french language course from linguaphone.

[berger]

Hi,

 

Has anyone had experience of the linguaphone french pro course ? it seems to be an all inclusive course with numerous cds and text books, I  live in France and have good basic language but  need to progress.

They also offer 12 months online help included, with newspaper/ media based exercises which is updated regularly, which I think could be good. The only problem is that it is not exactly cheap ( £250 ) and do not want to buy something that is not going to take me much further, they do say it is up to degree level ( which I am a little skeptical about ).

Any advice on this course would be gratefully received.

 

Monty

[Collywobble]

Monty, many moons ago my uncle gave me his German version (records) It was very easy to grasp and I was shouting "I am the teacher, you are the student" in German at my little brother in no time at all.

I do remember that my uncle had great success with it and some German friends said the grammer was great; proper without being pretentious/or dated/comedic  Wouldn't imagine that their courses have gone downhill.

Another option is the Accelerated learning course. About £100

http://www.acceleratedlearning.com/language/home_study.html

It works well if you are not to embarrased to do the silly tasks. e.g. there is a video and you need to mimic the woman on it.  She does nonsense like 'Kiss the wall' and they expect you to really kiss the wall, or pretend to cry, then count your noses, or 'knock on the lamp' silly stuff like that.

This is all  based on research that proves it is easier to remember ridiculous things, rather than the mundane. but that is just a small part of it. None of it is hard work.

There is also stuff like word games where the masculine words are on blue cards, fem.on pink etc. An audio story with a love interest etc. Its all very well done. Apparently some schools in Australia and Canada have droppedthe dated  traditional learning methods and just use this for languages. One high school achieved three years results in one year or something like that. Its all on the website.

I'm a fan. previously I had no luck with other methods, such as classroom learning.  But with this, I went from hardly speaking any French at all, to being able to telephone and make a doctors appointment and then explain that my stepfather had fainted in the middle of the night in the bathroom of the holiday home and we thought he was dead.

More importantly I was able to relay to the old boy that he should reduce his blood pressure tablet dossage by half.  (something he forgot his own GP had already told him)

Not bad for six weeks of lessons; two or three nights per week, sitting at the kitchen table!  Mind you, a few days later I caused much offence (and no smiles) when I ordered "half-dead" beef instead of "rare" beef in a restaurant. Doh!

Cheers

 

[berger]

collywobble,

 

Thank you very much for your reply, I am grateful for your input and I will certainly investigate your recommendation. As you have experienced yourself  I also find it too boring to sit with tables of conjugations and grammer etc, sometimes there are no other ways but this linguaphone pack looks pretty well designed.

 

once again thanks

berger ( monty )

[Collywobble]

No worries, ex-monty