Michel Thomas Foundation Course: Spanish (Michel Thomas Series)

Bad points - The description of this course as a 'complete course' can be misleading. The course itself makes no such claim. Michel Thomas himself refers to the course as 'an introductory course to the language'. Don't expect to cover everything in 8 hours, e.g., the subjunctive, compound tenses (apart from the perfect tense), active and passive voice, and comparatives are not covered. However, this 8 hour course does pack in a great deal and hopefully a further course covering the above will be available in the future.

Good points - Michel Thomas focuses on the importance of structure, phonetics and stress in communicating in the Spanish language.

Learning by this method is relaxing and enjoyable. It's true - no notes, memorising or homework are necessary. His method pursues learning through understanding and Michael Thomas is excellent at conveying understanding. Patient yet persistent, he conveys his knowledge, stimulating memory through a series of word chains that structure the language, and memory hooks, which make retrieval easy for those of us with even the most fog bound of memories.

I have learned a great deal more in 8 hours, than in almost a year's study in various language schools. This course is able to convey learning without pain. If you have ever been intimidated by the large number of seemingly irregular Spanish verbs try this course. Michel explains the reasons for the irregular verbs; be it their roots or simple phonetics, once you understand they no longer seem so irregular.

If you are about to embark on a Spanish course this is a very good foundation to build on. It will prevent you from picking up bad habits!

If you are at an intermediate level this course will provide good revision, deeper understanding and make you aware of the bad habits you have picked up!

This course was enjoyable, I covered the 8 hour course within 4 days. I have studied French for years but have ordered the 8 hour French course too (it's sold out at the the moment - a good sign).

G. Burrough.


Michel Thomas - Spanish   June 10, 2003
Mark (England)
87 out of 88 found this review helpful

I picked up the first CD of the set for free at a Spanish homes exhibition in London a few months ago. I also purchased some other Spanish Audio language guides, and amongst all of them this is the one that way outclassed them all.

The mainstream approach of many of these beginner audio guides is to play repeatedly recorded situations of spanish speakers in various situations; catching a train, ordering food, finding your way around emergency situations, etc. However the great downfall of this approach is that, even if you do manage to memorise all of the sentences used during these situations, you are not left with a means to understand those speaking in reply to you, or adapting that language to express what you want in any foreseeable situation.

Michel's approach from the start seeks to try and make you construct your own sentences, instead of impassively listening to pre-recorded conversations. This 'fleshes out' the language in such a way that your understanding of sentence construction - and this is what the course concentrates on - is much more comprehensive, and the more you go over the material, the more you discover for yourself the inner mechanics of the language. This gives you the means to adapt your spanish speaking to the varying situations you will be exposed to if you go on holiday to spain (or any other spanish speaking country).

Highly recommended for its efficient, effective, and comprehensive approach to spanish learning.


muy bien!   August 9, 2001
101 out of 103 found this review helpful

By the end of the first CD I had completely thrown of my cynicism! I have tried a number of spanish courses, and books etc. but whilst retaining a few cod phrases and a limited ability to communicate in an emergency situation, I never before managed to get a grip or an understanding of the language and it's formations.... until I discovered this course. It's easy to look at the reviews on the back and think "no course could be that good" but unbelievably the method that Michel Thomas uses works! Thousands of spanish teachers in GCSE classes must be fearing for their jobs... learning a language shouldn't be this easy, and if it can be then why did I go through such torture at school?

Admittedly the 8 CDs can not teach you everything, and you will only become fluent in spanish through years of practice and immersion, but the confidence and understanding, combined with the ability to construct sentences and deconstruct what you hear is a better start than you will get anywhere else. I have since bought some spanish audio books and a couple of novels in spanish and, though the going is quite slow, the progression is SO satisfying!


Spanish with Michel Thomas   April 15, 2003
Mrs C A Lewis (Peterborough, United Kingdom)
31 out of 31 found this review helpful

I would not hesitate to recommend this course wholeheartedly to any beginner wishing to learn Spanish. From the very first CD you are taught to construct sentences, not merely learn parrot fashion, you can participate and formulate your replies before listening to the student's reply. This gives you immense confidence and satisfaction, as from the very first stages you feel you are achieving something. Michel is also very particular about correct pronunciation which is very important and something not easily gained from a book. It covers a great deal of information in a very short space of time. After eight hours you have covered the present, past and future tenses, of course you will not be fluent - you wouldn't expect to be after 8 hours! (see one reviewer's comments) but you have the basics of construction and grammar and it is then up to the individual to learn more vocabulary. The only downside I would mention (and this has also been mentioned in other reviews) is the male student who seems unnecessarily dim. I realise that having a slightly slower student is psychologically encouraging for anyone learning as they feel they are doing much better, but after a while his hesitation and mispronunciations become extremely irritating. Apart from this I would give it full marks.


First language course where "the structure" stuck   October 2, 2002
Mr P Gower pgower02@man.mbs.ac.uk (Altrincham, Cheshire United Kingdom)
30 out of 30 found this review helpful

Being appalling at languages at school (including my own English!) and being shamed by being a typical English-only speaking Brit I have attempted to learn languages (Spanish and Russian) on and off for the past 16 years. Being currently unemployed and still determined to learn a foreign language (before I die!) and seeing the other favourable reviews I thought I give Michel Thomas a try.

I don't understand why it has worked but this is the first course where the structure (the grammar I suppose?) of the language has stuck. It is not just the use of cognates (similar sounding/spelt words common to both languages) but something else, some technique that I have not come across before.

Despite giving a five-star I do have some critisms. The main one would be to leave a gap when you are meant to speak, rather than relying on pressing the pause button and getting repetitive strain syndrome on you index finger. In the end I copied the CD's so to introduce those gaps. This meant I did not go through the entire course in one go but repeated tapes, in retrospect I wish I had just gone through the course in one go over a weekend.

I found the "idiot" student which many other reviewers annoying good for morale in the sense that when I thought I was being slow the other guy was snail-like. However his continued poor pronunciation of "puede" throughout the course was unbelievable but maybe Michel Thomas was trying to emphasise a common mis-pronounced word? Also it would be useful to have some written backup, but I suspect that this may be part of the teaching technique to force you to learn a language in your head rather than on a page. Again his "dry mouth" delivery I actually found very nostalgic in that it reminded me of my grandfather who also taught me a lot of good stuff, but for most I can understand it may grate.

In eight hours you will not learn a language, but this gives you a good base. I have now ordered the language builder and having completed this course started to use the Madrigals book recommended by other reviewers to build vocabulary and to learn to read and write. If any of you reviewers know the basis of the teaching technique I would appreciate you letting me know.