Michel Thomas teacher Harold Goodman. Hebrew course
It has finally happened! After so many years of thinking, planning, wishing I made the first part of my Hebrew course a reality. This is the pilot or beta stage of what will later be released as a much longer beginner Hebrew course. That course will probably run around 7-8…
Harold Goodman: some recent stuff.
Dear friends After a hiatus of two years, at least, I decided to post something here. A few years ago a reader chided me for not posting on a regular basis. He was right, of course, if I wanted to build a large audience. When people come to me as…
When I was growing up I heard Yiddish everywhere.
When I was growing up I heard Yiddish everywhere. It was in the air, in the water and especially in the food. I grew up in New York City. My first few years were in Mid-town Manhattan but my earliest memories come from the Bronx where my family lived in…
The rejected review.
I have been posting book reviews on Amazon.com for over ten years and, until today, have never had one be rejected. After the review was rejected I resubmitted it cutting out the references to the CD collection which Amazon suggests I include to provide credibility. Instead I mentioned that I…
My journey as a Jew. A comment, a mish mash, a start.
One of our readers, Julian, has asked ( comment, 19 July, 2012; http://learnetarium.com/2011/09/22/learn-foreign-languages-by-having-fun-reading-part-2/) about the different attitudes of secular and orthodox Jews. He specifically wonders, “Are these tensions similar (not identical) with the feelings of the Maccabees and the Hellenised Jews back in antiquity? “ This is a good and…
Learning Hebrew in an Israeli Ulpan.
Previous to meeting Michel Thomas in the mid-90’s, my experience in learning languages was entirely based on using books and, in some cases, having others instruct me using more traditional approaches. However, I could never really communicate in any of these languages. In fact, the very idea of comfortably conversing…
Tim Doner, an amazing polyglot.
When Timothy Doner, a 12 year old boy in New York City, was being instructed in Biblical Hebrew in preparation for his bar mitzvah, he became fascinated with the language. So he decided to learn Modern Hebrew. He bought a grammar book and found someone with whom to speak. In…
A boyhood with Hebrew.
Since I was a young man I have been exposed to Hebrew. My parents sent me to a Hebrew school for many years during my pre-teen and teen years. I would finish public school and then go to this school which was held in a local synagogue two to three…
Learn foreign languages by having fun reading. Part 2
I once asked Michel Thomas about studying on my own. He urged me to read in the language I was studying. “Read what you enjoy and don’t look up words in a dictionary. Just keep on reading,” he told me. His advice was built on the fact that when we…
Reading Chinese the easy way.
One of the major hurdles for anyone wanting to read real Chinese, Chinese written for Chinese natives, is the simple fact that Chinese has no alphabet. The characters in which it is written can appear overwhelming to the neophyte. This in itself discourages many from plunging into reading as would…
Learn foreign languages by having fun reading. ( 1)
One of the many pieces of advice Michel Thomas gave me was to read. I am the first of five kids. Born in NYC I was alone for many years. Sure I had a brother and three sisters but we were never close friends. To this day, I am only…
John Rechy and City of Night.
In the early 1970’s I picked up a copy of the book City of Night by John Rechy. The other day, in a funk, I came across the book again in my library. I wanted something different than Russian verbs of motion to read. I immediately went to a favorite…
What do I do after the Michel Thomas course?
I received a query asking what does one do after using the Michel Thomas course if one wishes to continue on. First a little background information. Hodder is the publisher of the Michel Thomas courses. I am the author of the Mandarin Chinese course; I do not publish them. Hodder…
Another lesson, another lightbulb goes off.
There are times when, because of being tired, wanting a little time off from Russian, or just pure laziness, that I think, I hope Boris cancels class today. It would be so nice to just sleep in. Then I get up, shower, eat a bite, jump in my car and…
My first talk in Russian.
I recently wrote a post on how I was scheduled to give a short talk in Russian before an audience of native-speakers. Well, it happened and here is what transpired. Since I had to speak for 15 minutes or so I made a short mind map of what I wanted…
Following 129 hours with Boris Shekhtman.
About one year ago I began to study Russian with Boris Shekhtman. To date I have spent a total of 129 hours one on one with him learning according to his method. When I began I knew next to no Russian. I had previously spent a semester at the University…
Luca, an inspiring Italian polyglot.
There are many resources on the net that focus on learning foreign languages. However, I have not found most of them too helpful when it comes to getting really consistently good results. So it was nice to discover the work of Luca, an Italian polyglot featured on youtube. Luca puts…
Michel Thomas reportedly teaching from beyond the grave.
Hodder and Arnold, the publisher of the Michel Thomas language courses, has just announced that Michel Thomas personally trained and approved every teacher of each course issued following his demise. This amazing announcement is to be found in an FAQ section issued by the publisher. Here is the quote: “Why…
Russian verbs of motion – Boris Shekhtman’s way.
For those of you who haven’t studied Russian, I suspect that you may not know about verbs of motion. So let’s get acquainted with them. In English we have verbs like come, go, run and so forth. If we want to indicate that we went somewhere then we can just…
Boris Shekhtman. The method ( continued)
As promised, I am continuing my account of my experiences studying Russian with Boris Shekhtman. At this point I have been meeting once a week for three hours with him for one-on-one tutoring. The lessons are very focused on my specific needs and idiosyncrasies in learning. As Michel Thomas explained…
Speaking a foreign language.
One of the major obstacles for many beginning and intermediate language learners is conversing. Basically, there is only so much conversation that one can muster around the very basic vocabulary and questionable grammar that a beginner has to work with. In addition, the foreign speaker in most cases, while impressed…
Paul Noble and plagiarisation.
Paul Noble, a British-based language teacher, recently contracted with Collins, the UK publisher, to author a series of CD courses to teach various languages according to a method which he claims he developed on his own. After I was alerted to the uncanny resemblance of his approach to that of…
Why is Rosetta Stone so successful when their courses are so bad?
As some of you may know, I am considered an expert on foreign language instruction based on my experience in the field and my authorship of a very successful series to teach Chinese to English-speakers. Yesterday someone asked what I thought of Rosetta Stone. I told him that I have…
Yiddish week or bust.
I have deliberately waited for some time to elapse before writing my impressions regarding a week in the Catskills among Yiddish-speakers. The name of the program ,which just celebrated its 25th anniversary, is Yiddish Vokh or Yiddish Week. It is sponsored by an organization called Yugntruf or Youth for Yiddish…
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