Hello and welcome to St. Petersburg in Russia it is an absolutely stunning
city and in today's video I'm gonna be giving you an overview of the Michel
Thomas method for learning Russian now Michel Thomas was again actually
inspired me an awful lot because when I was learning in Italian back at
university I came across I actually stumbled across this course in a
bookshop and it absolutely transformed my relationship with learning languages
so in today's Tip Thursday and we're running you through exactly how the
methodology works in the course and the pros and the cons and how Michel Thomas
himself transformed my life and my relationship with learning languages but
first let's go and take a walk around the beautiful city of St. Petersburg
because you know if you go and learn Russian this is actually where you're
gonna use it obviously with the local people here you can speak to them in
their native tongue so let's go!
So Michel Thomas claimed that there is no such a thing as a bad student only
about teacher now I actually discovered it after I'd had a remarkable trip to
Italy back when I was in university and I went into my local bookshop I was
browsing through all the books and they had all the standard textbooks that were
like basic and to memorize lots of vocabulary or grammar rules all very dry
and then I came across the Michel Thomas courses and what attracted me or caught
my attention originally was at the back of it it said something like no rote
memorization no learning grammar rules and this really appealed to me because
that's what had frustrated me and had really struggled with learning languages
in high school I'm not someone who was like talented or had some sort of
language learning gene or it came very easy to actually had to go through this
long a process in order to learn languages and Michel Thomas was the
course that there really was a watershed in me learning languages because it
really like transformed everything so let's go and take a look at what
actually is inside the course the method the strengths of it and actually the
weaknesses of it so let's get into the more nitty-gritty and the details. Let's go!
Really tasty! So the method how does Michel Thomas work? How do the courses
work? Now Michel Thomas himself was on the original court recordings for German
French Italian and Spanish but he did not actually make a Russian course in
his lifetime so it is his method with another teacher and you're gonna join a
virtual classroom so there are two other students on the recordings basically you
pause and then you speak when it's your turn in the class yeah basically the
course of the method provides you with a series of building blocks that allow
gonna allow you to be able to build up basic sentences in the language really
really quickly so a quick example might be because I have my coffee in front of
me here flat white I'm a little bit obsessed with that like to say I want in
Russian it's gonna be хочу and to drink is gonna be пить and this is a
кофе so how would you say I want to drink the coffee it's gonna be obviously
those three component parts we've already learned previously I want хочу
пить кофе so that's basically what allows you to do and while this seems a
little bit simplistic it's actually great when you start off in a language
because you know it's not will complicate things you want to stay
simple you know what it communicates simple desires and once when you start
off with the language to this I found great not just in Russia but also the
other languages that I thought I thought I use the metaphor so in the beginning
boom you get a huge boost from using it and that's one of the things that I
really liked about it but that's basic in nutshell how the method works it's
gonna allow you to build up these blocks and then you're gonna use them
interchangeably like maybe you say instead of I want to drink the coffee
maybe it's gonna be something like I want to drink the tea so я хочу пить
чай and you just have to learn one word and you can make a complete new
sentence based on what you've learned previously so this substitution is great
and that's a fundamental part of the learning method I'm gonna give you
the demonstration about how this method works so I'm going to listen to the audio
here the audio playing I'm joining the class so as if I were a student
Brother
I
Sister
So obviously you're learning incrementally as you go along and it does use some spaced repetition because
you know later on after you've learned like as I gave in my example I want to
drink the coffee you may use coffee in another context you're
gonna use I want another context so these words or phrases that you learn
are gonna come up again later and later and it's going to be basically because
they're also highly frequently used when you're speaking in the beginning at
least so that's great and then you get reminded what you
learned before is you're not gonna forget it so that in a nutshell is how the
system works but is it good or is it bad
So what about the strengths of the Michel Thomas method now it gives you a
very strong solid basis in the language gets you started the grammar
is actually simplified a lot which is great when you start off I'm not a big
fan of you know learning lots of grammatical charts all the structure it
just complicates things too much it makes it harder actually to go and speak
the language and with these building blocks that Michel Thomas introduces
the course introduces that's really really great when you come here say to a
Odessa on the shores the Black Sea and you want to start speaking in Russian then
you maybe want to approach some pretty Ukrainian girls actually having that
very simplified structure in your head with these building blocks makes it
really a lot easier to have the confidence to go over and start a
conversation and you tend to learn like the vocabulary also in chunks because
you're introduced none of individual words that's also great for you know
helping you to memorize things in context that's also another plus with
the course so overall I would say that the strengths are a simplified approach to
the grammar learning vocabulary in chunks being able to you know have these
building blocks very simple constructions that you can then you know
switch in and out different parts like a verb or a different noun for example and
that's actually just really great for getting your start again those first
conversations when you come to a city like Odessa or maybe it's gonna be St.
Petersburg like I was earlier but there are a few weaknesses to the course so
let's go into those
So those weaknesses in the Michel Thomas method what are
they well one of them is gonna be understand that people are just walking
past me right now and that's real native speakers speaking at a fast native-like
pace when you first get here because you know the initial times everything is
it's like a classroom situation it's not you know gonna be that spontaneity and
really rapid pace that you're gonna encounter when you first come to speak
Russian or practice the Russian you've learned so that's definitely
because it doesn't prepare you for that also in terms of pronunciation it
doesn't provide any way to compare how you are pronouncing the words when you
start off with how they should sound approximately to be understood by a native
speaker they're gonna be sounds that don't exist in your native language that
are gonna exist in Russian and there are gonna be two problems with that one is
that you're not gonna know how to make that sound with your mouth number two
you're probably not you're gonna hear the difference you're gonna approximate
yourself with a sound that similar in your own native tongue and that causes
confusion maybe with the understanding for native speakers actually if you
can't pronounce work properly use a different letter that's definitely a
second weakness and the third weakness is that it doesn't prepare you for reading
because it's an audio course and you're gonna see signs you know around you here
when you come to obviously a country where Russian is the main language
that's gonna be very tricky in the beginning if you don't have any practice
reading so that's something you're gonna have to work on in addition to using the
Michel Thomas course
So if you would like to purchase a copy of one of the Michel Thomas Russian
courses then I have something very special for you I have negotiated on
your behalf a 40% discount that is valid until end of August 2019 I'm gonna put a
link below to where you can buy the courses below in the description to this
video the special code is very easy it's just Russian that's all you have to
write and you get a 40% discount I'm publishing this video at the end of july
2019 so it's just over maybe about five five weeks - it's gonna be valid fore
so definitely take action go buy it if you wanna make progress with your
Russian with удачи which is good luck and до свидания see you in the next video!
So do I recommend that you buy the Michel Thomas courses to learn Russian
this was the course that really got me enthusiastic and excited about
learning languages and I still think the method is the best one that I've seen on
the market for when you start Russian from the big commercial company so I'm
definitely saying thumbs up you should overall consider buying it so if you're
planning to visit somewhere like Odessa you know Ukraine or St.
Petersburg in Russia or another Russian-speaking city and also if you
have a friend or you know someone who's going to travel in this region
don't be naive the English speaking skills in Eastern Europe are the lowest
grade in general like it's a bit like rural China in terms of the English
language skills I saw a ranking of them on the Internet
it's not like Central Europe not like countries like Hungary the Czech
Republic where you can get basically doing everything in English you're gonna
struggle and more importantly you can actually stand out more yourself if you
come here and you can least you know build up those simple sentences and you
know address the people in Russian it's gonna make a big difference
definitely keep that in mind share with your friends if you've enjoyed this
video big thumbs up smash that like button drop me a comment if you have
other questions about that and if you're not a subscriber to the channel is a
little subscribe button on this channel in general I'm giving you a real taste
what it's like to travel in Eastern Europe and live the tsar experience and you're
basically you're gonna be seeing what a cool place badass place it is to
travel here meet beautiful women stay safe not end up in scammed like those naive
Western tourists who show up here and at times got more language tips how to
learn Russian or another local language like Ukrainian, Belarusian or Romanian
see very soon in the next video going to make lots of content now from our deaths
over the next two weeks just had the Odessa Film Festival gonna have some more vlogs
so stay tuned for that see in the next video
до побачення! до свидания ciao!