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Why I think the Pimsleur method is good. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Normunds Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5965 days ago 86 posts - 112 votes  Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian | Message 33 of 48 30 January 2011 at 9:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Two things: 1) Pimsleur is a good beginners course only in 90 lesson format, the other forms just do not give anything despite their pretentious names. And even if it is a "good" course by itself, if you get it from your library, it is not a good value for your money. It's overpriced many times compared with equivalent courses as it is marketed not as a beginners but "advanced" and includes other blatant lies in its advertisements. 2) I think you are pretty rude in your replies. And as such you sound much like a social marketing worker of Pimsleur. Edited: upon re-reading your initial post, I must admit that though your post sounds like a Pimsleur marketing blurb, the closing sentence that suggests the people can use other channels to procure it (and I assume you do not mean libraries) seems to say you are a free agent. It's just your pompous tone and uncalled for marketing material format that make you sound worse than you really are. And you remark "once you are finished with Italian" just says that you have never completed one of these courses, so you have no real idea what you get in the end or how valuable it is :-) Edited by Normunds on 30 January 2011 at 9:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 34 of 48 30 January 2011 at 11:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't like Pimsleur much, but that particular comment was with regard to the guarantee and the accompanying exam.
It would be even longer than that -- if the most common words are introduced early on, they will be repeated more in later courses. The amount of repeated vocabulary will gradually increase. Even ignoring that, your figures suggest that each level (with the exception of level I with the lion's share of pronouns, conjunctions etc) adds less than 150 words, so we're looking at about 18 units.
Not a fair comparison, though. Pimsleur is based on programmed repetition, Assimil is happy to introduce a word and only use it once or twice. I feel Assimil is too heavily condensed, and I'd personally be reluctant to use it for a language I have zero knowledge of. (Exception: if I know a closely related language already, I'm happy giving Assimil a go.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Normunds Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5965 days ago 86 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian | Message 35 of 48 30 January 2011 at 11:52am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks for the explanation Cainntear. I just noted that "chocolate teapot" comment could go either to exam or to the course itself. So a bit tongue in cheek towards Mr Chinnery. Oh, he did not take that one well :-/
As for Assimil, I just popped it in for comparison of material covered, as I happened to have its transcript as well. I did not mean to say that Assimil is better (well I think so though, if you insist, both in material covered, presentation, and the bang for the buck:-). Assimil is used differently than Pimsleur. You can say that full Pimslaur contains 45 hours of recordings while Assimil something like 2h (depending on course). But most of Pimsleur recording consists of repeats and cues in English, so the net time is something like 1.5h of "base text". I think the thing with Assimil is that you become in charge of how you use it unlike Pimsleur where there is just one road ahead. When listening to Assimil the repeats kick in when you listen over and over. For myself I edit the Assimil recordings with repeats an pauses - nearly Pimsleur without distracting English speaker. In this way you de-condense the recording and give the necessary repetition. But you probably know quite well yourself different ways to learn :-) By the way in my opinion in Assimil they are careful of using each word at least twice. This seems to be one of their "rules". And I think it's pretty thoughtful of them. I've been using Assimil for Indonesian I knew nothing about and I was really happy with it. And apart from quite numerous European and Arab loanwords it was pretty a new territory. Then I was using it with Mandarin that I knew something about before and I was still happy with it. Of course it's only a personal opinion and I still have used many other different materials afterwards. Still I see no reason to make a posting to pontificate why Assimil is the best course or something similar; it just happened as an appropriate response :-) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mr_chinnery Senior Member England Joined 5758 days ago 202 posts - 297 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 36 of 48 30 January 2011 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
By other 'channels' I meant 'torrents', not something a social marketing worker would say. How can it be bad value if you borrow it for free from library? And yes, you're right, I haven't finished the Italian course because it's the first one I've used, but I'm still entitled to an opinion of how I have found it thus far, and I should be allowed to disseminate it here, without being accused of being a 'social marketing worker' or writing in an 'uncalled for format'. This thread was all so civilised until you waded in with your bizarre opinions and ironic use of smilies :-( Edited Upon re-reading your last post, I realise you are a troll. Edited by mr_chinnery on 30 January 2011 at 5:12pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Normunds Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5965 days ago 86 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian | Message 37 of 48 30 January 2011 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm just so sorry, that I happened to offset your learned opinion with my smilies and bizarre reasoning and thus disturb otherwise civilized discussion. Not sure what you call bizarre - that Pimsleur is a poor value for money? or that your post sounded like marketing blurb? or that Pimsleur does not deliver what it is marketed for? Moreover my initial post was just a failed attempt at joke about what exactly Cainntear mean to be the chocolate teapot - exam or course itself. And it was your "highly civilized", I would say "kind" answer, that caused me to detail what exactly I think about Pimsleur and your post... really sorry :-) Not that it matters that much that our discussion grew ugly, because your answer finally forced me to check the word count - something that frequently crops up in discussions about the value of this course and that I long wanted to do. So now we got some more facts in addition to opinions about the Pimsleur courses; each can make their own conclusions. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Faraday Senior Member United States Joined 6119 days ago 129 posts - 256 votes Speaks: German* | Message 38 of 48 30 January 2011 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't know whether Pimsleur is any good. From reading the threads on this forum, I conclude that people who love
to spend their time arguing on the internet instead of learning languages seem to prefer Pimsleur and Michel Thomas. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 39 of 48 30 January 2011 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Or to put it another way, Michel Thomas is so effective that it leaves me plenty of time to argue on the internet. ;-p 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Faraday Senior Member United States Joined 6119 days ago 129 posts - 256 votes Speaks: German* | Message 40 of 48 30 January 2011 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Haha! Ok, I'll have to try a Michel Thomas programme sometime. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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