Michel Thomas Method

[Gundaetiapo]

I came across this BBC documentary on language teacher Michel Thomas that I thought was interesting. There are 4 parts.

[hackules]

I tried his method with French and I found it amazing, the best thing about it is that he teaches you quickly with almost no effort, but I was using Berlitz' French teaching software with it; so I don't know who taught me most, but I know that I can remember many things thanks to Thomas method.

[Gundaetiapo]

I haven't tried the method, but I did notice that the Japanese course is due to release March 2009.

[clay]

It looks very interesting. I may buy the German course when I get back to the States. German is a language with which I've had an off and on relationship but have never gotten beyond the first date.

[sushi4ever]

It looks very interesting. I may buy the German course when I get back to the States. German is a language with which I've had an off and on relationship but have never gotten beyond the first date.

Hang in there!!

Compared to Japanese, German is ridiculously easy, although more guttural and... yeah.

[clay]

It looks very interesting. I may buy the German course when I get back to the States. German is a language with which I've had an off and on relationship but have never gotten beyond the first date.

Hang in there!!

Compared to Japanese, German is ridiculously easy, although more guttural and... yeah.

Early on, I learned: "Ich mochte Deutsch lernen, aber ich habe keine Zeit und Geld"

It is a pitiful excuse and probably badly misspelled, but when spoken, it works. (Seriously I would love to know enough to speak conversational German)

[ニッキー]

Early on, I learned: "Ich mochte Deutsch lernen, aber ich habe keine Zeit und Geld"

It is a pitiful excuse and probably badly misspelled, but when spoken, it works. (Seriously I would love to know enough to speak conversational German)

Your spelling (and capitalisation) is nearly perfect. You do need an umlaut for "möchte" though, if you say "ich mochte" it means "I liked" not "I would like", but I'm guessing you just can't type the ö, in which case German speakers would write oe instead of ö (and also ae instead of ä, ue instead of ü), which would give you "ich moechte" instead.

German is fun.

[Harisenbon]

Early on, I learned: "Ich mochte Deutsch lernen, aber ich habe keine Zeit und Geld"

One of the only phrases I can say in German is "Mein gott, die shmettling haven waffen"... For some reason.

[clay]

Early on, I learned: "Ich mochte Deutsch lernen, aber ich habe keine Zeit und Geld"

It is a pitiful excuse and probably badly misspelled, but when spoken, it works. (Seriously I would love to know enough to speak conversational German)

Your spelling (and capitalisation) is nearly perfect. You do need an umlaut for "möchte" though, if you say "ich mochte" it means "I liked" not "I would like", but I'm guessing you just can't type the ö, in which case German speakers would write oe instead of ö (and also ae instead of ä, ue instead of ü), which would give you "ich moechte" instead.

German is fun.

ありがとう！ I knew there was a way around the umlaut, but I forgot which letter was the substitute. I remember learning "Fur Elise" as it is commonly written in English was wrong without the umlaut, but I guess "Fuer Elise" would be correct, right?

[AJBryant]

Early on, I learned: "Ich mochte Deutsch lernen, aber ich habe keine Zeit und Geld"

One of the only phrases I can say in German is "Mein gott, die shmettling haven waffen"... For some reason.

I know *very* little German, but I know enough to get my face slapped. (Really. It's a very *naughty* thing to say to a cute fraulein.)


Tony

[sushi4ever]

Haha, I'd like to offer myself as a German conversational partner!

It's still very interesting to see that people want to learn this language although it really doen't have any major influence... globally speaking.

And sorry for getting offtopic

[JaySee]

It's still very interesting to see that people want to learn this language although it really doen't have any major influence... globally speaking.

When I was in Japan, a good German friend of mine who studied at the same university was always helping out the people at the German department and the local Goethe Institut. The German deparment actually had quite a lot of students (it was probably the biggest one among the European languages, after English), and he got to meet many people with a genuine interest in the language. I used to be rather jealous of him because they didn't have a Dutch department (and who could blame them, most people don't even know such a langauge exists at all). I wouldn't underestimate the usefulness of German as a language to learn as it has a lot of speakers, the German-speaking area is economically very important, and there's tons of great literature written in the language.

[vkladchik]

German speakers would write oe instead of ö (and also ae instead of ä, ue instead of ü)

Didn't the ... [official body that sets the rules for grammar, spelling, etc.] of Germany recently get rid of the umlauted version and make the digraphs official?

[hyperconjugated]

German speakers would write oe instead of ö (and also ae instead of ä, ue instead of ü)

Didn't the ... [official body that sets the rules for grammar, spelling, etc.] of Germany recently get rid of the umlauted version and make the digraphs official?

That can't be, umlaut is very characteristic for German. They had a spelling reform but they didn't eradicate umlaut für sure.

[JaySee]

During the middle ages the ü, ö and ä were originally written as ue, oe and ae, or alternatively a small 'e' would be placed on top of the 'a', 'o' and 'u'. This small 'e' was gradually abstracted to two dots.

The recent German spelling reforms didn't get rid of the diacritics, but in case computers/phones/whatever don't support their use then you can always resort to ue, oe and ae.