iPod Fans

Italian is a beautiful, soft, flowing language, often called "The Language of Love"and being a romantic Libran, it has always appealed to me as a language I would like to learn. Only French was available at school and I loved learning that as it is another Latin language I think is very beautiful and sexy.

The first time I learnt a language outside the official school environment was when I moved to Spain. I was living with an English Family and none of us really knew where to start with the language, as we had few Spanish contacts at the time. I had managed to learn the basics, such as ordering coffees, tapas and glassed of red wine at a bar (Well, I had my priorities!). However, I was stumped when a fast and incomprehensible reply was fired back at me (this happened often) and felt embarressed at having to look back blankly and say something sheepish like "no comprendo".I decided with my friend after a few of these incidents that something had to be done! We borrowed a set of Michel Thomas Spanish Foundation Course CDs from a British person living in the same village and sat around as a family once a day for an hour with the ipod connected to it's speakers. The way of learning was very different and it took a little while to get used to understanding Mr Thomas' German accent, but, after a few sessions I was amazed...suddenly I could formulate sentences in Spanish naturally in my mind, it all felt so natural.

The Michel Thomas method of language learning turns traditional teaching on its head. He tells you in his introduction NOT to try and remember anything or get worried about your progress, He, as the teacher, insists on taking resposnibility for his student's learning. Once you have learnt how to relax and not stress about remembering, it all comes really naturally and you learn how to make sentences yourself rather than learning by heart set phrases like "Please tell me the way to the train station etc.", which of course, can be useful but are quite limiting as you never get to understand how the sentence was constructed and will therefore always rely on phrasebooks rather than your own mind. I left Spain two years ago now and I still remember much of what I learnt despite not practising it.

I have now bought his Italian Courses and I listen to one lesson a day on my ipod (The cds are easily saved to the iPod thorugh iTunes) I try to take a walk most days in the countryside while I take my lesson. Only the birds and trees can hear me answering the questions out loud! He uses the same techniques as the Spanish version, teaching to 3 students, 2 on the tape and me, the listener. He makes grammar and verbs feel so easy to learn and the vocabulary comes naturally. Having a sound knowledge of French and a good introduction to Spanish has enabled me to understand quite a lot when I hear Italians speak and I can read Italian quite well. Actually speaking it is a different matter, as it's a matter of confidence. Michel Thomas gives you that confidence to try and not worry too much about making mistakes. Every Spanish and Italian person I have tried to speak to has been more than happy to hear me try to speak their language and in my exerience, they will always help in any way they can.

For anyone interested in learning a language, have a go at this system, it really works. Going on holiday or emigrating, with the knowledge that you can speak some of the language before you even get there without the need to clumsily flick through phrasebooks is such a confidence boost and will really set you on a fantastic path to becoming fluent. Mr Thomas taught himself 14 languages in his own lifetime, and in my opinion, can therefore be an inspiration to us all.

The Michel Thomas Foundation Course in Italian  & The Michel Thomas Advanced Course in Italian are both available at Amazon.com

Also Available are the Spanish, French and German courses. Have fun!