Foundation Mandarin Chinese New Edition (Learn Mandarin Chinese with the Michel Thomas Method) Beginner Mandarin Chinese Audio Course
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Dr Harold Goodman, a physician and surgeon, was taught by Michel Thomas for nearly ten years. During this time Michel Thomas's goal was not to teach Dr Goodman a specific language (though he did instruct him in two of the languages he taught) but to train him to understand his method of teaching - which he then used to teach others, with great success. Dr Goodman teaches and practises in the US.
Michel Thomas (1914-2005) had an amazing life. Born in Poland, he spent his early years in Germany and then in France, where he studied psychology at the Sorbonne in Paris. When war broke out, he fought with the Resistance and suffered imprisonment in labour camps. At the end of the war he joined the US liberation army and later settled in the US where he established his world-famous language school. Languages, being his strength and passion became the focus of the next 50 years of his life that he spent developing a method that he hoped would change the way we teach and learn - so that everyone could succeed. He developed this method 'that works with the brain'. After creating several courses of his own, he passed on his method so that other teachers might use it too.
The thrill is that you're actually figuring it out on your own. You're engaging with another language, not just parroting it... It's an excellent way to start, and leaves the listener thinking, Hey, <i>Ich kann do dis</i>.
- David Sedaris, humorist and author, New Yorker, From ‘Easy, Tiger, Language Lessons on the Road’
I've used Michel Thomas to get off the starting block for French, Italian and Spanish and I'm always surprised by how much I can say after only a few hours of listening. The Michel Thomas Italian course organises verbs into logical groups which helps you pick them up fast. And perhaps more importantly, it shows you how to use this grammar to build useful sentences.
- Katie Harris, Joyoflanguages.com
I experienced the same sort of pleasure that you got from suddenly getting a crossword clue right or cracking a code...the finger-snapping moment of, Oh My God! I've just understood what you've said to me in Spanish or you've just understood me!
- Peter Løvstrøm, Actor,
The nearest thing to painless learning
The Times
A unique and perfectly brilliant way of learning languages
- Stephen Fry,
The most extraordinary learning experience of my life
- Emma Thompson,
Thomas makes it simple
Sunday Times
Works like a dream
Daily Telegraph
Michel Thomas is a precious find indeed
The Guardian
Five minutes in and you already feel like you're winning
Time Out
'The thrill is that you're actually figuring it out on your own. You're engaging with another language, not just parroting it... It's an excellent way to start, and leaves the listener thinking, Hey, Ich kann do dis.' - New Yorker, David Sedaris, humorist and author, on learning German with the Michel Thomas Method
Looking for a convenient language course that fits your lifestyle and gets you speaking a new language in a matter of weeks, not years? The original no-books, no-homework, no-memorizing method is in tune with the way the brain prefers to receive, store and retrieve information. You'll stick with it because you'll love it.
* Pick up Mandarin Chinese naturally and unforgettably without strain or stress
* Learn from listening and speaking, without the pressure of writing or memorizing
* Build up your Mandarin Chinese in manageable steps by thinking out answers for yourself
WHY IS THE METHOD SO SUCCESSFUL?
'What you understand, you know; and what you know, you don't forget.' - Michel Thomas
Before there was machine learning, there was Michel Thomas. For over 50 years he worked on decoding languages by breaking them down into their most essential component parts. These 'building blocks' are introduced to the learner sequentially in such a way that you reconstruct the language for yourself - to form your own sentences, to say what you want, when you want. This unique method draws on the principles of instructional psychology and works with the way your brain prefers to receive, store and retrieve information. Knowledge is structured and organized so that you absorb the language easily and don't forget it. The method is designed to eliminate the stress which prevents you from relaxing and allowing the brain to work in the way which accepts learning in a seemingly painless, very exciting and highly motivating way.
HOW DO THE COURSES WORK?
'All stress inhibits true and effective learning' - Michel Thomas
During the course, you will join Michel Thomas Method teacher Harold Goodman and two students in a live lesson, learning from both their successes and their mistakes to keep you motivated and involved throughout the course. You, as the learner, become the third student and participate actively in the class. Within the very first hour you will be able to construct simple phrases by listening and thinking out answers for yourself without the pressure of writing or stress of having to memorize. You will learn at your own pace, pausing and repeating where necessary, and complete the course in about 20-30 hours. By the end of the course, you will understand and have the confidence to speak basic Mandarin Chinese.
WHAT WILL I ACTUALLY ACHIEVE?
'I am the architect who builds the house. It's up to you to decorate it.' - Michel Thomas
The Michel Thomas Method will help you kick-start, continue, and flourish in your Mandarin Chinese language learning journey. It is not intended to get you perfectly fluent, but it will get you speaking and using Mandarin Chinese, with proper pronunciation, faster than most any other method. It is designed to give you a strong foundation and good working knowledge of a language from which you can expand and later 'add decoration' to. It is a rapid method for learning, but still requires effort and concentration on the part of the learner.
WHAT'S NEW IN THIS NEW EDITION?
This new edition includes an audio review course to let you quickly revise and consolidate your learning once you've completed the full course.
WHAT'S INCLUDED IN THE COURSE?*
Foundation Mandarin Chinese includes 8 audio course CDs and 2 audio review CDs to continue and consolidate your knowledge. The booklet is available to download from www.michelthomas.com.
*Note that the course content is the same as the previously entitled Total Mandarin Chinese course, but the CD-ROM has been replaced with audio review CDs.
LEARN ANYWHERE!
Reclaim your pockets of free time to learn a new language! Don't be tied to chunky books or your computer, Michel Thomas Method audio courses let you learn whenever and wherever you want, in as little or as much time as you have.
WHERE DO I GO NEXT?
Intermediate Mandarin Chinese follows on from the Foundation course.
- : Introduction. How to use this course. Background to Chinese languages.
- : Tones in Mandarin
- : The form of the verb in Chinese languages doesn’t change: e.g. shì (‘to be’) also means ‘am, are, is, was, will be’
- : wo = ‘I’ and also ‘me’: form of pronoun doesn’t change in Mandarin
- : There is no word for ‘a’ or ‘an’
- : ni = ‘you’
- : ta = ‘he, him, she, her, it’
- : Words for nationalities
- : Add men to pronouns (‘I, me’ etc.) to form plural (more than one): women = ‘we, us ’ etc.
- : ma = question marker, to change a statement into a question’ Goes at the end of the statement.
- : ne added to mean ‘how about ...?’
- : Adjectives, such as ‘busy’, in Mandarin, are also verbs: máng means ‘to be busy’
- : To form a negative, put bù = ‘no, not’ in front of the verb
- : Add hen to fulfil the two-syllable meter rule (also means ‘very’)
- : Greetings ni hao and ni hao ma (‘hello’ = ‘you good’, ‘how are you’ = ‘you good (question)’
- : In Chinese the character/word has the same form for both individual and plural form
- : In front of another falling-tone word, bù (falling tone) becomes bú (rising tone)('trampoline' rule)
- : Question with a question word, such as ‘why?’
- : Use zài to emphasize ‘now, at this very moment’
- : Word order in Chinese: who—when—what is happening
- : xiang = ‘would like to’
- : néng = ‘can’
- : Add de to pronouns ‘I’ etc. to form ‘my, mine’ etc.: wode
- : Words for languages
- : xiang = ‘would like to’ in Mandarin can only be followed by a verb
- : Word order in Chinese: who–when–how–what is happening
- : Demonstrative pronouns ‘this’ and ‘that’
- : Answering ‘yes’ and ‘no’ without repeating the verb in the question: shì = ‘is’, bù = ‘not’
- : Chinese construction ‘too...to do’ is ‘too...no can do’
- : Question word ‘what?’
- : How to answer ‘What is this?’, and ‘What is that?’
- : shuo = ‘to speak, say’
- : huì = ‘to be able to’
- : Question word ‘who?’
- Use of universal ‘classifier’ gè in ‘this book’ (zhè ge shu), ‘that man’ (nà ge rén);: ‘a, an, one’ (
- : yí ge)
- : zài (= ‘at’ etc.) in Chinese can be used as and functions as a verb, so zài jia = ‘to be at home’
- : Question word ‘where?’
- : zhù (zài) = ‘live, stay’
- : Prepositions (‘on’ etc.) go after the noun in Mandarin: ‘[to be] at the table on’
- : you = ‘to have, I have, he has, I had’ etc.
- : Negative of ‘to have’ formed with méi: méi you = ‘not have’
- : yào = ‘to want’ etc.; bú yào = ‘not want’
- : qu = ‘go to’
- jin tian: = ‘today’
- : you (‘to have’ etc.) also = ‘there is, there are’
- : [zài ] zhèr, nàr = ‘[to be] here, there’
- : mei tian = ‘every day’
- : you de = ‘(there is) some’
- : Three ways to say ‘yes’: repeat the verb; shì ( = ‘to be’ etc.); duì (= ‘correct’)
- : yào shuo = ‘want to speak’
- : néng shuo = ‘can speak’
- : When to say xiè xie (= ‘thanks’)
- : zài jiàn = ‘Good bye’ (= ‘again meet’)
- : lái = ‘come’
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Dr Harold Goodman, a physician and surgeon, was taught by Michel Thomas for nearly ten years. During this time Michel Thomas's goal was not to teach Dr Goodman a specific language (though he did instruct him in two of the languages he taught) but to train him to understand his method of teaching - which he then used to teach others, with great success. Dr Goodman teaches and practises in the US.
Michel Thomas (1914-2005) had an amazing life. Born in Poland, he spent his early years in Germany and then in France, where he studied psychology at the Sorbonne in Paris. When war broke out, he fought with the Resistance and suffered imprisonment in labour camps. At the end of the war he joined the US liberation army and later settled in the US where he established his world-famous language school. Languages, being his strength and passion became the focus of the next 50 years of his life that he spent developing a method that he hoped would change the way we teach and learn - so that everyone could succeed. He developed this method 'that works with the brain'. After creating several courses of his own, he passed on his method so that other teachers might use it too.