Bindependence Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3841 days ago 2 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English*, Italian
| Message 1 of 7 19 May 2014 at 11:08am | IP Logged |
Hi there,
I ran some forum searches but failed to acquire an answer for the above.
In addition to the forum search, I used Google to search, too. However, I'm getting
contrasting answers to this question. On the one hand, many websites are saying that
there are 500 words per Pimsleur level, totaling 1500 words after completing all three
levels, and yet other websites suggest that there are only as little as 150 words per
level.
Does anybody have an answer to this?
Cheers.
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SomeGuy Groupie Germany Joined 5098 days ago 56 posts - 75 votes Speaks: German* Studies: Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin
| Message 2 of 7 19 May 2014 at 11:46am | IP Logged |
If i remember right the Chinese volume 1 had ~180 words and i think about ~600 for all 3 volumes.i know that even Wikipedia says that there are 500 words per level, but from my experience this is wrong.
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Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 3 of 7 19 May 2014 at 12:04pm | IP Logged |
I agree it with SomeGuy - Pimsleur gives about 600 words for 3 volumes. It also gives
about 11 repetitions of the word (Paul Nation's research estimates that a person needs
5-16 repetitions to learn a word).
Edited by Elexi on 19 May 2014 at 12:07pm
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Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4050 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German
| Message 4 of 7 19 May 2014 at 9:53pm | IP Logged |
My experience with Pimsleur German was that, in order to attain a word count of 500, they would have to include every variant (case, gender, number) of a newly-introduced verb, noun, adjective, pronoun, or determiner as a “new word”. In contrast, most dictionaries provide only the basic word as a new entry and assume that the reader understands enough about cases, gender, number, and verb conjugations to extrapolate from the basic entry. So, while the publisher, Simon & Schuster, advertises that the Pimsleur courses provide some 500 words per level, my count came to somewhere around 250 to 300 words.
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Bindependence Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3841 days ago 2 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English*, Italian
| Message 5 of 7 20 May 2014 at 8:00pm | IP Logged |
Thanks guys.
It seems like a lot of effort for such a
miniscule vocabulary.
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BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4687 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian
| Message 6 of 7 20 May 2014 at 10:47pm | IP Logged |
Bindependence wrote:
It seems like a lot of effort for such a
miniscule vocabulary. |
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If you use Pimsleur for vocabulary building, yes, it is a lot of effort for a relatively small vocabulary. On the other hand, for pronunciation, accent, and automaticity of the basics, Pimsleur is tough to beat. I am a big fan of Pimsleur for that reason.
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hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5128 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 7 of 7 20 May 2014 at 10:47pm | IP Logged |
Bindependence wrote:
Thanks guys.
It seems like a lot of effort for such a
miniscule vocabulary. |
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I don't know that I'd call hitting play and letting it run for 30 minutes is a lot of
work.
In any case, vocabulary isn't Pimsleur's strong point. Never has been. There are other
benefits to using it, though.
R.
==
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