French With Michel Thomas: The Fastest Way to Learn a Language

by Michel Thomas

Anyone can learn a language with Michel Thomas--The World's Greatest Language Teacher. No books. No writing. No drills. And nothing to memorize--ever! With his unique program, Michel Thomas has taught celebrities, corporate leaders, and schoolchildren--with immediate and amazing results. Now the Language Teacher to the Stars invites everyone to join his class! Using French with Michel Thomas , listeners learn in real time--fully understanding as they go along, turning words into short sentences, and then building them into longer, more complex sentences, until they are conversing in French. Michel will have listeners formulating their own thoughts and sentences from the very beginning, even if they have never succeeded in learning a language before. Michel has used this very method to teach celebrities such as Mel Gibson, Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty, and Princess Grace of Monaco.

Genres: Nonfiction

8 pages, Audio CD

First published August 10, 2001

About the author

Michel Thomas (born Moniek (Moshe) Kroskof, February 3, 1914 – January 8, 2005) was a polyglot linguist, language teacher, and decorated war veteran. He survived imprisonment in several different Nazi concentration camps after serving in the Maquis (World War II) of the French Resistance and worked with the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps during World War II. After the war, Thomas emigrated to the United States, where he developed a language-teaching system known as the Michel Thomas Method. In 2004 he was awarded the Silver Star by the U.S. Army.

Reviews

[Ruby Yaquot · Rating 5 out of 5]

احنا مكنش بتعلم فرنساوى ياجدعان
الكتاب سلس جدا جدا
لو فيه بالصوت منه يبقى هاخد الجنسية الفرنسيه فورا

[M L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michel Thomas provides information on cognates and other tips which are a great help to English speakers who seek to quickly acquire a working vocabulary in French.

Overall, this audio course is valuable and worthwhile. A caution: the materials are effective not because of the confusing, odd "method" he advocates, but rather they are effective because of the actual content -- good information which is not addressed, or at least not as thoroughly, by other authors I have encountered.

Concerns: the pace is incredibly slow, the voices droll, but of greatest concern is Mssr. Thomas' "method," by which he advises students not to think. At best, this advice is confusing and distracting -- at worst, inhibiting and counterproductive. If you simply ignore his "method" advice, and can live with the slow and awkward pace, and can ignore the painfully slow acquisition of language by the non-French speaking "students" on the audio recording, then in fact the material does offer good information in a form which can be conveniently absorbed while performing other minor tasks. Used in this way, the material is a nice adjunct.

[Susie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the audiobooks were an excellent way to brush up on my knowledge of the french language. I have 6 years of french language education from high school and college so these tapes were easier for me to follow. My fiance, who has no prior knowledge of the language, has found it more difficult to follow along. I don't mean that he struggled but we had to pause the tapes more often for him to answer Michel's questions. I believe that these tapes, if listened to in repetition, would be more effective. One go around was not enough for me to retain all of the information. I would recommend this audiobook to anyone who wants to brush up on their french language skills. Beginners- might want to use this as a supplimental learning tool.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked all that I learned, but the woman in the recording was irritating.