#michel thomas method

I'm only around two hours into this so far but it's the single method I would most recommend for someone new to Chinese.

It's very light on vocabulary, using just enough to be able to get across the point they are trying to make. So far it's spent time introducing tones (along with colour-coding the tones and giving them hand signals to help remember them, introduced 是 (to be), 我 (me), 你 (you), 中 (middle), 国 (country), and 人 (person) and showed how these are used together (e.g. 你是中国人 you are Chinese), introduced plurals using 们, questions with 吗 and 为是么, negation using 不, the use of 很 to make things "sound right" (e.g. using "我很好 I'm very good" instead of just "我好 I'm good")

The vocabulary they use is just used to introduce the way sentences are constructed in Chinese. As an example of the speed in which you learn with this method: by just over two hours in, students can be asked to construct the sentence "Why can we not see your teacher now?" and successfully put together "为什么我们现在不能见你的老师？". Comparing that to two hours of conventional study (where, in my evening class at least, I could say about five isolated words) really shows how well this method works.

I'm not yet half way through this course so can't comment on the rest of it. I'll write another post reviewing the rest of it after I've completed the course. So far though, I'm very impressed and looking forward to the rest.