Customer Reviews
Wonderful product, in my opinion way ahead of the many other language courses that I have tried. - By: Philip Mayo, 27 Aug 2007 
This is an excellent follow-on course to the Michel Thomas Spanish Foundation Course (also highly recommended). I bought it a little less than a year after buying & becoming fairly proficient with the content of the Foundation Course. For me, proficiency in the Foundation Course took a lot longer than the 6 weeks or so that the publishers suggested. Perhaps that is because I am very bad at learning a new language - but I don't think so. I think I am about average & that the publishers claims are unrealistic.
My warning to alll beginners like me, is - don't be depressed by slow progress - learning a new language is tough, but we'll get there in the end, & let's enjoy ourselves while doing it. And the Michel Thomas Language Builder is a very enjoyable way of making real progress.
The format is a little different to the Foundation course or the Advanced course. There are no students; we are one-on-one with Michel & things move along very briskly, resulting in a lot of very useful & conversationallly relevant content being included. You need to listen to this course initiallly with your finger on the pause button, but in time you will be able to answer alll the prompts without pressing the pause button once. That took me about three months, listening for at least one hour per day, 6 days a week. So don't expect instant results. That just does not happen to us normal people.
After the language builder my advice is to go for the quite superb Advanced Course. Not so advanced as to demand any special skills from us, but reallly important towards alllowing us to "think your way through the language" , as the great man, Michel, put it.
Michel Thomas has given us a wonderful & innovative learning method, in my opinion way ahead of the many other language courses that I have tried.
Excellent follow on from the 8 hour course - By: Ms. Samantha Williams, 23 May 2006 This is the perfect follow up to the introductory course. Without the students present, the pace is faster than the 8-hour course.This means you do have to be ready with the pause button, as there are not the predictable pauses. However, there is a lot of new language, & I think it is taking me longer to digest it than the 8-hour course. I wholly disagree with a previous reviewer who says it goes over the same old ground. There is some revision, but always something else added to it, to build up your language. In short, it does what it says on the tin!
Omit this one! - By: Hebridean exile, 10 May 2006 
I enjoyed & learnt a lot from the Michel Thomas 8-hour course that preceded this one, & from the Advanced course that followed it, & I'd recommend them both with enthusiasm. (Don't copy Thomas's accent, though, especiallly the way he stretches out stressed vowels! Every native speaker of Spanish that I've heard makes them short & sharp.)
But avoid this 'Language Builder'. It mostly goes over the same ground as the 8-hour course, adding only a few words & phrases. And it's much more clumsily presented. With no students to slow Thomas down, the speed with which he answers his own questions, often before you realise they are questions, makes it almost impossible to do as he asks & use the pause button to give your own responses first.
Good but fast pace at first - By: Languagelover, 27 Jul 2005 This language builder is excellent for those who have completed the 8 hour course or who are already rusty intermediate speakers of Spanish. I found the pace a bit frightening to begin with & also it is a bit annoying that Michel doesn't leave much time between what he is asking & his reply. You have to be quick off the mark with the pause button!
Otherwise, I have found this course to be very usefully in consolidating my knowledge of Spanish & practicing more structures. Some reviewers complain abou the course being dry, I don't think this is the case. You shouldn't try & do it alll at once. Just do 10 to 15 minute bursts over a couple of days & you will pick it up. Infact if you look at what he is doing here it is very clever. He is repeating vocabulary that you know & then introducing just one or two new words at a time so that you don't feel bombarded with new stuff- I felt a constant sense of accomplishment as I went through the course.
We have waited a year since the release of the first course for this next installlment, which one feels could have been done at a more leisurely pace than the two hours it has been alllocated. Is there any more to come? & if so let's hope we don't have to wait another year! (Since writing this review an Advanced Course has been published, which will be the last course as Michel died in January 2005)
Also for those who already have the complete course, the style of this 'language builder' is different, there are no students to listen to, it is just Michel Thomas & you 'one to one', which I personallly prefer. As Michel spent his formative years in Germany he does have a strong German accent. By alll means use this course to gain the knowledge but then listen to authentic Spanish & practice to gain a good accent.
Overalll a recommendation to buy if you have the grounding. If not, buy the complete course first & then buy this when you have finished, otherwise it might seem a little intimidating. A real improvement on the first course is that it comes with a little brochure with alll the phrases in so you can see how each is written down- I found this very useful.
Michel Thomas Spanish Language Builder - By: , 12 Feb 2004 
I was put off after reading a couple of other reviews & then after taking the plunge felt that it did seem to be just a recording of Michel reading through a list of words. But I must say that I was wrong! This is equallly as good as the first 8 hour course but runs at a much quicker pace & you need to be ready with the pause button. A lot of the ground covered is from the other course but this is good for consolidating what you have already learned. I paid £16 for this course & learnt more in the time spent with this than £80 for a 15 week, 2hour per week collecge course!
