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Language plan - it’s not just about Pimsleur

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anothername
Triglot
Groupie
Brazil
Joined 5066 days ago
96 posts - 195 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Spanish, English

 
 Message 25 of 44
01 March 2011 at 2:17pm | IP Logged 
leosmith wrote:
anothername, thanks for the language plan. There was some good stuff in it.

anothername wrote:
it was annoying to me to not knowing how to decipher the sounds in terms of written/writable
words

I'm not trying to get you to use Pimsleur, but in my plan this issue is solved by using a transcript.

anothername wrote:
But let me say that I have also explored Pimsleur Russian a bit, and it is far, far worse than
Pimsleur German.

I doubt it's much worse, unless you are expecting it to do what the ads say. Sure, you'll have less of a handle on
Russian than you would German, but if your goal is primarily pronunciation it's not a problem.

anothername wrote:
More and more, I'm getting the feeling that Pimsleur (and stuff like "in your car", etc.) is only for
intuitive learners that feel they can "absorb" the language only by listening/repeating a limited amount of
phrases.

I wouldn't assume that. I can't speak for everyone, but I chose this path very carefully. I can learn more like your way,
but I find my way more efficient for what I want to accomplish.


You do have very good points. My thoughts:

I would use Pimsleur only as a to-go audio. If I have to work on text/transcripts, there are much better options. I plan to try Pimsleur German again, after I become able to understand it without any transcripts, just because it seems a good thing to have in my MP3 player in the way to work.

About Pimsleur Russian... well, I wouldn't say it's terrible, but I feel it's much worse to German because it is simply outdated. I have the feeling that the russian language changed much more during all these years. I'm not against old courses, some of them (like Without Toil and others I already mentioned) offer a solid ground and make you think deeper in the language. But I don't see so much purpose on a dated Pimsleur: if I want straight and perfect spoken phrases, I believe they must be ready to use.

In the end, I'm much more a reader than a speaker of foreign languages, due to my personal environment. Perhaps Skype may change this approach in the future, who knows.

As a side note, although I have no time to it at the moment, I love to listen to news in foreign radio, no matter if spoken in lightning speed. I did it before the internet era, and it is amazing how it gave me a good ear even to some languages I don't even study, like dutch. I would strongly recommend it for Pimsleur followers as a complement.
1 person has voted this message useful



RedKing'sDream
Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 5804 days ago
53 posts - 68 votes 
Speaks: English*, Russian
Studies: Ukrainian

 
 Message 26 of 44
01 March 2011 at 7:27pm | IP Logged 
leosmith,

I think you've got a pretty well-thought out plan here. I agree that Pimsleur is great IF you understand what you are getting and what you certainly won't get out of it.

Pimsleur was my very first tool in learning Russian ~9 years ago. I now have training in the language comparable to a PHD and have briefly worked as an interpreter. It is only the tip OF the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, but if I had to do it all over again I'd probably still start with Pimsleur.

To my recollection there is little if anything that is out-dated in Pimsleur Russian. It is of course, rather formal, but that doesn't mean it's out-dated. There are a few constructions that are a little unnatural in the first unit, but nothing to make it not worth doing.

By the way, how do you find the time to dedicate this much to a new language? Do the other languages you know invariably suffer?

Edited by RedKing'sDream on 01 March 2011 at 7:28pm
2 persons have voted this message useful



Baracuda
Groupie
United States
Joined 5810 days ago
53 posts - 81 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, French, Russian, German

 
 Message 27 of 44
01 March 2011 at 7:29pm | IP Logged 
leosmith wrote:
Speaking of language plans, I think I'm going to copy our friend Fanatic for German. Here it is:
1) Assimil

tempting, isn't it?


One of these days I might just try that plan ;)


1 person has voted this message useful



anothername
Triglot
Groupie
Brazil
Joined 5066 days ago
96 posts - 195 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Spanish, English

 
 Message 28 of 44
02 March 2011 at 3:27am | IP Logged 
RedKing'sDream wrote:
leosmith,

I think you've got a pretty well-thought out plan here. I agree that Pimsleur is great IF you understand what you are getting and what you certainly won't get out of it.

Pimsleur was my very first tool in learning Russian ~9 years ago. I now have training in the language comparable to a PHD and have briefly worked as an interpreter. It is only the tip OF the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, but if I had to do it all over again I'd probably still start with Pimsleur.

To my recollection there is little if anything that is out-dated in Pimsleur Russian. It is of course, rather formal, but that doesn't mean it's out-dated. There are a few constructions that are a little unnatural in the first unit, but nothing to make it not worth doing.

By the way, how do you find the time to dedicate this much to a new language? Do the other languages you know invariably suffer?


I highly respect your opinion. Pimsleur Russian sounded outdated to me, probably due to the unnaturalness and excessively polite approach of its beginning, and because I was used to Princeton course, which starts way more informal. It's possible that I'm a bit biased, and looking too much for informality when searching for up-to-date expressions.

I would even give Pimsleur Russian a chance again as an extra tool, based on your comment only.

But my question is: since you succeeded in achiving an advanced level in russian, would you mind to tell us what steps you made after "the top of the top of the iceberg" (Pimsleur)

Edited by anothername on 02 March 2011 at 3:29am
1 person has voted this message useful



RedKing'sDream
Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 5804 days ago
53 posts - 68 votes 
Speaks: English*, Russian
Studies: Ukrainian

 
 Message 29 of 44
03 March 2011 at 1:25am | IP Logged 
Hey, anothername.

It's been like seven years since I listened to Pimsleur Russian, but my recollection is that overall it is not outdated. However, I do recall that Pimsleur implies in lesson 10 or so that whenever you want to use "going to" you should translate it with "sobirat'sya," and that is certainly rather misleading. So there may be a few constructions that are not perfectly natural spoken Russian.

The great thing about Pimselur (in my opinion) is NOT the conversation skills it gives you (you won't really be able to carry on a conversation after finishing it at all. And it certainly is not the pathetic listening skills you will gain. Rather, what Pimsleur provides is automaticity with some of the core grammatical constructions; and that is extremely valuable in building further verbal fluency. I've seen students who've studied Russian for a few years and many of them still lack strong intuitions with many basics. Many of them could benefit from Pimsleur, despite the fact that they have much, much larger vocabularies. One potential downside, though, is that Pimsleur may tempt students into wanting to translate literally from English to Russian when speaking, and that is detrimental to building real fluency. That was a habit I had to unlearn.

As for what I did after Pimsleur, I should admit that I would do things differently if I could do them over again. While working on Pimsleur 3, I started "Modern Russian" which I worked on for roughly two years. At some point during that time I started working on the online materials for the "Golosa" textbooks. I later added Living Language Advanced, Teach Yourself Advanced, etc. After that I pretty much relied on newspapers, and spent a few years making vocabulary list after vocabulary list, in addition to watching tv, listening to the radio, etc.

If I could do it over again, I would simply make sure to work on vocabulary acquisition from the start because that really is the time consuming step in the long run. I'd also start with native materials much earlier and work on acquiring as many idiomatic phrases as possible. I kind of like the AllJapaneseAlltheTime philosophy of massive exposure to the language which I neglected at first.

7 persons have voted this message useful



anothername
Triglot
Groupie
Brazil
Joined 5066 days ago
96 posts - 195 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Spanish, English

 
 Message 30 of 44
03 March 2011 at 1:32am | IP Logged 
RedKing'sDream wrote:
Hey, anothername.

It's been like seven years since I listened to Pimsleur Russian, but my recollection is that overall it is not outdated. However, I do recall that Pimsleur implies in lesson 10 or so that whenever you want to use "going to" you should translate it with "sobirat'sya," and that is certainly rather misleading. So there may be a few constructions that are not perfectly natural spoken Russian.

The great thing about Pimselur (in my opinion) is NOT the conversation skills it gives you (you won't really be able to carry on a conversation after finishing it at all. And it certainly is not the pathetic listening skills you will gain. Rather, what Pimsleur provides is automaticity with some of the core grammatical constructions; and that is extremely valuable in building further verbal fluency. I've seen students who've studied Russian for a few years and many of them still lack strong intuitions with many basics. Many of them could benefit from Pimsleur, despite the fact that they have much, much larger vocabularies. One potential downside, though, is that Pimsleur may tempt students into wanting to translate literally from English to Russian when speaking, and that is detrimental to building real fluency. That was a habit I had to unlearn.

As for what I did after Pimsleur, I should admit that I would do things differently if I could do them over again. While working on Pimsleur 3, I started "Modern Russian" which I worked on for roughly two years. At some point during that time I started working on the online materials for the "Golosa" textbooks. I later added Living Language Advanced, Teach Yourself Advanced, etc. After that I pretty much relied on newspapers, and spent a few years making vocabulary list after vocabulary list, in addition to watching tv, listening to the radio, etc.

If I could do it over again, I would simply make sure to work on vocabulary acquisition from the start because that really is the time consuming step in the long run. I'd also start with native materials much earlier and work on acquiring as many idiomatic phrases as possible. I kind of like the AllJapaneseAlltheTime philosophy of massive exposure to the language which I neglected at first.


Thanks! I'll take your advice on how to approach Pimsleur, and on vocabulary focus.
1 person has voted this message useful



leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6555 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 31 of 44
06 March 2011 at 3:20am | IP Logged 
anothername wrote:
I would use Pimsleur only as a to-go audio. If I have to work on text/transcripts, there are much better options.

Understood. As I said, I'm not trying to convince you to use Pimsleur, and I believe you when you say it doesn't fit well with your language plan. I was using
Pimsleur to illustrate the point that judgements about the value of a given course are not very meaningful without knowing the language plan of the user.

anothername wrote:
I plan to try Pimsleur German again, after I become able to understand it without any transcripts, just because it seems a good thing
to have in my MP3 player in the way to work.

Maybe that will be good for you. I've actually done this with Pimsleur Thai, and it didn't work well for me for many reasons. Strangely enough, listening to
Michel Thomas and Assimil this way are not bad. But my favorite is Learn in your Car. Content wise, it's about 1800 words put into sentences that are
samples of most of a language's common grammar. I find it a superb, low pressure review course. Others mock it.

anothername wrote:
Perhaps Skype may change this approach in the future, who knows.

Incidentally, I have gone away from language partners, and now work with language tutors on skype. It's worth 10 USD per half hour once a week to speak
solely in L2, and have a guarantee meeting time. My language partners had a history of being fickle.

anothername wrote:
As a side note, although I have no time to it at the moment, I love to listen to news in foreign radio, no matter if spoken in lightning
speed. I did it before the internet era, and it is amazing how it gave me a good ear even to some languages I don't even study, like dutch. I would strongly
recommend it for Pimsleur followers as a complement.

I rarely listen to the radio, although I'm sure it's excellent practice. I prefer to watch movies. If I can get an L2 movie with L2 subtitles, I'm very happy. This
really improves listening, which I find to be the hardest skill in terms of time it takes to acquire a useful level.

RedKing'sDream wrote:
Pimsleur was my very first tool in learning Russian ~9 years ago. I now have training in the language comparable to a PHD and
have briefly worked as an interpreter. It is only the tip OF the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, but if I had to do it all over again I'd probably still start with
Pimsleur.

Wow, that's quite an impressive testimonial. It's good to hear that someone who reached such a high level in a language started with Pimsleur. I wonder how
many others have done this. I have reached basic fluency in the spoken language, based on this forum's definition, in 4 languages this way, but have
decided not to spend the time required for advanced fluency until I retire. Of course, even basic fluency requires much, much more than Pimsleur, but it's a
great tool to use very early on.

RedKing'sDream wrote:
To my recollection there is little if anything that is out-dated in Pimsleur Russian. It is of course, rather formal, but that doesn't
mean it's out-dated. There are a few constructions that are a little unnatural in the first unit, but nothing to make it not worth doing.

This is pretty much the case for all Pimsleur courses that I've tried. As you said, as long as a person knows what they are getting into, it's not a problem.

RedKing'sDream wrote:
By the way, how do you find the time to dedicate this much to a new language? Do the other languages you know invariably
suffer?

Ah, I'm going to have to divert the in-depth answer to these to a post on Spurt Language Aquisition that I intend to write next weekend.

RedKing'sDream wrote:
Rather, what Pimsleur provides is automaticity with some of the core grammatical constructions; and that is extremely valuable in
building further verbal fluency.

That is an excellent point.

RedKing'sDream wrote:
One potential downside, though, is that Pimsleur may tempt students into wanting to translate literally from English to Russian
when speaking, and that is detrimental to building real fluency. That was a habit I had to unlearn.

This is a good warning to anyone using any course that relies primarily on translation (Michel Thomas, Learn in Your Car, etc). The reason that it's even more
important to Pimsleur users is because, IMO, the learner is so much closer to being able to converse.

RedKing'sDream wrote:
If I could do it over again, I would simply make sure to work on vocabulary acquisition from the start because that really is the
time consuming step in the long run. I'd also start with native materials much earlier and work on acquiring as many idiomatic phrases as possible. I kind of
like the AllJapaneseAlltheTime philosophy of massive exposure to the language which I neglected at first.

Would you mind putting it all together (a summary is fine)? I mean the language plan you'd use today if you did it all over. I'd like to see what you'd choose
for grammar, for example. I'm thinking of working through the New Penguin Russian Course, which I've heard good things about.
1 person has voted this message useful



leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6555 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 32 of 44
06 March 2011 at 3:24am | IP Logged 
paranday wrote:
Ojibwe
1) Pimsleur
Hebrew
1) Pimsleur

You are able to go completely to native material after only Pimsleur? If I didn't misunderstand you, that's
amazing!


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