At Great IT Courses, we have a complete set of German language courses, based on the Michel Thomas Method, which consists of the following individual courses:
German Language Builder Course
German Vocabulary Course
German Grammar Course
These courses have been built for the folllowing purposes:
To live in Germany (or any German speaking country)
To work in Germany
To do an academic course in Germany
To become a German citizen
To pass the standardized German language exams at different levels like A1, A2, B1, B2, C2 or C2
For the first case (to live in Germany), the first four course mentioned above are enough. For all the other case, the fifth course is also necessary.
Taking all the five courses would not take more than 150 hours of learning time. If you study two hours every day by yourself, all the courses will be completed in a little bit over two months' time. This means that in about two months' time, using this course series, you are able to learn everything important there is in the German language.
While this is relatively a very easy and fun way to learn the German language, it is going to be a very effective way to do so and will give you a very strong foundation in the German language. You will have a very strong foundation and understanding of the German language in a very short amount time.
Our German language courses are based on the original Michel Thomas German Language courses or the Michel Thomas Method which is the most effective and easiest way to learn any human language. We have preserved the basic structure and content of the original courses, sometimes added a few things here and there and sometimes, made some changes to the structure wherever necessary.
Using the Michel Thomas' system of language learning, you can learn most languages very quickly and easily.
Michel Thomas was the head of the Michel Thomas Language Centers. He taught languages for fifty years, primarily in New York, Beverly Hills and London after the second World War.
Michel Thomas was originally from Poland but spent most of his life in Germany and France where he learned the German and French languages really well. Later on, when he started teaching languages, he created his legendary French and German language courses. Out of these two course, the Michel Thomas "method" was born. The method was then used by other teachers associated with Michel Thomas' language institute to teach other languages like spanish, Arabic, Dutch, Danish, Greek and many more languages.
Michel Thomas was a graduage of the Department of Philology at the University of Bordeaux, France and studied psychology at Sorbonne, Paris. He is also supposed to have studied for a while at the University of Vienna.
In the second World War, he was captured in Germany and also elsewhere for at least two years. He is supposed to have created the basis of his legendary language learning system in the brutal time he spent in the second World War.
After the war, he founded a language learning institute in the US where he taught languages, mainly to celebraties of the time, who did not have much time to learn a language. Later on, he opened his language learning system to the public and the German Language bundle course that we have today is the fortunate result of that.
Now, you might ask, "If the Michel Thomas Method is so great, then why have you made changes to it?" The original Michel Thomas courses are not genarally appropriate for those who are slow at language learning. Some people need more explanation to understand the different aspects of the language.
Also, the original Michel Thomas courses, although it is perhaps the only right system for learning a language from scratch quickly and easily, can only be used practically for learning how to speak the German language. But you do not learn a language just to be able to speak; generally, you want to do other things with that language like, reading, writing, using it professionally or academically. The right foundation and the speaking part are taken care of by the Michel Thomas method but the rest is missing in the original Michel Thomas courses. Those parts we have added to the system.
The original Michel Thomas course bundle consists of the following courses:
German Foundation Course
German Advanced Course
German Language Builder
German Vocabulary
We have preserved the same categories but we have added a fifth course to the mix, namely, German Grammar Course.
To live in Germany or any German speaking country, you do need the German language. The English language would not help you there. For this purpose, you need to be able to speak the language and to be able to read and write a little bit. Here, we are making the assumption that, for whatever reason, you want to live in Germany for a few years but you do not have any intentions of using the language professionally. For this purpose, you can use the first four courses mentioned at the beginning of this page. You do not need to take the grammar course for this purpose.
If you want to work in Germany or do some academic course there, you will take all the five course mentioned above. That will give you an easy and strong foundation in the German language. Then you can build anything you want on top of this foundation.
If you want to become a citizen of Germany, you need to pass some standardized tests, in the course of which you acquire some language proficiency level like A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 or C2. These proficiency levels are based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. In this case, you will take all the five courses mentioned above. This will give you an easy but strong foundation in the German language. Once you have the strong founation, then it is going to be very easy to go through the material specially prepared for your exam like book series like Deutsch im Alltag, etc.