Berlitz Think & Talk: Level 2 (Advanced) The “Berlitz Think & Talk Advanced” series was published in the early 1990’s as a sequel to the initial, first generation, Berlitz Think & Talk series for the self-instruction of French, German, Italian, and Spanish. This second series did not include either a Russian or a Japanese course as had the initial series. Materials included: (a) two course manuals, for a combined 600-plus pages, (b) 6 audio cassettes having a total duration of approximately 6 hours, 1 practice cassette for recording oneself, and (c) a hard-shell plastic storage case.
Berlitz Think & Talk Advanced.JPG
Course DescriptionWhereas the initial Think & Talk series employed Berlitz’ version of the Direct Method, the approach to teaching in the sequel series was, to some extent, similar to Linguaphone’s or that of many other publishers. That is to say, the target language was introduced through a conventional series of progressively more difficult dialogues and exercise sets supported by notes on grammar and colloquial usage. Line-per-line English translations such as used in the Assimil courses were not provided. However, the lesson notes and glossaries, which were comparable to those found in the Linguaphone and/or Routledge Colloquial courses, provided ample support. The images below are drawn from Lesson Four of the Advanced German course.
Berlitz Think & Talk Advanced German Lesson 4 example 1.JPG
Berlitz Think & Talk Advanced German Lesson 4 example 2.JPG
A element which surprised me somewhat was that the course dialogues and exercise sets started somewhere within the CEFR A1-A2 range without the benefit of a brief review of the basics. Thus, a prerequisite for using these courses would have been a solid CEFR A1 level at the very minimum and perhaps a level just a tad higher. My impression is that the initial Think & Talk series would have been insufficient preparation for this follow-up series. The roughly 6 hours of audio recordings of the Think & Talk Advanced courses, which are in the target language only, were prepared with the assistance of voice-trained professionals whose speech was well-articulated, but not artificially so, and whose delivery was at a surprisingly quick cadence when compared to that encountered in most commercially-prepared language courses for self-instruction. The materials presented the target languages’ structural elements and high-frequency vocabulary up to the low-intermediate level, leading to a level of CEFR B1, or slightly higher, upon completion.
Overall Appreciation: Excellent!To be quite frank, I have never been a fan of the Berlitz self-instruction language courses.
I am not saying that the Berlitz courses are poorly-conceived; rather, they have simply never appealed to me. In this instance, Berlitz’ adoption of a more conventional approach to teaching, coupled with their inclusion of a good deal of relevant material capable of bringing the independent learner well within the CEFR B1 area, would have appealed to students, like myself, who were comfortable with the works by Assimil, Cortina, Linguaphone, Living Language, and many others. Although these courses have been out-of-print for many years and copies are now increasingly-difficult to find, I would recommend them to anyone considering, say, the Assimil Perfectionnement, the Living Language Ultimate Advanced, or the Linguaphone Advanced-to-Expert courses.