I find it very good as it doesn't dumb down and it expects you to advance pretty quickly. Take a look at their English-based German course "Deutsch in 30 Tagen". It comes with audio CDs and MP3.

[Tristano]

Hi Ogrim, I think you are right.
I don't know anything about the Langenscheidt method and I also didn't find anything in internet. Can you give me a summary about how it works? Thanks

[reineke]

If you like the approach but don't like the execution you could try with Paul Noble. I would move away from English-based resources altogether. Pimsleur 1-3 + MT = 50 hours and less than 50 pages of text in the target tanguage.

[Ogrim]

It is maybe not right to talk about a specific method that is particular to Langenscheidt. I would say that their approach is more "traditional", in the line of "old" Linguaphone courses or the Colloquial series by Routledge. I don't know how TM is built up, but unlike e.g. Assimil, which works on a lot of very short lessons, slowish progress and incomplete grammar explanations, each Langenscheidt lesson is packed with new vocabulary and grammar. A typical course consists of 15 lessons which, depending on the language, takes you to A2 or B1.

From the preview available their German in 30 days - course seems a bit different to their "mit System" courses for other languages (I'm using it for Greek and Arabic). The German course has 30 lessons, the others normally 15. However, it seems that one lesson in "mit System" corresponds roughly to two lessons in the German course. And the main structure is the same: A text and/or dialogue, a vocabulary list, grammar explanations and exercises to test what you've learnt.

The things I like about Langenscheidt courses are:
- it is well structured,
- they take you seriously and don't dumb down their courses, nor do they promise you "fluency" in x days or anything like that,
- grammar is explained in a clear and complete manner, meaning e.g. that you get the full conjugation of verbs from the start,
- the audio is usually very good. In the "mit System"-courses the audio for each lesson normally comes in two versions, one at natural speed and one at a slower speed,
- progress is quite quick, they manage to cover all main grammatical features in one course of 15 lessons. This can be daunting when you deal with a difficult language (like Arabic), but for someone like you with German I think it would be a plus.

[Tristano]

Thanks Ogrim. It really sounds like a useful resource for my goals. It looks like in the course of the time I'm starting to appreciate much more the classic method. On the other hand even when Pimsleur and Michel Thomas are a very bad form of self punishment, and I proceeded through them very fast, they had a role in giving me a headstart, and get me learning and practice time during my daily commutes to and from work in a couple of weeks. A method like the Langenscheidt though falls outside the daily commutes slot, which I must substitute then with podcast based resources. At this specific moment, I optimized all my little time slots. I have a methode 90 on my nightstand and one in my car. They're a sort of Assimil with more explanations and exercises. The slowish nature of this kind of resources is actually an advantage, but in general I think that they give the most when combined with a) a more active approach and b) a massive input based approach, as a link between the two.

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Sometimes I think that I should plan an exit strategy where I stop adding new languages and just care about bringing all my languages in the c2 area. Ok, honestly I don't think I would do it with Romanian, but ok. German is my language number 7, probably it would be better to fix a maximum amount. In how many languages can I ever be fully functional?