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Any need for Pimsleur???? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 17 of 21 12 July 2014 at 3:06am | IP Logged |
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I will only say thank you for a thorough review of the value of these magazines. It was helpful to me as I think about new materials, and I'm sure it will be helpful to Bolio. Perhaps instead of looking at adding another course, he will be inspired to try one of these magazines and enter the world of learning with native material.
One further suggestion is that the book version of Think Spanish is less than $20, so it might be a good place to start, to see if the method works for you, before commiting more money to a subscription. In fact, I think Speakeasy's spirited defense has made me think my next purchase will be the book of Think French. To turn back to the question of the OP: there have been a lot of good opinions on this thread for and against Pimsleur. I personally think Pimsleur is great, and I have used it when I could for Hindi, German and French. As others have said, if you've completed Assimil and really understood it, then Pimsleur might not be worth paying money for. On the other hand, as I mentioned before, it helps you practice verbal skills in a more connected way than FSI, Michel Thomas or Learn in Your Car. So if you can get it free or cheap, and you want more time with courses, then I think you would benefit from it, probably starting with Level III. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4053 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 18 of 21 12 July 2014 at 5:17am | IP Logged |
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Hello Jeffers,
Thank you for your kind comments, they are much appreciated. As to the books "Read & Think Spanish" and the other titles in the series, I have some rather disappointing news concerning the amount of audio files that accompany them. Please allow me to explain. Taking the Spanish book as example, they contain approximately 200 pages of articles that are reprinted from the "Think Spanish" online audio-magazine. The 100-plus articles are regrouped by theme as: Culture, Travel, Traditions, Celebrations, Historical Personalities, Music, Geography, Food, and etcetera. The books also contain a series of quizzes based on the contents of the articles, along with answers to the quizzes. So far, so good. On the back cover of the book, the reader is advised: "With Read & Think Spanish, CD Edition, you'll read and listen to more than 100 articles in Spanish about ... blah, blah, ... native speakers on the 70-minute CD". Sounds pretty good, right? Hence my surprise when I discovered that the audio files covered only a PART of the more than 100 articles. The audio files cover about one paragraph per article! When you think of it, there's no way that you can cover 200 pages of text in 70 minutes of audio in CD format. So, the information was there all along, I simply had to solve the enigma. Silly me! Somewhat disgruntled, I queried the publisher, McGraw-Hill. Since I'm not a huge institutional buyer, I understand and accept their repeated failures to reply to, or even acknowledge receipt of, my queries on their so-called "Customer Service" website link. Undaunted, and being a current customer of the "Think Spanish" website at the time, I queried the Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Kelly Garboden. This was not the first time I had had the pleasure of corresponding with her. Really, she's a dynamo! Anyway, Kelly explained to me that she had provided all of the material -- texts and audio files -- to the publisher, McGraw-Hill, to whom she effectively signed over her rights with respect to the material. McGraw-Hill then designed and published the books according to what they thought the market would support in terms of quality, contents, presentation, pricing, etcetera. You can see where I'm going with this, right? When I asked her if she could send me the complete audio files that should otherwise accompany the published texts, and charge me any reasonable price for the service, she said that she would be glad to, but that doing so would be an infringement of McGraw-Hill's rights, something that she dared not do. Game and Match! Now, you'd think that a large publishing company like McGraw-Hill, that has physical and legal possession of the complete, original text files and audio recordings and that did not invest even one penny in their development, would simply provide the complete audio files on a DVD in MP3 format and raise the package price by 5 $US for the additional effort or, better still, make them freely available on their website, as more and more publishers are doing. I mean, why dick around? Am I allowed to say that? So, I cannot recommend the "Read & Think xxxx" series books, but I will stick with my recommendation concerning the monthly audio-magazine. By the way, the downloadable PDF files of the audio-magazine are in full colour. I recommend that users print them in black and white. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 19 of 21 12 July 2014 at 4:45pm | IP Logged |
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I think Pimsleur, despite all its qualities for various kinds of beginners, is quite pointless after Assimil. You
might profit much more from a more advanced resource. Graded readers and think Spanish and such resources are one option and a more comfortable step by step progress. Or just take the leap of faith and get something real. Audiobooks are a good option, they tend to be read by very pleasant voices with Spanish worthy of learning from. Music is an easier and cheaper choice, especially if you can get to an internet radio through the means of a smartphone or something while commuting to work. Really, after Assimil, you are very likely ready for intermediate/advanced materials or for the jump to easier native things (in general stories/novels/tvseries of the easier genres like crime or fantasy; easier documentaries, things translated/dubbed from other languages etc). Pimsleur is neither. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4659 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 21 14 July 2014 at 11:44pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you all for the complete and well thought out responses. I will look into the Language Transfer and the Think Spanish courses. As I said, FSI is my primary focus but not my only activity.
Learn in Your Car, Democracy Now news cast, Living Language Beyond the Basics (which I love) are the time fillers that I do when I cannot work on FSI. I look forward to learning more about the courses mentioned. Also, if I can find a Pimsleur 2, 3,or 4 for free, I will be happy to give it a go. Thanks to you all, BOLIO 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 21 of 21 15 July 2014 at 2:25am | IP Logged |
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You can very easily get Pimsleur 2 and 3 through your library... if they don't have it they can easily get it through inter-library loan. I don't know about 4, but I'd imagine it is readily available too.
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