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Response to past Pimsleur discussions | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| tmesis Senior Member Mayotte Joined 6648 days ago 154 posts - 146 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 65 of 148 25 July 2007 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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- Edited by tmesis on 17 February 2008 at 2:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6691 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 66 of 148 25 July 2007 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
joebelt, I respect your opinion, but many individuals consider price a relevant subject when buying various programs. That might even be a fact. Usually people want the "best bang for their buck." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mcjon77 Senior Member United States Joined 6611 days ago 193 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Egyptian), French | Message 67 of 148 26 July 2007 at 12:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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Wow, this thread is getting pretty nasty, which is EXTREMELY unfortunate since it could be used as a constructive discussing regarding the merits and methods of the Pimsleur system. I would like to make a few points though:
PRICE: any statements regarding "corporate greed" or calling the publishers "bloody thieves" for pricing there product the way they price it really has more to do with one's opinions on capitalism that the Pimsleur method. If you don't feel the course is worth what they are selling it for, don't buy it. My personal opinion about the price of the programs is that the publisher tried to find a price that would maximize profits for them. Maybe it is because I am an American and die hard capitalist, or because I can now afford to buy those programs at those prices if I want, but I don't have much of a problem with how they chose to price their product. If I believe it is worth it for me, and I can't find it sold cheaper, I'll buy it. If not, then I won't. It is not like they are selling the only cure for cancer. They have a right to price their product however they feel. The market will tell them if their decisions were correct. It seems obvious to me that they are making nice profits from this product at their current pricing by looking at one thing, the number of new comprehensive courses that have come out. I first heard about pimsleur 9 years ago, and while their were numerous compact courses being offered, the comprehensives, let alone 3 volume complete sets, were available in much fewer languages than now. Now they have comprehensive courses in virtually every language I wish to study, save swahili, indonesian, and pashto. I may never actually study all of the languages, but knowing they are available gives me comfort. I'll address my opinions on Pimsleur's teaching methods in my next post. Jon 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| manny Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6358 days ago 248 posts - 240 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Tagalog Studies: French, German | Message 68 of 148 26 July 2007 at 8:49am | IP Logged | |||||
The tone was set by the initial post. The resulting questions are no different than what you find in TV investigative shows. There, evasive responses are not met with sympathy. Your comments about pricing-profit are basically correct, and we are just as correct in our freedom to criticize them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 69 of 148 26 July 2007 at 9:53am | IP Logged | |||||
The tone was -not- set by the initial post. It was in no way hostile. This forum is not a TV investigative show. Are you free to criticize? Sure. On the other hand - why? You're also free to ignore this thread. There are quite a few other threads that discuss Pimsleur's pricing, which almost all end up saying the same thing. If the answers in this thread are so evasive, why waste your breath saying so, much less repeatedly - wouldn't that be obvious to anyone interested? My personal request is that this thread be kept civilized, non-hostile, and used by people who genuinely want to ask questions. If they find the answers evasive, they can say so, ask more questions, ignore it, etc. Those who don't want to read it are free not to. The initial post was just that: an initial post. It was somewhat outside of the norms of the forum. There were several more posts saying this. Since then, Mr. Heinle's posts have largely avoided commercialism; he's even posted an academic paper. He's been immensely patient in the face of quite a lot of hostility. I don't think it's too much to ask to have people stop repeating the same criticisms yet more times. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7144 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 70 of 148 26 July 2007 at 9:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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Part of the problem with the Pimsleur programs, besides their overpricing, is that the company chooses to refer to them as "comprehensive", as in the post by mcjon77 above. As far as I can see, even those who defend the programs as useful admit that even if one goes through the full "comprehensive" course, one has only a very limited knowledge of the language, i.e., a very small vocabulary of only a few hundred words, and in most cases, no experience dealing with the written language. I would hardly call this a "comprehensive" language course.
The Pimsleur courses are a commercial product, intended to make money for those who sell them; no one denies this, and as far as I can tell, no one has any problem with this. The main objection seem to be to the amount of money that one has to spend in order to obtain very limited language capabilities. (Others criticize the amount of English in the audio, etc., but I see this as being more an issue of personal learning style/preference rather than an objective criticism per se.) While Mr Heinle, in his initial post, suggested that products should not be compared with each other, but only with themselves (!), language learners and potential purchasers of competing products want to compare DIFFERENT products, and price is certainly a key component of that comparison. Regardless of whatever linguistic benefits one might derive from the Pimsleur materials, the high price will always be a key factor, and the "bang for the buck" issue will always be an area in which Pimsleur, because of the price factor, will at a minimum not stack up well against the alternatives now available. Note that I am not calling the Pimsleur courses worthless; I think that, even at the high price, they can indeed be helpful at the outset for people with little or no language-learning experience who want to try on their own to learn a language. I think that in fact this is the target market for Pimsleur, and that few experienced linguists prefer Pimsleur. (For any experienced linguists out there who prefer Pimsleur, good for you. I am generalizing, and anecdotal exceptions don't disprove the generalization.) But we all ought to be able to acknowledge that the courses are NOT, despite their labeling, truly comprehensive, and that even after completing Pimsleur, one still has quite a way to go before becoming fluent, and thus will need other materials to work with. From this standpoint, I see Pimsleur as being a major, long-term failure, and wonder what the late Paul Pimsleur would have thought of the products that bear his name: There are BEGINNERS' materials in an increasing number of languages, both major and minor, and large sums of money exchanging hands for these products, but there is still no complete language course in any of the languages offered that would bring a student to a high level of fluency and thus demonstrate the soundness of his method. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6538 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 71 of 148 26 July 2007 at 10:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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Anyone here having trouble understanding the Israeli paper posted above? I'm stilling going through it, and I hope I'll be able to post something tonight.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 72 of 148 26 July 2007 at 11:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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Many feel that Pimsleur is overpriced. Like Volte said, Pimsleur's price has been written about all over this forum. However, there are many valid criticisms about Pimsleur that Mr. Heinle might take seriously given the language abilities of this forum. Pricing just is not one of them. Afterall, most of us aren't business people.
I have found Mr. Heinle's comments interesting and helpful. I can also understand why others may not feel the same way. But it's hard to understand why there is so much hostility directed towards this person. EDIT: typos Edited by newyorkeric on 26 July 2007 at 11:06am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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