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She should have taken a diction class before recording these. She is not a very good example to follow, with her hard R's, and plosive dental consonants. This would be a very good vocab course if it weren't for the woman on the CD. Her Spanish accent (or lack thereof) is atrocious.
To be specific, the American doesn't seem to hear the difference between the English word "day," with its strong diphthong, and the Spanish "de." The same is true for the difference between the English word "say," and the Spanish "se." Aside from that, I recommend the course enthusiastically to anyone desiring a quick and direct path to spoken Spanish. This is much more effective in encouraging recall than is the "parroting method," since the learner must retrieve the foreign words and phrases from memory from the cue in his/her own language. My only disappointment with the Course is that the American "director" of the Vocabulary Builder, while her tone is very friendly and encouraging to the student, has one "problem" in Spanish pronunciation, though this is partially compensated for by the two native speakers of Spanish, one from Latin America and one from Spain, who pronounce the Spanish words and phrases in turn. I am an American who learned German as a foreign language and then taught the language at university level for thirty years, so I know soemthing about language instruction. John Louis Miller The Thomas method goes directly to the essentials needed for communication, emphasizing similarities and differences between the "target language" and the learner's native tongue (in this case, English) and reinforcing structural points and vocabulary elements for retention. I also know French and have some experience with Italian and am now, in retirement, learning Spanish with the Michel Thomas method. In contrast to other "teach yourself methods," Thomnas gives English cues to initiate resonse in the "target language," rather than giving phrases in the new language that the learner is asked to repeat.
I believe I will get a much stronger vocabulary as a result of listening to these CDs. The CDs are clear and easy to understand. I am still listening to the Spanish Vocabulary Builder CDs. The first CD is a little too easy and assumes a beginner level of Spanish vocabulary.
Native speakers are used both from Spain and South America as pronnounciations references. This course is excellent. This set of Cd's is a must for anyone who has commuting time for audio work. I love the anti George Bush Administration subtext. If used combination with other learning resources it really will improve your Spanish. Intellegently assembled, the quality of the content makes tolerating the constant references to Michel Thomas and the teacher's piercing Americam accent and non-existant Spanish accent well worth while.
However, the thing that I found most annoying was that every time the main speaker would have a native speaker say the long sentence, she would repeat it herself in her blatantly non-native accent, rather than having a native speaker repeat it. I have never been motivated to write a review on Amazon before, but I was so completely annoyed by this CD set that I took it out of my CD player after 20 minutes and am planning to give (or throw)the whole set away. Even though I'm very motivated to learn Spanish, I can't handle this. This is a torturous way to learn Spanish vocabulary. There is a LOT of useless filler verbiage in this this CD set,and someone must have been paid for the number of times the words "Michel Thomas" were used in the script. It was annoying that the sentences the listener was supposed to think of how to say in Spanish were very long and usually pertained to a negative comment about something.
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