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How many have finished Pimsleur? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6817 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 49 of 104 08 November 2009 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
True, and this is a danger worth pointing out. I had the same experience with some of the mandarin sounds when using Pimsleur Mandarin. But I wouldn't interpret by this that Pimsleur is bad, just that it isn't sufficient on its own. After finding out through other sources exactly what the differences were between those sounds, and after practicing doing them myself, I started hearing the difference too, and after that I could carry on using Pimsleur to much better effect. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Urban_Sasquatch Newbie United States Joined 5424 days ago 11 posts - 30 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 50 of 104 08 November 2009 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
Do you mean you could hear the differences in the sounds <I>in general</I> or that you could now hear them in the Pimsleur recordings and were then better able to use it? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tpark Tetraglot Pro Member Canada Joined 6969 days ago 118 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English*, German, Dutch, French Personal Language Map | Message 51 of 104 09 November 2009 at 5:12am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, I agree that the pace is a bit slow. I think the course is well matched to individuals who are not dedicated students of language study. It may seem like I'm a super fan of Pimsleur, but I'm not really - Assimil and Michel Thomas (both of which I have used extensively) provide a better foundation. It's a good course for doing on the train since you don't have to stop the tape. Your concerns about Pimsleur are valid, and it's a good thing that people are aware it goes slowly. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LatinoBoy84 Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5498 days ago 443 posts - 603 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian | Message 52 of 104 10 November 2009 at 4:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've found that when done concurrently with Michel Thomas, the courses compliment each other very well. Especially once you get through the first volume of Pimsleur start MT. Some concepts repeat but you really start to connect the dots (on a basic level). I can't wait to finish both and jump straight into Assimil and Penguin. Edited by LatinoBoy84 on 10 November 2009 at 4:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| FinnKelley Newbie United States Joined 5634 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Czech | Message 53 of 104 10 November 2009 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I finished the Pimsleur Russian course about a week before I left for Minsk, and one huge drawback to the way you
learn with Pimsleur is that you learn very little, but what you learn you'll pronounce at a native level after so much repetition. Sounds great, but when you speak to Russians (or Belorussians in my case) they hear you speak and assume you are fluent. After that it's quite hard to make them understand that you don't speak much. Even though you learn phrases to help explain that you speak very little, often people seem to think you're messing with them and walk away. In my case anyway :P I definitely learned more Russian in the month that I was there than the 5 months I spent going through Pimsleur. Now that I'm back in the States, I'm getting ready for a year in St. Petersburg with Teach Yourself and Princeton Russian, hopefully that will prepare me well enough to get into some advanced Russian classes. I will say though, what I learned with Pimsleur helped me to differentiate words, which is great help when you're learning a much faster paced language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6475 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 54 of 104 11 November 2009 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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For me Pimsleur is a waste of time. Yet, yes, it is also part of my language learning programs. It's excellent beginner material.
It's a waste of time because it is slow, discouraging and when I first started using learning material I almost compeletely stopped learning any language because of how boring this material is. Some people have written that it is good material as it allows you to work on a language "naturally" without books. This is, in my eyes, wrong. Learning the wrong way to learn -- simply because as you move beyond basics one must learn spelling, structure, written grammar, etc... to master the language. Pimsleur would have left me in the wrong rut if I had not really thought about this. Finally Pimsleur is A-B B-A translating which is fine when starting a language but you must overstep that rather quickly to assure you think and create a mind map in your target language. Word to word translation will fail you completely. Simple example. Wir müssen hier Spielen dürfen. - 'We should be allowed to play here.' Literally, a la Pimsleur one learns 'We must be able to play here.' You need to go global as soon as possible and out of the translating space. For me Pimsleur has been a barrier to get there when used alone. So my personal recommendations: 1) Use Pimsleur but get through it fast - you want to move on. If it is taking too much time drop it. 2) Use other material from day one - written material to supplement the lacks of having none. 3) Audacity it to get rid of the spaces and pauses - push yourself a little. Fast, complemented and optimized. I'm currently starting Pimsleur for Portuguese and while I have not yet given myself a deadline (or yet run it through Audacity), I'll use much more written material and especially writing to break out of the oral-only mode. I need to hurry up on the oral and slow down on the actual written words to learn them. Happy learning! Edited by zenmonkey on 11 November 2009 at 2:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5600 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 55 of 104 12 November 2009 at 12:32am | IP Logged | |||||
I have been wanting to do this for some time now but find it so time consuming. Is there a way to automate the process? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6475 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 56 of 104 12 November 2009 at 12:45am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, see automating audacity 1 person has voted this message useful |
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