Michel Thomas Spanish Language Builder (Michel Thomas Series)

This is an excellent follow-on course to the Michel Thomas Spanish Foundation Course (also highly recommended). I bought it a little less than a year after buying and becoming fairly proficient with the content of the Foundation Course. For me, proficiency in the Foundation Course took a lot longer than the 6 weeks or so that the publishers suggested. Perhaps that is because I am very bad at learning a new language - but I don't think so. I think I am about average and that the publishers claims are unrealistic.

My warning to all beginners like me, is - don't be depressed by slow progress - learning a new language is tough, but we'll get there in the end, and let's enjoy ourselves while doing it. And the Michel Thomas Language Builder is a very enjoyable way of making real progress.

The format is a little different to the Foundation course or the Advanced course. There are no students; we are one-on-one with Michel and things move along very briskly, resulting in a lot of very useful and conversationally relevant content being included. You need to listen to this course initially with your finger on the pause button, but in time you will be able to answer all the prompts without pressing the pause button once. That took me about three months, listening for at least one hour per day, 6 days a week. So don't expect instant results. That just does not happen to us normal people.

After the language builder my advice is to go for the quite superb Advanced Course. Not so advanced as to demand any special skills from us, but really important towards allowing us to "think your way through the language" , as the great man, Michel, put it.

Michel Thomas has given us a wonderful and innovative learning method, in my opinion way ahead of the many other language courses that I have tried.

Excellent follow on from the 8 hour course (18/18 people found this helpful)

This is the perfect follow up to the introductory course. Without the students present, the pace is faster than the 8-hour course.This means you do have to be ready with the pause button, as there are not the predictable pauses. However, there is a lot of new language, and I think it is taking me longer to digest it than the 8-hour course. I wholly disagree with a previous reviewer who says it goes over the same old ground. There is some revision, but always something else added to it, to build up your language. In short, it does what it says on the tin!

Omit this one! (18/20 people found this helpful)

I enjoyed and learnt a lot from the Michel Thomas 8-hour course that preceded this one, and from the Advanced course that followed it, and I'd recommend them both with enthusiasm. (Don't copy Thomas's accent, though, especially the way he stretches out stressed vowels! Every native speaker of Spanish that I've heard makes them short and sharp.)

But avoid this 'Language Builder'. It mostly goes over the same ground as the 8-hour course, adding only a few words and phrases. And it's much more clumsily presented. With no students to slow Thomas down, the speed with which he answers his own questions, often before you realise they are questions, makes it almost impossible to do as he asks and use the pause button to give your own responses first.

Good but fast pace at first (70/70 people found this helpful)

This language builder is excellent for those who have completed the 8 hour course or who are already rusty intermediate speakers of Spanish. I found the pace a bit frightening to begin with and also it is a bit annoying that Michel doesn't leave much time between what he is asking and his reply. You have to be quick off the mark with the pause button!

Otherwise, I have found this course to be very usefully in consolidating my knowledge of Spanish and practicing more structures. Some reviewers complain abou the course being dry, I don't think this is the case. You shouldn't try and do it all at once. Just do 10 to 15 minute bursts over a couple of days and you will pick it up. Infact if you look at what he is doing here it is very clever. He is repeating vocabulary that you know and then introducing just one or two new words at a time so that you don't feel bombarded with new stuff- I felt a constant sense of accomplishment as I went through the course.

We have waited a year since the release of the first course for this next installment, which one feels could have been done at a more leisurely pace than the two hours it has been allocated. Is there any more to come? and if so let's hope we don't have to wait another year! (Since writing this review an Advanced Course has been published, which will be the last course as Michel died in January 2005)

Also for those who already have the complete course, the style of this 'language builder' is different, there are no students to listen to, it is just Michel Thomas and you 'one to one', which I personally prefer. As Michel spent his formative years in Germany he does have a strong German accent. By all means use this course to gain the knowledge but then listen to authentic Spanish and practice to gain a good accent.

Overall a recommendation to buy if you have the grounding. If not, buy the complete course first and then buy this when you have finished, otherwise it might seem a little intimidating. A real improvement on the first course is that it comes with a little brochure with all the phrases in so you can see how each is written down- I found this very useful.

Michel Thomas Spanish Language Builder (63/65 people found this helpful)

I was put off after reading a couple of other reviews and then after taking the plunge felt that it did seem to be just a recording of Michel reading through a list of words. But I must say that I was wrong! This is equally as good as the first 8 hour course but runs at a much quicker pace and you need to be ready with the pause button. A lot of the ground covered is from the other course but this is good for consolidating what you have already learned. I paid £16 for this course and learnt more in the time spent with this than £80 for a 15 week, 2hour per week collecge course!

Michel Thomas Spanish Language Builder (Michel Thomas Series)

Michel Thomas

Reader Reviews:

Wonderful product, in my opinion way ahead of the many other language courses that I have tried. (5/5 people found this helpful)

Excellent follow on from the 8 hour course (18/18 people found this helpful)

Omit this one! (18/20 people found this helpful)

Good but fast pace at first (70/70 people found this helpful)

Michel Thomas Spanish Language Builder (63/65 people found this helpful)

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