Customer Reviews
A wonderful course! - By: Languagelover, 23 Dec 2008 
I had no intention of learning Dutch when I began listening to this course but as I have completed many of the Michel Thomas programmes I thought that it would be a shame not to give the Dutch course a try. I'm glad I did as I love almost everything about it.
The teacher, Cobie, is calm & clearin her explanations to the two students & also has a wonderful speaking voice, which I greatly enjoyed listening to . The course moves at a nice pace, not too fast or too slow. I do know a little German & sometimes this crept into my answers (and, occasionally, into those of both the students on the CD). Later on though I found myself doing this less & less & so did the other students.
The course seems to have used Michel Thomas' German programme as a template but I believe that the co-authors have done something that many would not consider possible, they have improved on that template to write a course which isin many ways better than that recorded by Michel Thomas himself. I know that some people will consider me saying this as almost sacriledge but I believe it to be true.
I would recommend this course to any beginner interestedin learning Dutch or who wishes to have a better awareness of the Teutonic languagesin general. The CD's would also be useful to non-beginners who might have a great deal of Dutch vocabulary but who aren't so strong on Dutch grammar.This Foundation course teaches the grammar (structure- to use the term preferred by MT) of Dutchin a very relaxed way. Relatively little vocabulary is taught, probably only around 200 words but this is its strength as one is concentrating on learning how Dutch works rather than repeating lots of words which are soon be forgotten, as happens with most language courses. If you follow my recommendation to buy you will also find, as I did, that the vocabulary & structure really does stick with you.
I am now eager to continue studying Dutch & am looking forward to the forthcoming publication of the Advanced coursein 2009.
Warm thanks to both authors for introducing me to Dutch.
Dutch courage - By: C. Young, 18 Oct 2008 I'm a bit of a fan of the Michel Thomas method & have done his excellent audio coursesin German & Italian. This is the first one I've tried which used a different teacher - she's actually better, the real Michel Thomas was often quite grumpy! -, but the method is the same. Each of the eight one-hour lessons comprises a teacher & two students. The teacher introduces phrases & the student repeats them. The difference with normal audio courses, though is that the focus is not just on memorising holiday phrases & lists of words but on practicing simple grammatical `units' that can re-used to build quite sophisticated conversational constructions. To me this mimics how people 'naturally' speak second (and probably first) languages. This I think is why people have a feeling of breakthrough & confidence after a MT course. In this case I had studied Dutch for a year but felt I couldn't speak it. After doing this course I feel I can, at least to some extent. The MT claim that the student doesn't have to work to learn the language is of course total nonsense though. There is just not enough vocabularyin a MT foundation course to survive, & I really have to listen to each course three or four times before it sticks. That said, if you do a MT alongside a conventional course to pick up more conventional vocabulary & phrases, they work brilliantly. As a pretty experienced language learner, I'd say if you want to learn to speak Dutch & don't have a native Nederlander to hand, do this course. Then do the Advanced one when it comes out!
Solid introduction - By: M. McManus, 07 Oct 2008 
This course is a solid introduction to the Dutch language, & covers the bases well. The user is also introduced to short cuts, & words which help you to memorise important items of Dutch vocabulary. The teacher has a friendly, relaxed tone & this significantly helps the learning process.
I have lived & workedin a Dutch speaking country before, so the course was more of a "catch up", but I still found it very useful for anchoring useful phrases & conceptsin my memory, as well as touching on simple but effective introductions to tidying up my Dutch grammar. I eagerly await the advanced course being released.
