Wow! I loved learning from this tape, 13 May 2006
What a great way to learn! Ok, so the format of having two learners that repeat everything back to Mr Thomas can get quite annoying - well the annoying part is the nervous chap who seems particularly slow at learning, and Mr Thomas does seem to be very hard on him, so the interruptions and stuttering repeats do waste time on what is really a very short course. That notwithstanding, I am really enjoying this, especially as I can play it in my car because there are no books to follow.

Good - but not that good, 04 Feb 2005
To begin with Michel talks at length about how to use the tape - I found his diction somewhat slurred, and it was difficult to understand him at times - not a good start for a language lesson.
I found Michel Thomas's approach to teaching very refreshing - it was good to hear two absolute beginners, and gave something of a class atmosphere. This soon became a problem, though, as one of the learners has continuous difficulty in pronouncing the same words - puede and tiene, and you have to listen to this guy over and over, getting these words wrong. Michel pounces on every error of pronunciation, getting the students to stress their words 'correctly'. To me it sounded like over-stressing (pueeeeeede!), and I didn't rate Michel's own pronunciation that highly. By the second tape, this had become an enormous barrier for me, and I was listening to that, rather than learning the language.
In terms of what you are taught, there is not much here - a few verbs in the present tense, using only the 1st and 3rd person. Almost all the nouns he teaches are the same as in english - situation/situacion. He did have some interesting rules, though.
As for usefulness, I don't think I am up to responding to 'what do you think of the political and economical situation in Spain' in English, let alone in Spanish.
I thought it was useful to augment other Spanish learning methods - I have been attending a night class since September - but I would not want this to be my only method of learning Spanish, and I certainly won't be going on to the full course.

A fantastic whole new way to learn!! Try it!!, 19 Feb 2001
I have found Michel Thomas' course one of the quickest and easiest ways to learn Spanish. His method relies heavily on your memory and a through understanding of how this language is constructed. He starts small and gradually builds you up, and before you know it you have a real coprehension of the language. Only at the end of the course do you realise how clever it is and how much information you can retain. Michel always stresses and focusses on the importance of pronounciation which, due to the subtleties of this language become invaluable when you actually are having a conversation in Spainish. I cannot recommend this course highly enough, - amazing results and confidence fast!

Painless and effective, 09 Jul 2000
One might expect a phrase book style course from a two hour programme that offers "No books, no writing" but this course is different.

From the start, the student is learning how to construct the language not just a list of words. I was amazed at what had been acheived by the end of the first side.

The author's conversational tone makes the tape easy to listen to.

He builds up the language piece by piece, reinforcing important points throughout. This style helps to pick up early what could otherwise become problem areas.

If you can't afford the $16000 he charges for personal tuition then this tape provides the closest thing to it.

I am just about to buy the full, eight hour course. I understand that this short course actually forms the first two hours of the longer course so it could be worth looking at that before deciding to buy the short course

This course is an excellent introduction to Spanish, 13 May 2000
I have just listened to this introductory course. It is excellent. It is designed for beginners or people who have rusty Spanish language skills.

Michel Thomas' method is to break the language down into segments and compare with the English that you already know. You find that very soon you are using whole sentences. There is no conscious effort to memorize the language, no writing notes and no homework. All three are forbidden in the instructions at the outset of the course.

The key secret is that you come away from this with a sense of having achieved something for the two hours that you have spent and you want to do more. I am looking forward to the full course.

Wow! I loved learning from this tape, 13 May 2006
What a great way to learn! Ok, so the format of having two learners that repeat everything back to Mr Thomas can get quite annoying - well the annoying part is the nervous chap who seems particularly slow at learning, and Mr Thomas does seem to be very hard on him, so the interruptions and stuttering repeats do waste time on what is really a very short course. That notwithstanding, I am really enjoying this, especially as I can play it in my car because there are no books to follow.

Good - but not that good, 04 Feb 2005
To begin with Michel talks at length about how to use the tape - I found his diction somewhat slurred, and it was difficult to understand him at times - not a good start for a language lesson.
I found Michel Thomas's approach to teaching very refreshing - it was good to hear two absolute beginners, and gave something of a class atmosphere. This soon became a problem, though, as one of the learners has continuous difficulty in pronouncing the same words - puede and tiene, and you have to listen to this guy over and over, getting these words wrong. Michel pounces on every error of pronunciation, getting the students to stress their words 'correctly'. To me it sounded like over-stressing (pueeeeeede!), and I didn't rate Michel's own pronunciation that highly. By the second tape, this had become an enormous barrier for me, and I was listening to that, rather than learning the language.
In terms of what you are taught, there is not much here - a few verbs in the present tense, using only the 1st and 3rd person. Almost all the nouns he teaches are the same as in english - situation/situacion. He did have some interesting rules, though.
As for usefulness, I don't think I am up to responding to 'what do you think of the political and economical situation in Spain' in English, let alone in Spanish.
I thought it was useful to augment other Spanish learning methods - I have been attending a night class since September - but I would not want this to be my only method of learning Spanish, and I certainly won't be going on to the full course.

A fantastic whole new way to learn!! Try it!!, 19 Feb 2001
I have found Michel Thomas' course one of the quickest and easiest ways to learn Spanish. His method relies heavily on your memory and a through understanding of how this language is constructed. He starts small and gradually builds you up, and before you know it you have a real coprehension of the language. Only at the end of the course do you realise how clever it is and how much information you can retain. Michel always stresses and focusses on the importance of pronounciation which, due to the subtleties of this language become invaluable when you actually are having a conversation in Spainish. I cannot recommend this course highly enough, - amazing results and confidence fast!

Painless and effective, 09 Jul 2000
One might expect a phrase book style course from a two hour programme that offers "No books, no writing" but this course is different.

From the start, the student is learning how to construct the language not just a list of words. I was amazed at what had been acheived by the end of the first side.

The author's conversational tone makes the tape easy to listen to.

He builds up the language piece by piece, reinforcing important points throughout. This style helps to pick up early what could otherwise become problem areas.

If you can't afford the $16000 he charges for personal tuition then this tape provides the closest thing to it.

I am just about to buy the full, eight hour course. I understand that this short course actually forms the first two hours of the longer course so it could be worth looking at that before deciding to buy the short course

This course is an excellent introduction to Spanish, 13 May 2000
I have just listened to this introductory course. It is excellent. It is designed for beginners or people who have rusty Spanish language skills.

Michel Thomas' method is to break the language down into segments and compare with the English that you already know. You find that very soon you are using whole sentences. There is no conscious effort to memorize the language, no writing notes and no homework. All three are forbidden in the instructions at the outset of the course.

The key secret is that you come away from this with a sense of having achieved something for the two hours that you have spent and you want to do more. I am looking forward to the full course.

One of the best, 01 Feb 2008
I agree with the majority of the reviewers below. the common complaint is that this is not advanced? Well that is arguably the case but if you have a basic understanding of French and you want to take youreself into the A level (which incidentally stands for advanced) then I recommend this set. The fact that I took A level French many years ago and this set clarifies tenses better than any teacher I have experienced says it all- and now I am relatively comfortable with 19 YES 19 tenses after this course (even the subjunctive!!).
I would also add that his advice at the end of the cd is priceless I just wish he managed to produce a further course.And he has got rid of the dithering student from the introductory course which was frustrating. The man was a genius.

Oh and for the lady who called this complete rubbish it depends what you wanted out of the course, maybe checking some reviews would have been helpful first before spending money on it.

All Michel Thomas Products are brilliant, 30 Dec 2007
Paid for this 2 years ago...still learning from it today. I just let it go round on DJ on the MP3 player...absorb a lesson (again!) and it all just sinks in as we go. Michel is quite brilliant as a teacher. I learned more from him than I did in years of application at school. In fact loads of what they taught us at school was just plain bad grammar!


Great course and a great teaching method, 06 Nov 2007
I did a little French at school (twenty-five years ago!) and the Michel Thomas foundation course and I am now on disc 7 of the Advanced course. Michel Thomas has a great teaching method. He immediately takes the onus off you to lean and puts it on himself to teach. The CDs are a set of informal teaching sessions between Michel and two students and this format makes them easy listening. Just listen to these CDs a few times and you will take it in. Also because it is audio based you can learn when in the car or even in the bath. The other advantage is that you will be surprised how much theory you pick up allowing you to adapt the specifics that he teaches. I hate learning from books so this was a great way to improve my French. These CDs have improved my confidence and given me a base to learn from more traditional methods. The only limitation is that Michel Thomas concentrates on spoken French and consequently my written French is much weaker. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to learn or improve their French language.

NOT complete rubbish: this is a great supplement to the foundation course, but not for very advanced speakers of French!, 02 Oct 2007
This course is to take you on from the foundation course, IF you found it good, though not everybody does (see my review of that). Once you've mastered the foundation course, this is excellent as the next stage. If you are already advanced at French, say, A-level and still retaining, then the term 'Advanced' may be a misnomer to you.

Thomas builds on the techniques he employed, and continues to simplify new tense endings into how they sound, categorises verbs in an easy way, and paints graphic pictures on how to form the more complex tenses. I agree some of the constructions he draws from you are difficult, but this is to build confidence: if you can master complex conditionals, you'll feel more astute at the simpler constructions. This has one star more from me than the foundation course since the problem of long gaps has been remedied.

Though I am not at the end of this yet, I can offer this review as I am confident it will not disappoint in the end. It IS for speaking French, but there is a chapter at the end on reading French.

Drawbacks are due to his desire to avoid memorising, some things need reinforcing; for example, there are 16 verbs of motion and living that take etre instead of avoir for the compose tense, yet I could not see this in the menu, and had to find a book with it. The whole course is done at learning speed of course, so to hone your listening skills, you should record Open University French programs and listen to the conversations. No French person will speak at the speed on these CDs, believe me.

To its praise, I went to France to look for work, and all that I learnt stood me well. There was even an English-speaking woman who had lived there for a year trying to master French who, hearing these CDs in my caravan, ordered them for herself. She said he easily explained things about the language she had never really grasped.


Stretching, 07 Mar 2007
I worked in France twenty years ago and have just decided to try and reactivate the French that I learned by purchasing this advanced course. I have not used the Foundation course but I slipped into this course easily. Michel Thomas has a very easy manner, and the presence of the students helps make it real. They make mistakes too, and their accents are no better than mine which makes me feel better. Thomas concentrates on the construction of sentences. In this advanced set the focus is on past, future and conditional tenses with many complicated constructions and variations. Some of these are so extreme I really couldn't imagine using them ('If you had told me about it I would have bought it' etc). However, he breaks it down well and it is very motivating to "get" the idea. The course concentrates on verbs and their usage. There are very few nouns here - you'll need to buy a dictionary for those. But you will master the use of the language in all the common tenses. Recommended.

Wow! I loved learning from this tape, 13 May 2006
What a great way to learn! Ok, so the format of having two learners that repeat everything back to Mr Thomas can get quite annoying - well the annoying part is the nervous chap who seems particularly slow at learning, and Mr Thomas does seem to be very hard on him, so the interruptions and stuttering repeats do waste time on what is really a very short course. That notwithstanding, I am really enjoying this, especially as I can play it in my car because there are no books to follow.

Good - but not that good, 04 Feb 2005
To begin with Michel talks at length about how to use the tape - I found his diction somewhat slurred, and it was difficult to understand him at times - not a good start for a language lesson.
I found Michel Thomas's approach to teaching very refreshing - it was good to hear two absolute beginners, and gave something of a class atmosphere. This soon became a problem, though, as one of the learners has continuous difficulty in pronouncing the same words - puede and tiene, and you have to listen to this guy over and over, getting these words wrong. Michel pounces on every error of pronunciation, getting the students to stress their words 'correctly'. To me it sounded like over-stressing (pueeeeeede!), and I didn't rate Michel's own pronunciation that highly. By the second tape, this had become an enormous barrier for me, and I was listening to that, rather than learning the language.
In terms of what you are taught, there is not much here - a few verbs in the present tense, using only the 1st and 3rd person. Almost all the nouns he teaches are the same as in english - situation/situacion. He did have some interesting rules, though.
As for usefulness, I don't think I am up to responding to 'what do you think of the political and economical situation in Spain' in English, let alone in Spanish.
I thought it was useful to augment other Spanish learning methods - I have been attending a night class since September - but I would not want this to be my only method of learning Spanish, and I certainly won't be going on to the full course.

A fantastic whole new way to learn!! Try it!!, 19 Feb 2001
I have found Michel Thomas' course one of the quickest and easiest ways to learn Spanish. His method relies heavily on your memory and a through understanding of how this language is constructed. He starts small and gradually builds you up, and before you know it you have a real coprehension of the language. Only at the end of the course do you realise how clever it is and how much information you can retain. Michel always stresses and focusses on the importance of pronounciation which, due to the subtleties of this language become invaluable when you actually are having a conversation in Spainish. I cannot recommend this course highly enough, - amazing results and confidence fast!

Painless and effective, 09 Jul 2000
One might expect a phrase book style course from a two hour programme that offers "No books, no writing" but this course is different.

From the start, the student is learning how to construct the language not just a list of words. I was amazed at what had been acheived by the end of the first side.

The author's conversational tone makes the tape easy to listen to.

He builds up the language piece by piece, reinforcing important points throughout. This style helps to pick up early what could otherwise become problem areas.

If you can't afford the $16000 he charges for personal tuition then this tape provides the closest thing to it.

I am just about to buy the full, eight hour course. I understand that this short course actually forms the first two hours of the longer course so it could be worth looking at that before deciding to buy the short course

This course is an excellent introduction to Spanish, 13 May 2000
I have just listened to this introductory course. It is excellent. It is designed for beginners or people who have rusty Spanish language skills.

Michel Thomas' method is to break the language down into segments and compare with the English that you already know. You find that very soon you are using whole sentences. There is no conscious effort to memorize the language, no writing notes and no homework. All three are forbidden in the instructions at the outset of the course.

The key secret is that you come away from this with a sense of having achieved something for the two hours that you have spent and you want to do more. I am looking forward to the full course.

One of the best, 01 Feb 2008
I agree with the majority of the reviewers below. the common complaint is that this is not advanced? Well that is arguably the case but if you have a basic understanding of French and you want to take youreself into the A level (which incidentally stands for advanced) then I recommend this set. The fact that I took A level French many years ago and this set clarifies tenses better than any teacher I have experienced says it all- and now I am relatively comfortable with 19 YES 19 tenses after this course (even the subjunctive!!).
I would also add that his advice at the end of the cd is priceless I just wish he managed to produce a further course.And he has got rid of the dithering student from the introductory course which was frustrating. The man was a genius.

Oh and for the lady who called this complete rubbish it depends what you wanted out of the course, maybe checking some reviews would have been helpful first before spending money on it.

All Michel Thomas Products are brilliant, 30 Dec 2007
Paid for this 2 years ago...still learning from it today. I just let it go round on DJ on the MP3 player...absorb a lesson (again!) and it all just sinks in as we go. Michel is quite brilliant as a teacher. I learned more from him than I did in years of application at school. In fact loads of what they taught us at school was just plain bad grammar!


Great course and a great teaching method, 06 Nov 2007
I did a little French at school (twenty-five years ago!) and the Michel Thomas foundation course and I am now on disc 7 of the Advanced course. Michel Thomas has a great teaching method. He immediately takes the onus off you to lean and puts it on himself to teach. The CDs are a set of informal teaching sessions between Michel and two students and this format makes them easy listening. Just listen to these CDs a few times and you will take it in. Also because it is audio based you can learn when in the car or even in the bath. The other advantage is that you will be surprised how much theory you pick up allowing you to adapt the specifics that he teaches. I hate learning from books so this was a great way to improve my French. These CDs have improved my confidence and given me a base to learn from more traditional methods. The only limitation is that Michel Thomas concentrates on spoken French and consequently my written French is much weaker. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to learn or improve their French language.

NOT complete rubbish: this is a great supplement to the foundation course, but not for very advanced speakers of French!, 02 Oct 2007
This course is to take you on from the foundation course, IF you found it good, though not everybody does (see my review of that). Once you've mastered the foundation course, this is excellent as the next stage. If you are already advanced at French, say, A-level and still retaining, then the term 'Advanced' may be a misnomer to you.

Thomas builds on the techniques he employed, and continues to simplify new tense endings into how they sound, categorises verbs in an easy way, and paints graphic pictures on how to form the more complex tenses. I agree some of the constructions he draws from you are difficult, but this is to build confidence: if you can master complex conditionals, you'll feel more astute at the simpler constructions. This has one star more from me than the foundation course since the problem of long gaps has been remedied.

Though I am not at the end of this yet, I can offer this review as I am confident it will not disappoint in the end. It IS for speaking French, but there is a chapter at the end on reading French.

Drawbacks are due to his desire to avoid memorising, some things need reinforcing; for example, there are 16 verbs of motion and living that take etre instead of avoir for the compose tense, yet I could not see this in the menu, and had to find a book with it. The whole course is done at learning speed of course, so to hone your listening skills, you should record Open University French programs and listen to the conversations. No French person will speak at the speed on these CDs, believe me.

To its praise, I went to France to look for work, and all that I learnt stood me well. There was even an English-speaking woman who had lived there for a year trying to master French who, hearing these CDs in my caravan, ordered them for herself. She said he easily explained things about the language she had never really grasped.


Stretching, 07 Mar 2007
I worked in France twenty years ago and have just decided to try and reactivate the French that I learned by purchasing this advanced course. I have not used the Foundation course but I slipped into this course easily. Michel Thomas has a very easy manner, and the presence of the students helps make it real. They make mistakes too, and their accents are no better than mine which makes me feel better. Thomas concentrates on the construction of sentences. In this advanced set the focus is on past, future and conditional tenses with many complicated constructions and variations. Some of these are so extreme I really couldn't imagine using them ('If you had told me about it I would have bought it' etc). However, he breaks it down well and it is very motivating to "get" the idea. The course concentrates on verbs and their usage. There are very few nouns here - you'll need to buy a dictionary for those. But you will master the use of the language in all the common tenses. Recommended.

Excellent follow on to the 8 hr course , 14 Aug 2006
Michel continues on from the first course and it's pretty seamless -no sudden jump. He moves onto the subjunctive which is advanced stuff and towards the end he counts up the tenses he has covered and it is around 15. The only reason I don't give it five stars is that it doesn't do much grammar - you would never know that there was life beyond der (ie den,des,dem). I've been using Lisa Kahlen's German Grammar Made Easy for that. I'd love to know how this course compares with Linguaphone Advanced German and Hugo's Advanced German.

Advanced German made easy, 07 Oct 2004
As with the original 8-CD set, this new, 4-CD, 5-hour course is an astonishingly rapid and easy route to confidence in German. As before, there is no textbook or writing, just listening and repeating. Superficially, Michel seems more schoolmasterly and demanding than the teachers I remember from my schooldays but his method is so imaginative and fluid that I was able to easily and confidently construct sentences with several verbs in all sorts of tenses without ever having to realise what "imperfect subjunctive" and "future indicative" mean. German can be a challenging language to learn, but this course gives an instinctive, natural grasp of language without the formality of grammatical rules but with all the linguistic skill you will need. As with the original course, you will get a natural grasp of the structures of German, to a level beyond two years of evening classes. Of course, there is much more to learn in terms of vocabulary and verbs not covered in the course, but once you have the instinctive grasp of structure that Michel gives, it's easy to add new words onto the framework you have learnt. I have several German books and CDs, but the Michel Thomas courses are outstanding in giving speedy confidence whilst feeling natural and easy. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend his courses to anyone learning German.

Wow! I loved learning from this tape, 13 May 2006
What a great way to learn! Ok, so the format of having two learners that repeat everything back to Mr Thomas can get quite annoying - well the annoying part is the nervous chap who seems particularly slow at learning, and Mr Thomas does seem to be very hard on him, so the interruptions and stuttering repeats do waste time on what is really a very short course. That notwithstanding, I am really enjoying this, especially as I can play it in my car because there are no books to follow.

Good - but not that good, 04 Feb 2005
To begin with Michel talks at length about how to use the tape - I found his diction somewhat slurred, and it was difficult to understand him at times - not a good start for a language lesson.
I found Michel Thomas's approach to teaching very refreshing - it was good to hear two absolute beginners, and gave something of a class atmosphere. This soon became a problem, though, as one of the learners has continuous difficulty in pronouncing the same words - puede and tiene, and you have to listen to this guy over and over, getting these words wrong. Michel pounces on every error of pronunciation, getting the students to stress their words 'correctly'. To me it sounded like over-stressing (pueeeeeede!), and I didn't rate Michel's own pronunciation that highly. By the second tape, this had become an enormous barrier for me, and I was listening to that, rather than learning the language.
In terms of what you are taught, there is not much here - a few verbs in the present tense, using only the 1st and 3rd person. Almost all the nouns he teaches are the same as in english - situation/situacion. He did have some interesting rules, though.
As for usefulness, I don't think I am up to responding to 'what do you think of the political and economical situation in Spain' in English, let alone in Spanish.
I thought it was useful to augment other Spanish learning methods - I have been attending a night class since September - but I would not want this to be my only method of learning Spanish, and I certainly won't be going on to the full course.

A fantastic whole new way to learn!! Try it!!, 19 Feb 2001
I have found Michel Thomas' course one of the quickest and easiest ways to learn Spanish. His method relies heavily on your memory and a through understanding of how this language is constructed. He starts small and gradually builds you up, and before you know it you have a real coprehension of the language. Only at the end of the course do you realise how clever it is and how much information you can retain. Michel always stresses and focusses on the importance of pronounciation which, due to the subtleties of this language become invaluable when you actually are having a conversation in Spainish. I cannot recommend this course highly enough, - amazing results and confidence fast!

Painless and effective, 09 Jul 2000
One might expect a phrase book style course from a two hour programme that offers "No books, no writing" but this course is different.

From the start, the student is learning how to construct the language not just a list of words. I was amazed at what had been acheived by the end of the first side.

The author's conversational tone makes the tape easy to listen to.

He builds up the language piece by piece, reinforcing important points throughout. This style helps to pick up early what could otherwise become problem areas.

If you can't afford the $16000 he charges for personal tuition then this tape provides the closest thing to it.

I am just about to buy the full, eight hour course. I understand that this short course actually forms the first two hours of the longer course so it could be worth looking at that before deciding to buy the short course

This course is an excellent introduction to Spanish, 13 May 2000
I have just listened to this introductory course. It is excellent. It is designed for beginners or people who have rusty Spanish language skills.

Michel Thomas' method is to break the language down into segments and compare with the English that you already know. You find that very soon you are using whole sentences. There is no conscious effort to memorize the language, no writing notes and no homework. All three are forbidden in the instructions at the outset of the course.

The key secret is that you come away from this with a sense of having achieved something for the two hours that you have spent and you want to do more. I am looking forward to the full course.

One of the best, 01 Feb 2008
I agree with the majority of the reviewers below. the common complaint is that this is not advanced? Well that is arguably the case but if you have a basic understanding of French and you want to take youreself into the A level (which incidentally stands for advanced) then I recommend this set. The fact that I took A level French many years ago and this set clarifies tenses better than any teacher I have experienced says it all- and now I am relatively comfortable with 19 YES 19 tenses after this course (even the subjunctive!!).
I would also add that his advice at the end of the cd is priceless I just wish he managed to produce a further course.And he has got rid of the dithering student from the introductory course which was frustrating. The man was a genius.

Oh and for the lady who called this complete rubbish it depends what you wanted out of the course, maybe checking some reviews would have been helpful first before spending money on it.

All Michel Thomas Products are brilliant, 30 Dec 2007
Paid for this 2 years ago...still learning from it today. I just let it go round on DJ on the MP3 player...absorb a lesson (again!) and it all just sinks in as we go. Michel is quite brilliant as a teacher. I learned more from him than I did in years of application at school. In fact loads of what they taught us at school was just plain bad grammar!


Great course and a great teaching method, 06 Nov 2007
I did a little French at school (twenty-five years ago!) and the Michel Thomas foundation course and I am now on disc 7 of the Advanced course. Michel Thomas has a great teaching method. He immediately takes the onus off you to lean and puts it on himself to teach. The CDs are a set of informal teaching sessions between Michel and two students and this format makes them easy listening. Just listen to these CDs a few times and you will take it in. Also because it is audio based you can learn when in the car or even in the bath. The other advantage is that you will be surprised how much theory you pick up allowing you to adapt the specifics that he teaches. I hate learning from books so this was a great way to improve my French. These CDs have improved my confidence and given me a base to learn from more traditional methods. The only limitation is that Michel Thomas concentrates on spoken French and consequently my written French is much weaker. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to learn or improve their French language.

NOT complete rubbish: this is a great supplement to the foundation course, but not for very advanced speakers of French!, 02 Oct 2007
This course is to take you on from the foundation course, IF you found it good, though not everybody does (see my review of that). Once you've mastered the foundation course, this is excellent as the next stage. If you are already advanced at French, say, A-level and still retaining, then the term 'Advanced' may be a misnomer to you.

Thomas builds on the techniques he employed, and continues to simplify new tense endings into how they sound, categorises verbs in an easy way, and paints graphic pictures on how to form the more complex tenses. I agree some of the constructions he draws from you are difficult, but this is to build confidence: if you can master complex conditionals, you'll feel more astute at the simpler constructions. This has one star more from me than the foundation course since the problem of long gaps has been remedied.

Though I am not at the end of this yet, I can offer this review as I am confident it will not disappoint in the end. It IS for speaking French, but there is a chapter at the end on reading French.

Drawbacks are due to his desire to avoid memorising, some things need reinforcing; for example, there are 16 verbs of motion and living that take etre instead of avoir for the compose tense, yet I could not see this in the menu, and had to find a book with it. The whole course is done at learning speed of course, so to hone your listening skills, you should record Open University French programs and listen to the conversations. No French person will speak at the speed on these CDs, believe me.

To its praise, I went to France to look for work, and all that I learnt stood me well. There was even an English-speaking woman who had lived there for a year trying to master French who, hearing these CDs in my caravan, ordered them for herself. She said he easily explained things about the language she had never really grasped.


Stretching, 07 Mar 2007
I worked in France twenty years ago and have just decided to try and reactivate the French that I learned by purchasing this advanced course. I have not used the Foundation course but I slipped into this course easily. Michel Thomas has a very easy manner, and the presence of the students helps make it real. They make mistakes too, and their accents are no better than mine which makes me feel better. Thomas concentrates on the construction of sentences. In this advanced set the focus is on past, future and conditional tenses with many complicated constructions and variations. Some of these are so extreme I really couldn't imagine using them ('If you had told me about it I would have bought it' etc). However, he breaks it down well and it is very motivating to "get" the idea. The course concentrates on verbs and their usage. There are very few nouns here - you'll need to buy a dictionary for those. But you will master the use of the language in all the common tenses. Recommended.

Excellent follow on to the 8 hr course , 14 Aug 2006
Michel continues on from the first course and it's pretty seamless -no sudden jump. He moves onto the subjunctive which is advanced stuff and towards the end he counts up the tenses he has covered and it is around 15. The only reason I don't give it five stars is that it doesn't do much grammar - you would never know that there was life beyond der (ie den,des,dem). I've been using Lisa Kahlen's German Grammar Made Easy for that. I'd love to know how this course compares with Linguaphone Advanced German and Hugo's Advanced German.

Advanced German made easy, 07 Oct 2004
As with the original 8-CD set, this new, 4-CD, 5-hour course is an astonishingly rapid and easy route to confidence in German. As before, there is no textbook or writing, just listening and repeating. Superficially, Michel seems more schoolmasterly and demanding than the teachers I remember from my schooldays but his method is so imaginative and fluid that I was able to easily and confidently construct sentences with several verbs in all sorts of tenses without ever having to realise what "imperfect subjunctive" and "future indicative" mean. German can be a challenging language to learn, but this course gives an instinctive, natural grasp of language without the formality of grammatical rules but with all the linguistic skill you will need. As with the original course, you will get a natural grasp of the structures of German, to a level beyond two years of evening classes. Of course, there is much more to learn in terms of vocabulary and verbs not covered in the course, but once you have the instinctive grasp of structure that Michel gives, it's easy to add new words onto the framework you have learnt. I have several German books and CDs, but the Michel Thomas courses are outstanding in giving speedy confidence whilst feeling natural and easy. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend his courses to anyone learning German.

Michel Thomas Advanced Course: Spanish, 18 Jun 2008
Totally disappointing. Well, I have a different idea of "advanced Spanish". The whole CD is built of 2-3 min bits of michel thomas talking . It takes 2.5 min for him to explain how is "put it down " and "do it". Really annoying, slow talk. Advanced language is not couple of useful phrases put together.
I have wasted my money on this one.

All in all a very valuable tool!!, 08 Dec 2007
Having been a new student to learning spanish i have found michel Thamos an inspiration to developing an understanding of the structure of the spanish language.
Used in conjunction with other audio courses, i find a lot of his teaching useful in working out how the spanish language is built.
I feel that this course needs to have a follow up in the same context to reinforce developed ideas,that may have been only slightly addressed,ie the subjunctive(present and past).
At present i am using the pimsleur language course as i find this has native speakers and is more in tune with the correct pronuncuation.
I am afraid michel with his strong german background accent seems to taint the pronunciation somewhat.
All in all a very valuable tool in the persuit of my spanish studies.
If any one can recommend further courses of similar nature please let me know.


The man is a genius! , 26 Oct 2007
I have wanted to learn spanish for a number of years, and tried a number of other products before discovering the Michel Thomas series. I enjoyed the Spanish foundation course and,having completed that, moved swiftly on to the Advanced Course.

The students in this course are clearly more advanced and the pace is appropriate. Michel explains everything in a very clear way as usual and covers the ground very well. I cannot fault this series in any way and now feel ready to return to Spain with more confidence in my language abilities.

Definitely a "must buy" - I only wish there was another course to go onto after this one!

Onwards and upwards, 27 Aug 2007
Having listened to the foundation course, the advanced course continues
in the same vein, but with far less annoying students. As an aid to further developing my language skills I found it engaging and at a pace that neither let me get bored nor left me behind. These cd's gave me the confindence to try my spanish with the spanish in spain and made potentially tricky situations go smoothly. Also they have given me an excellent headstart with spanish literature. My goal now is to read all the Harry Potter books in spanish and not just 'The Philospher's Stone'. Excellent.

This is top-drawer teaching; simply the best; highly recommended., 27 Aug 2007
I bought this about a year after starting to learn Spanish with Michel Thomas through his superb Foundation Course, followed by his Language Builder (both also highly recommended).

This is an excellent addition to the Foundation Course. It starts with some revision and then begins to break really important new ground, particularly with devices reminding us when to use, and how to construct, the various Spanish past tenses.

And then comes the dreaded subjunctive - rare in English but very common in Spanish. Again Michel teaches us, painlessly and amusingly, when to use it and how to construct it. This course makes these absolutely vital rules of Spanish grammar far clearer and easier to understand than any other that I have heard or read - (and I have heard or read quite a few).

The format on this CD is back to that of the Foundation Course, with two genuine (seemingly) students in class with Michel. We become, with our pause button, the third student. The pace is faster than the Foundation Course, as one would expect, so there is time for a lot of very valuable instruction to be included.

This is top-drawer teaching; simply the best; highly recommended.

Wow! I loved learning from this tape, 13 May 2006
What a great way to learn! Ok, so the format of having two learners that repeat everything back to Mr Thomas can get quite annoying - well the annoying part is the nervous chap who seems particularly slow at learning, and Mr Thomas does seem to be very hard on him, so the interruptions and stuttering repeats do waste time on what is really a very short course. That notwithstanding, I am really enjoying this, especially as I can play it in my car because there are no books to follow.

Good - but not that good, 04 Feb 2005
To begin with Michel talks at length about how to use the tape - I found his diction somewhat slurred, and it was difficult to understand him at times - not a good start for a language lesson.
I found Michel Thomas's approach to teaching very refreshing - it was good to hear two absolute beginners, and gave something of a class atmosphere. This soon became a problem, though, as one of the learners has continuous difficulty in pronouncing the same words - puede and tiene, and you have to listen to this guy over and over, getting these words wrong. Michel pounces on every error of pronunciation, getting the students to stress their words 'correctly'. To me it sounded like over-stressing (pueeeeeede!), and I didn't rate Michel's own pronunciation that highly. By the second tape, this had become an enormous barrier for me, and I was listening to that, rather than learning the language.
In terms of what you are taught, there is not much here - a few verbs in the present tense, using only the 1st and 3rd person. Almost all the nouns he teaches are the same as in english - situation/situacion. He did have some interesting rules, though.
As for usefulness, I don't think I am up to responding to 'what do you think of the political and economical situation in Spain' in English, let alone in Spanish.
I thought it was useful to augment other Spanish learning methods - I have been attending a night class since September - but I would not want this to be my only method of learning Spanish, and I certainly won't be going on to the full course.

A fantastic whole new way to learn!! Try it!!, 19 Feb 2001
I have found Michel Thomas' course one of the quickest and easiest ways to learn Spanish. His method relies heavily on your memory and a through understanding of how this language is constructed. He starts small and gradually builds you up, and before you know it you have a real coprehension of the language. Only at the end of the course do you realise how clever it is and how much information you can retain. Michel always stresses and focusses on the importance of pronounciation which, due to the subtleties of this language become invaluable when you actually are having a conversation in Spainish. I cannot recommend this course highly enough, - amazing results and confidence fast!

Painless and effective, 09 Jul 2000
One might expect a phrase book style course from a two hour programme that offers "No books, no writing" but this course is different.

From the start, the student is learning how to construct the language not just a list of words. I was amazed at what had been acheived by the end of the first side.

The author's conversational tone makes the tape easy to listen to.

He builds up the language piece by piece, reinforcing important points throughout. This style helps to pick up early what could otherwise become problem areas.

If you can't afford the $16000 he charges for personal tuition then this tape provides the closest thing to it.

I am just about to buy the full, eight hour course. I understand that this short course actually forms the first two hours of the longer course so it could be worth looking at that before deciding to buy the short course

This course is an excellent introduction to Spanish, 13 May 2000
I have just listened to this introductory course. It is excellent. It is designed for beginners or people who have rusty Spanish language skills.

Michel Thomas' method is to break the language down into segments and compare with the English that you already know. You find that very soon you are using whole sentences. There is no conscious effort to memorize the language, no writing notes and no homework. All three are forbidden in the instructions at the outset of the course.

The key secret is that you come away from this with a sense of having achieved something for the two hours that you have spent and you want to do more. I am looking forward to the full course.

One of the best, 01 Feb 2008
I agree with the majority of the reviewers below. the common complaint is that this is not advanced? Well that is arguably the case but if you have a basic understanding of French and you want to take youreself into the A level (which incidentally stands for advanced) then I recommend this set. The fact that I took A level French many years ago and this set clarifies tenses better than any teacher I have experienced says it all- and now I am relatively comfortable with 19 YES 19 tenses after this course (even the subjunctive!!).
I would also add that his advice at the end of the cd is priceless I just wish he managed to produce a further course.And he has got rid of the dithering student from the introductory course which was frustrating. The man was a genius.

Oh and for the lady who called this complete rubbish it depends what you wanted out of the course, maybe checking some reviews would have been helpful first before spending money on it.

All Michel Thomas Products are brilliant, 30 Dec 2007
Paid for this 2 years ago...still learning from it today. I just let it go round on DJ on the MP3 player...absorb a lesson (again!) and it all just sinks in as we go. Michel is quite brilliant as a teacher. I learned more from him than I did in years of application at school. In fact loads of what they taught us at school was just plain bad grammar!


Great course and a great teaching method, 06 Nov 2007
I did a little French at school (twenty-five years ago!) and the Michel Thomas foundation course and I am now on disc 7 of the Advanced course. Michel Thomas has a great teaching method. He immediately takes the onus off you to lean and puts it on himself to teach. The CDs are a set of informal teaching sessions between Michel and two students and this format makes them easy listening. Just listen to these CDs a few times and you will take it in. Also because it is audio based you can learn when in the car or even in the bath. The other advantage is that you will be surprised how much theory you pick up allowing you to adapt the specifics that he teaches. I hate learning from books so this was a great way to improve my French. These CDs have improved my confidence and given me a base to learn from more traditional methods. The only limitation is that Michel Thomas concentrates on spoken French and consequently my written French is much weaker. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to learn or improve their French language.

NOT complete rubbish: this is a great supplement to the foundation course, but not for very advanced speakers of French!, 02 Oct 2007
This course is to take you on from the foundation course, IF you found it good, though not everybody does (see my review of that). Once you've mastered the foundation course, this is excellent as the next stage. If you are already advanced at French, say, A-level and still retaining, then the term 'Advanced' may be a misnomer to you.

Thomas builds on the techniques he employed, and continues to simplify new tense endings into how they sound, categorises verbs in an easy way, and paints graphic pictures on how to form the more complex tenses. I agree some of the constructions he draws from you are difficult, but this is to build confidence: if you can master complex conditionals, you'll feel more astute at the simpler constructions. This has one star more from me than the foundation course since the problem of long gaps has been remedied.

Though I am not at the end of this yet, I can offer this review as I am confident it will not disappoint in the end. It IS for speaking French, but there is a chapter at the end on reading French.

Drawbacks are due to his desire to avoid memorising, some things need reinforcing; for example, there are 16 verbs of motion and living that take etre instead of avoir for the compose tense, yet I could not see this in the menu, and had to find a book with it. The whole course is done at learning speed of course, so to hone your listening skills, you should record Open University French programs and listen to the conversations. No French person will speak at the speed on these CDs, believe me.

To its praise, I went to France to look for work, and all that I learnt stood me well. There was even an English-speaking woman who had lived there for a year trying to master French who, hearing these CDs in my caravan, ordered them for herself. She said he easily explained things about the language she had never really grasped.


Stretching, 07 Mar 2007
I worked in France twenty years ago and have just decided to try and reactivate the French that I learned by purchasing this advanced course. I have not used the Foundation course but I slipped into this course easily. Michel Thomas has a very easy manner, and the presence of the students helps make it real. They make mistakes too, and their accents are no better than mine which makes me feel better. Thomas concentrates on the construction of sentences. In this advanced set the focus is on past, future and conditional tenses with many complicated constructions and variations. Some of these are so extreme I really couldn't imagine using them ('If you had told me about it I would have bought it' etc). However, he breaks it down well and it is very motivating to "get" the idea. The course concentrates on verbs and their usage. There are very few nouns here - you'll need to buy a dictionary for those. But you will master the use of the language in all the common tenses. Recommended.

Excellent follow on to the 8 hr course , 14 Aug 2006
Michel continues on from the first course and it's pretty seamless -no sudden jump. He moves onto the subjunctive which is advanced stuff and towards the end he counts up the tenses he has covered and it is around 15. The only reason I don't give it five stars is that it doesn't do much grammar - you would never know that there was life beyond der (ie den,des,dem). I've been using Lisa Kahlen's German Grammar Made Easy for that. I'd love to know how this course compares with Linguaphone Advanced German and Hugo's Advanced German.

Advanced German made easy, 07 Oct 2004
As with the original 8-CD set, this new, 4-CD, 5-hour course is an astonishingly rapid and easy route to confidence in German. As before, there is no textbook or writing, just listening and repeating. Superficially, Michel seems more schoolmasterly and demanding than the teachers I remember from my schooldays but his method is so imaginative and fluid that I was able to easily and confidently construct sentences with several verbs in all sorts of tenses without ever having to realise what "imperfect subjunctive" and "future indicative" mean. German can be a challenging language to learn, but this course gives an instinctive, natural grasp of language without the formality of grammatical rules but with all the linguistic skill you will need. As with the original course, you will get a natural grasp of the structures of German, to a level beyond two years of evening classes. Of course, there is much more to learn in terms of vocabulary and verbs not covered in the course, but once you have the instinctive grasp of structure that Michel gives, it's easy to add new words onto the framework you have learnt. I have several German books and CDs, but the Michel Thomas courses are outstanding in giving speedy confidence whilst feeling natural and easy. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend his courses to anyone learning German.

Michel Thomas Advanced Course: Spanish, 18 Jun 2008
Totally disappointing. Well, I have a different idea of "advanced Spanish". The whole CD is built of 2-3 min bits of michel thomas talking . It takes 2.5 min for him to explain how is "put it down " and "do it". Really annoying, slow talk. Advanced language is not couple of useful phrases put together.
I have wasted my money on this one.

All in all a very valuable tool!!, 08 Dec 2007
Having been a new student to learning spanish i have found michel Thamos an inspiration to developing an understanding of the structure of the spanish language.
Used in conjunction with other audio courses, i find a lot of his teaching useful in working out how the spanish language is built.
I feel that this course needs to have a follow up in the same context to reinforce developed ideas,that may have been only slightly addressed,ie the subjunctive(present and past).
At present i am using the pimsleur language course as i find this has native speakers and is more in tune with the correct pronuncuation.
I am afraid michel with his strong german background accent seems to taint the pronunciation somewhat.
All in all a very valuable tool in the persuit of my spanish studies.
If any one can recommend further courses of similar nature please let me know.


The man is a genius! , 26 Oct 2007
I have wanted to learn spanish for a number of years, and tried a number of other products before discovering the Michel Thomas series. I enjoyed the Spanish foundation course and,having completed that, moved swiftly on to the Advanced Course.

The students in this course are clearly more advanced and the pace is appropriate. Michel explains everything in a very clear way as usual and covers the ground very well. I cannot fault this series in any way and now feel ready to return to Spain with more confidence in my language abilities.

Definitely a "must buy" - I only wish there was another course to go onto after this one!

Onwards and upwards, 27 Aug 2007
Having listened to the foundation course, the advanced course continues
in the same vein, but with far less annoying students. As an aid to further developing my language skills I found it engaging and at a pace that neither let me get bored nor left me behind. These cd's gave me the confindence to try my spanish with the spanish in spain and made potentially tricky situations go smoothly. Also they have given me an excellent headstart with spanish literature. My goal now is to read all the Harry Potter books in spanish and not just 'The Philospher's Stone'. Excellent.

This is top-drawer teaching; simply the best; highly recommended., 27 Aug 2007
I bought this about a year after starting to learn Spanish with Michel Thomas through his superb Foundation Course, followed by his Language Builder (both also highly recommended).

This is an excellent addition to the Foundation Course. It starts with some revision and then begins to break really important new ground, particularly with devices reminding us when to use, and how to construct, the various Spanish past tenses.

And then comes the dreaded subjunctive - rare in English but very common in Spanish. Again Michel teaches us, painlessly and amusingly, when to use it and how to construct it. This course makes these absolutely vital rules of Spanish grammar far clearer and easier to understand than any other that I have heard or read - (and I have heard or read quite a few).

The format on this CD is back to that of the Foundation Course, with two genuine (seemingly) students in class with Michel. We become, with our pause button, the third student. The pace is faster than the Foundation Course, as one would expect, so there is time for a lot of very valuable instruction to be included.

This is top-drawer teaching; simply the best; highly recommended.


Excellent, but do the foundation course first.., 23 Mar 2008
As another reviewer has said, Michel Thomas IS the language God. I'm doing a Berlitz German course here in Zurich, and it amazes me how much of what he (very clealy) taught me crops up in my advanced (Level 4 out of 7) course.

One tip though: do the 8-hour foundation course BEFORE doing this vocab course. This language builder course covers a LOT of vocab, thick and fast, and you may well find it overwhelming without doing the calmer-paced foundation course first.

Having said that, they are excellent courses, and THE best way to start learning a language.

Oh, and one other tip - amazon also sells a 5-CD language course "using the Michel Thomas" method. This claims to teach you 1,000 words. The problem is, it completely goes against his teaching principle, and is more of a "hit and run" approach to learning a language. Michel Thomas would be appalled. In a nutshell, if it hasn't got his face on the box, avoid it !


Highly recommended if you speak already a basic German!, 03 Sep 2005
I bought several AudioBooks to practice my German and I must admit I found all of them quite useful. What I appreciated most of "Michel Thomas German Language Builder (Michel Thomas Series)" was however the learning approach upon which this Audio-CD course is based. The sentences are carefully chosen to consolidate what you listened previously and somehow you get to learn how to correctly build a sentence in German although you are never explicitly taught about it. This course is probably not the best if you are an absolute beginner, neither if you are already proficient in German. It is anyway really good if you have already a basic knowledge of German and needs to consolidate your knowledge of it.

es gefallt mir sehr!, 13 Mar 2004
I was doing German for thicko's in my first year at uni and was struggling to put a sentence together. I bought this CD not knowing what to expect but found out that Michel Thomas is the language god!

I haven't studied german or listened to the CD in ages but i still manage to astound myself by waffling away bits of ze Deutsch which have been glued into my goldfish like mind!

Excellent-covers loads of German, 05 Jan 2002
This addition to the standard 8 hour course is excellent. It covers alot of vocabulary and grammar. I live in Switzerland and speak a little german everyday - this language builder has helped me to speak a little more each day. It is not easy tho' and one must repeat the course to get maximum retention & understanding. I reckon it takes around 3hrs to complete, and needs repeating at least once - but what you get for 6hours study if well worth the effort. I would suggest that on the next addition, the publishers put in at least a small 'pause' time tho', sometimes the CD pause misses out some important intonation that Michel speaks. Anyone who has covered the 8 hour course, the various 'Teach Yourself' or Pimsleur courses will benefit from this. The little booklet is useful too and can be used as learning tool in it's own right, and aids recall of the German you have learned.

Perfect for consolidation, 02 Dec 2001
Very good self-teaching material to build your confidence, particularly in speaking. Its audio-centered method is very effective and what you learn is stuck in your memory. I can now deal much more fluently with the notorious German word order. Recommended for all the intermediate German learners who feel they are stuck in some sort of impasse.
Wish it was little longer, though. Hope a more advanced course will appear.

Wow! I loved learning from this tape, 13 May 2006
What a great way to learn! Ok, so the format of having two learners that repeat everything back to Mr Thomas can get quite annoying - well the annoying part is the nervous chap who seems particularly slow at learning, and Mr Thomas does seem to be very hard on him, so the interruptions and stuttering repeats do waste time on what is really a very short course. That notwithstanding, I am really enjoying this, especially as I can play it in my car because there are no books to follow.

Good - but not that good, 04 Feb 2005
To begin with Michel talks at length about how to use the tape - I found his diction somewhat slurred, and it was difficult to understand him at times - not a good start for a language lesson.
I found Michel Thomas's approach to teaching very refreshing - it was good to hear two absolute beginners, and gave something of a class atmosphere. This soon became a problem, though, as one of the learners has continuous difficulty in pronouncing the same words - puede and tiene, and you have to listen to this guy over and over, getting these words wrong. Michel pounces on every error of pronunciation, getting the students to stress their words 'correctly'. To me it sounded like over-stressing (pueeeeeede!), and I didn't rate Michel's own pronunciation that highly. By the second tape, this had become an enormous barrier for me, and I was listening to that, rather than learning the language.
In terms of what you are taught, there is not much here - a few verbs in the present tense, using only the 1st and 3rd person. Almost all the nouns he teaches are the same as in english - situation/situacion. He did have some interesting rules, though.
As for usefulness, I don't think I am up to responding to 'what do you think of the political and economical situation in Spain' in English, let alone in Spanish.
I thought it was useful to augment other Spanish learning methods - I have been attending a night class since September - but I would not want this to be my only method of learning Spanish, and I certainly won't be going on to the full course.

A fantastic whole new way to learn!! Try it!!, 19 Feb 2001
I have found Michel Thomas' course one of the quickest and easiest ways to learn Spanish. His method relies heavily on your memory and a through understanding of how this language is constructed. He starts small and gradually builds you up, and before you know it you have a real coprehension of the language. Only at the end of the course do you realise how clever it is and how much information you can retain. Michel always stresses and focusses on the importance of pronounciation which, due to the subtleties of this language become invaluable when you actually are having a conversation in Spainish. I cannot recommend this course highly enough, - amazing results and confidence fast!

Painless and effective, 09 Jul 2000
One might expect a phrase book style course from a two hour programme that offers "No books, no writing" but this course is different.

From the start, the student is learning how to construct the language not just a list of words. I was amazed at what had been acheived by the end of the first side.

The author's conversational tone makes the tape easy to listen to.

He builds up the language piece by piece, reinforcing important points throughout. This style helps to pick up early what could otherwise become problem areas.

If you can't afford the $16000 he charges for personal tuition then this tape provides the closest thing to it.

I am just about to buy the full, eight hour course. I understand that this short course actually forms the first two hours of the longer course so it could be worth looking at that before deciding to buy the short course

This course is an excellent introduction to Spanish, 13 May 2000
I have just listened to this introductory course. It is excellent. It is designed for beginners or people who have rusty Spanish language skills.

Michel Thomas' method is to break the language down into segments and compare with the English that you already know. You find that very soon you are using whole sentences. There is no conscious effort to memorize the language, no writing notes and no homework. All three are forbidden in the instructions at the outset of the course.

The key secret is that you come away from this with a sense of having achieved something for the two hours that you have spent and you want to do more. I am looking forward to the full course.

One of the best, 01 Feb 2008
I agree with the majority of the reviewers below. the common complaint is that this is not advanced? Well that is arguably the case but if you have a basic understanding of French and you want to take youreself into the A level (which incidentally stands for advanced) then I recommend this set. The fact that I took A level French many years ago and this set clarifies tenses better than any teacher I have experienced says it all- and now I am relatively comfortable with 19 YES 19 tenses after this course (even the subjunctive!!).
I would also add that his advice at the end of the cd is priceless I just wish he managed to produce a further course.And he has got rid of the dithering student from the introductory course which was frustrating. The man was a genius.

Oh and for the lady who called this complete rubbish it depends what you wanted out of the course, maybe checking some reviews would have been helpful first before spending money on it.

All Michel Thomas Products are brilliant, 30 Dec 2007
Paid for this 2 years ago...still learning from it today. I just let it go round on DJ on the MP3 player...absorb a lesson (again!) and it all just sinks in as we go. Michel is quite brilliant as a teacher. I learned more from him than I did in years of application at school. In fact loads of what they taught us at school was just plain bad grammar!


Great course and a great teaching method, 06 Nov 2007
I did a little French at school (twenty-five years ago!) and the Michel Thomas foundation course and I am now on disc 7 of the Advanced course. Michel Thomas has a great teaching method. He immediately takes the onus off you to lean and puts it on himself to teach. The CDs are a set of informal teaching sessions between Michel and two students and this format makes them easy listening. Just listen to these CDs a few times and you will take it in. Also because it is audio based you can learn when in the car or even in the bath. The other advantage is that you will be surprised how much theory you pick up allowing you to adapt the specifics that he teaches. I hate learning from books so this was a great way to improve my French. These CDs have improved my confidence and given me a base to learn from more traditional methods. The only limitation is that Michel Thomas concentrates on spoken French and consequently my written French is much weaker. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to learn or improve their French language.

NOT complete rubbish: this is a great supplement to the foundation course, but not for very advanced speakers of French!, 02 Oct 2007
This course is to take you on from the foundation course, IF you found it good, though not everybody does (see my review of that). Once you've mastered the foundation course, this is excellent as the next stage. If you are already advanced at French, say, A-level and still retaining, then the term 'Advanced' may be a misnomer to you.

Thomas builds on the techniques he employed, and continues to simplify new tense endings into how they sound, categorises verbs in an easy way, and paints graphic pictures on how to form the more complex tenses. I agree some of the constructions he draws from you are difficult, but this is to build confidence: if you can master complex conditionals, you'll feel more astute at the simpler constructions. This has one star more from me than the foundation course since the problem of long gaps has been remedied.

Though I am not at the end of this yet, I can offer this review as I am confident it will not disappoint in the end. It IS for speaking French, but there is a chapter at the end on reading French.

Drawbacks are due to his desire to avoid memorising, some things need reinforcing; for example, there are 16 verbs of motion and living that take etre instead of avoir for the compose tense, yet I could not see this in the menu, and had to find a book with it. The whole course is done at learning speed of course, so to hone your listening skills, you should record Open University French programs and listen to the conversations. No French person will speak at the speed on these CDs, believe me.

To its praise, I went to France to look for work, and all that I learnt stood me well. There was even an English-speaking woman who had lived there for a year trying to master French who, hearing these CDs in my caravan, ordered them for herself. She said he easily explained things about the language she had never really grasped.


Stretching, 07 Mar 2007
I worked in France twenty years ago and have just decided to try and reactivate the French that I learned by purchasing this advanced course. I have not used the Foundation course but I slipped into this course easily. Michel Thomas has a very easy manner, and the presence of the students helps make it real. They make mistakes too, and their accents are no better than mine which makes me feel better. Thomas concentrates on the construction of sentences. In this advanced set the focus is on past, future and conditional tenses with many complicated constructions and variations. Some of these are so extreme I really couldn't imagine using them ('If you had told me about it I would have bought it' etc). However, he breaks it down well and it is very motivating to "get" the idea. The course concentrates on verbs and their usage. There are very few nouns here - you'll need to buy a dictionary for those. But you will master the use of the language in all the common tenses. Recommended.

Excellent follow on to the 8 hr course , 14 Aug 2006
Michel continues on from the first course and it's pretty seamless -no sudden jump. He moves onto the subjunctive which is advanced stuff and towards the end he counts up the tenses he has covered and it is around 15. The only reason I don't give it five stars is that it doesn't do much grammar - you would never know that there was life beyond der (ie den,des,dem). I've been using Lisa Kahlen's German Grammar Made Easy for that. I'd love to know how this course compares with Linguaphone Advanced German and Hugo's Advanced German.

Advanced German made easy, 07 Oct 2004
As with the original 8-CD set, this new, 4-CD, 5-hour course is an astonishingly rapid and easy route to confidence in German. As before, there is no textbook or writing, just listening and repeating. Superficially, Michel seems more schoolmasterly and demanding than the teachers I remember from my schooldays but his method is so imaginative and fluid that I was able to easily and confidently construct sentences with several verbs in all sorts of tenses without ever having to realise what "imperfect subjunctive" and "future indicative" mean. German can be a challenging language to learn, but this course gives an instinctive, natural grasp of language without the formality of grammatical rules but with all the linguistic skill you will need. As with the original course, you will get a natural grasp of the structures of German, to a level beyond two years of evening classes. Of course, there is much more to learn in terms of vocabulary and verbs not covered in the course, but once you have the instinctive grasp of structure that Michel gives, it's easy to add new words onto the framework you have learnt. I have several German books and CDs, but the Michel Thomas courses are outstanding in giving speedy confidence whilst feeling natural and easy. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend his courses to anyone learning German.

Michel Thomas Advanced Course: Spanish, 18 Jun 2008
Totally disappointing. Well, I have a different idea of "advanced Spanish". The whole CD is built of 2-3 min bits of michel thomas talking . It takes 2.5 min for him to explain how is "put it down " and "do it". Really annoying, slow talk. Advanced language is not couple of useful phrases put together.
I have wasted my money on this one.

All in all a very valuable tool!!, 08 Dec 2007
Having been a new student to learning spanish i have found michel Thamos an inspiration to developing an understanding of the structure of the spanish language.
Used in conjunction with other audio courses, i find a lot of his teaching useful in working out how the spanish language is built.
I feel that this course needs to have a follow up in the same context to reinforce developed ideas,that may have been only slightly addressed,ie the subjunctive(present and past).
At present i am using the pimsleur language course as i find this has native speakers and is more in tune with the correct pronuncuation.
I am afraid michel with his strong german background accent seems to taint the pronunciation somewhat.
All in all a very valuable tool in the persuit of my spanish studies.
If any one can recommend further courses of similar nature please let me know.


The man is a genius! , 26 Oct 2007
I have wanted to learn spanish for a number of years, and tried a number of other products before discovering the Michel Thomas series. I enjoyed the Spanish foundation course and,having completed that, moved swiftly on to the Advanced Course.

The students in this course are clearly more advanced and the pace is appropriate. Michel explains everything in a very clear way as usual and covers the ground very well. I cannot fault this series in any way and now feel ready to return to Spain with more confidence in my language abilities.

Definitely a "must buy" - I only wish there was another course to go onto after this one!

Onwards and upwards, 27 Aug 2007
Having listened to the foundation course, the advanced course continues
in the same vein, but with far less annoying students. As an aid to further developing my language skills I found it engaging and at a pace that neither let me get bored nor left me behind. These cd's gave me the confindence to try my spanish with the spanish in spain and made potentially tricky situations go smoothly. Also they have given me an excellent headstart with spanish literature. My goal now is to read all the Harry Potter books in spanish and not just 'The Philospher's Stone'. Excellent.

This is top-drawer teaching; simply the best; highly recommended., 27 Aug 2007
I bought this about a year after starting to learn Spanish with Michel Thomas through his superb Foundation Course, followed by his Language Builder (both also highly recommended).

This is an excellent addition to the Foundation Course. It starts with some revision and then begins to break really important new ground, particularly with devices reminding us when to use, and how to construct, the various Spanish past tenses.

And then comes the dreaded subjunctive - rare in English but very common in Spanish. Again Michel teaches us, painlessly and amusingly, when to use it and how to construct it. This course makes these absolutely vital rules of Spanish grammar far clearer and easier to understand than any other that I have heard or read - (and I have heard or read quite a few).

The format on this CD is back to that of the Foundation Course, with two genuine (seemingly) students in class with Michel. We become, with our pause button, the third student. The pace is faster than the Foundation Course, as one would expect, so there is time for a lot of very valuable instruction to be included.

This is top-drawer teaching; simply the best; highly recommended.


Excellent, but do the foundation course first.., 23 Mar 2008
As another reviewer has said, Michel Thomas IS the language God. I'm doing a Berlitz German course here in Zurich, and it amazes me how much of what he (very clealy) taught me crops up in my advanced (Level 4 out of 7) course.

One tip though: do the 8-hour foundation course BEFORE doing this vocab course. This language builder course covers a LOT of vocab, thick and fast, and you may well find it overwhelming without doing the calmer-paced foundation course first.

Having said that, they are excellent courses, and THE best way to start learning a language.

Oh, and one other tip - amazon also sells a 5-CD language course "using the Michel Thomas" method. This claims to teach you 1,000 words. The problem is, it completely goes against his teaching principle, and is more of a "hit and run" approach to learning a language. Michel Thomas would be appalled. In a nutshell, if it hasn't got his face on the box, avoid it !


Highly recommended if you speak already a basic German!, 03 Sep 2005
I bought several AudioBooks to practice my German and I must admit I found all of them quite useful. What I appreciated most of "Michel Thomas German Language Builder (Michel Thomas Series)" was however the learning approach upon which this Audio-CD course is based. The sentences are carefully chosen to consolidate what you listened previously and somehow you get to learn how to correctly build a sentence in German although you are never explicitly taught about it. This course is probably not the best if you are an absolute beginner, neither if you are already proficient in German. It is anyway really good if you have already a basic knowledge of German and needs to consolidate your knowledge of it.

es gefallt mir sehr!, 13 Mar 2004
I was doing German for thicko's in my first year at uni and was struggling to put a sentence together. I bought this CD not knowing what to expect but found out that Michel Thomas is the language god!

I haven't studied german or listened to the CD in ages but i still manage to astound myself by waffling away bits of ze Deutsch which have been glued into my goldfish like mind!

Excellent-covers loads of German, 05 Jan 2002
This addition to the standard 8 hour course is excellent. It covers alot of vocabulary and grammar. I live in Switzerland and speak a little german everyday - this language builder has helped me to speak a little more each day. It is not easy tho' and one must repeat the course to get maximum retention & understanding. I reckon it takes around 3hrs to complete, and needs repeating at least once - but what you get for 6hours study if well worth the effort. I would suggest that on the next addition, the publishers put in at least a small 'pause' time tho', sometimes the CD pause misses out some important intonation that Michel speaks. Anyone who has covered the 8 hour course, the various 'Teach Yourself' or Pimsleur courses will benefit from this. The little booklet is useful too and can be used as learning tool in it's own right, and aids recall of the German you have learned.

Perfect for consolidation, 02 Dec 2001
Very good self-teaching material to build your confidence, particularly in speaking. Its audio-centered method is very effective and what you learn is stuck in your memory. I can now deal much more fluently with the notorious German word order. Recommended for all the intermediate German learners who feel they are stuck in some sort of impasse.
Wish it was little longer, though. Hope a more advanced course will appear.

Not for those who want to learn Italian well, 14 Mar 2008
I am Italian native speaker and bought this course for my girlfriend. I am totally unsatisfied by the bad quality of this product. The girl speaking has really a bad and nasty American accent, not mentioning the other two guys (only one is probably Italian).

Apart from lots of unnecessary comments that in my opinion make this course quite tiring, I noticed severe spelling errors and basic grammar errors. And the main voice should repeat the sentences with the right pronunciation rather than pronuncing all the sentences badly.

It's incredible that we had to pay for this, I was tempted to bring it back straight.


Non vale la pena, 19 Nov 2007
I was very disappointed with this additional michel thomas course. I have completed both the foundation and advanced courses which both have some kind of method and consistency.. where in this he just rambles on for over an hour by himself giving you no time to pause or understand what he has just tried to say.

I've noticed a few mistakes and it really gets to me how he can't speak informally in the 1st person and always has to use the 3rd person formal tense which is hardly used at all in italy now!

If you can stand all of this then i would highly recommed this but i've listened to it once and i cant bare the thought of listening to it again.

There's no such thing as perfection but....., 15 Aug 2007
I am an ESOL and German teacher and decided to give his 8 hour beginner Italian course a go because it was free in a newspaper.

As a linguist i found i could easily do a CD a day in the car and remember it and there is no other method of learning a language which is so quick and effort free. i have drawn much inspiration from his teaching in my teaching needless to say. however i did find in the initial course that as there was no difference between his pronunciation of 'won't' and 'want' that both i and the students on the cd got in a tizz, which he attempted to quell but only confused us more because we hadn't misunderstood the concept only his pronunciation and his attempts at solving 'the problem' only made it more confusing.

as for the builder. i disagree with the reviewer who said you might as well listen to the first one again as there is nothing new. i feel my italian is far, far richer after it and i can do a disc in two days. he teaches you more day to day phrases that you would hear in the workplace, in hotels or on the street.

however what i didn't realise before doing a michel thomas course is this: he gently instils structure into you which is great i.e. verbs, pronouns, conjunctions and prepositions but i probably only know the names of about eight things after two courses.

for example in under two weeks from scratch i can confidently say:

"That's very nice of you. i would have done it for you but at the minute i am extremely busy. would it be possible for me to find it for you tomorrow?"

and other long sentences and clauses which many university languages students could simply not manage after years of bad classroom practice but apart from 'message', 'journey', 'house' and 'information' i don't really know many nouns at all.

i realise he has given us the structure and it is up to the learner to find out the vocabulary. in all honesty no teacher can "teach" vocabulary so i shouldn't really be complaining.

i did get confused though over a couple of things. near the beginning of CD1 he says that "la settimanna prossima" is next week but later on in the cd he says "la prossima settimana". which is it? i'm confused.

he also teaches "I intend" initially as "ho l'intenzione" but later on omits the 'l'. as i don't know anybody who speaks italian i have no idea which is right.

however i have been the harshest that i possibly could be. it is excellent in general and as i mentioned there is no better method/teacher in the world. we just have to remember that nobody is perfect.

Excellent, 30 Apr 2007
I enjoyed Michel's 8 hour "foundation" course and managed to pick these two CDs up for a fiver in a sale. They are fantastic !. Michel gallops through loads of useful Italian phrases at a fair old pace. The set is more focussed on useful phrases and vocabulary than the foundation course, and I am really enjoying it. There are no students on this tape and it does move ahead pretty fast - you need to listen to it several times. Michel remains his amiable gravelly self. Sometimes his pronunciation is a little confusing but that just motivates me to listen again and look up words in the dictionary. Even if you haven't done the foundation course, I recommend this - loads of short useful phrases - it should work with any basic Italian knowledge. Highly recommended.

Not bad, 22 Feb 2005
Given all the raving about Michel Thomas, I decided to give the Advance Italian audiobook a try. I liked Michel's method of teaching, it's almost like having a conversation with a friend. However, the most off-putting things for me were his accent and his enunciation. There were some things I couldn't catch (and my Italian husband had to repeat for me!). I thought it would have been much better to get someone with a crisp, clear English accent/diction. So I'm slightly disappointed. But I will press on and perhaps I can get used to his accent...