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Finished Pimsleur French After 8.5 Months | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| fsc Senior Member United States Joined 6334 days ago 100 posts - 117 votes  Studies: French | Message 17 of 43 06 April 2008 at 4:30am | IP Logged | |||||
That's the one thing I am a little afraid of :-) . FSI is definitely one of the courses I am considering. On the one hand, with all the repetition of Pimsleur, FSI seems like it might be right up my alley. On the other hand, I am kind of afraid I will get in the same mode with it as Pimsleur and get obsessed with not moving on until I get 100% right. I did check out a couple less popular audio courses at the library to see what I wanted to try next but I don't care for them. They both seem to use the method of saying a phrase once in English, once in French, and then having you repeat the French pronunciation once before moving on to the next phrase. They don't want to actually teach you anything or create a solid foundation of basics to build on. They just seem like "memorize a bunch of phrases" courses. I liked the way Pimsleur gave a word, repeated it several times (usually breaking it into syllables), and then used it in a phrase or a two. Despite my difficulty with it, it just seems like a better and more interactive way to learn. At least for me. At this point, I suspect I going to go with FSI. My primary goals are to study speaking and understanding French first with the secondary goals of reading and writing. I believe I read that FSI is more about speaking and understanding but does have some sort of book to go along with it. I am not sure if it is just a course book in English or if it is to teach reading and writing but I will look into that. I have found my reading (and to a lesser extent my writing) has increased in the last couple months just from looking words up, visiting French websites, looking through French books, translating French song lyrics etc. This is like the story mentioned on one of the other forums about the boy who collects baseball cards for fun and knows all the statistics of all the players simply because he is having fun. He doesn't conscientiously try to study or learn this, it just happens because it is fun. That's how I feel my reading is coming along. I have thought about this working for the speaking and understanding part but I think it would take longer than putting a conscientious effort into it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fsc Senior Member United States Joined 6334 days ago 100 posts - 117 votes Studies: French | Message 18 of 43 06 April 2008 at 4:46am | IP Logged | |||||
You must have done Pimsleur too and know the feeling! I woke up today and did feel empty without my daily dose so guess what I did? I went back to lesson 15 of Level 3 and repeated it. I will probably repeat the course for now until I move on to the next thing so I don't lose what I learned. In regards to Pimsleur not being intended to be studied this way, that was hashed out in another thread. In fact it was probably the one I started about having trouble with Level 1. As my original message in this thread stated, the 80% wasn't working for me. I would move on to the next lesson where the new material was reviewed and I couldn't come up with the answer. This happened all the way up to lesson 1 of level 3 when I finally decided enough was enough. As far as beginners avoiding Pimsleur because of a false claim of so many hours, I feel Pimsleur's claims are false. The internet is filled with messages from people who have to repeat the lessons 3, 4, 5, or more times to get 80%. One person even took one year to complete the 3 levels. Pimsleur's claim of 30 minutes a day, one lesson per day, is absurd for most people. Pimsleur also claims you will be able to hold a basic conversation at the end of Level 3 which is also false. For the most part, anyone who thinks they are going to go from beginner to the end of the course in 30 minutes a day, one lesson a day at 80% is in for a big surprise. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fsc Senior Member United States Joined 6334 days ago 100 posts - 117 votes Studies: French | Message 19 of 43 06 April 2008 at 4:53am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks John. However, being the better person often means knowing when it is time to quit! You probably progressed a lot faster than me because you made the better choice of moving on to something that did work when you found something that didn't. For me, part of it was trying to see if it would work and part was a personal thing to try to prove to myself that I could stick with something despite finding it to be difficult. Would you mind sharing what course you did and what worked for you? Again, thanks for the kind words and good luck. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6114 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 20 of 43 06 April 2008 at 5:23am | IP Logged | |||||
No, I am still doing it. As much as I criticize Pimsleur in these forums, the temptation of doing another lesson is still strong, and when you start something it's difficult to abandon it. Are you sure you want to stick with French? Why don't you stick with Pimsleur instead and start another language? ;-)
Do they claim that half an hour a day is enough? I thought they only said to do one lesson a day, BUT repeat it as many times as you need to get that 80 % right: so one lesson, but from half an hour up to two hours and over a day. What I meant in my advice for beginners is not that 30 minutes a day are enough. What I meant was that they don't have to reach your 100 % figure. Then, I don't really know if 80 % is too low and maybe 90 % or 95 % or even 99 % is better. That's what Pimsleur themselves suggest: as long as you are good "enough" (80, 90, 95 %?), move on. Then you are perfectly entitled to your approach, and many of us congratulated you for that. I don't count percentuals. Some time after the lesson I try to recall the new words and phrases that I learnt in that lesson. If I seem to remember most of them, I move on to the next. Usually when I repeat a lesson, it's not because I didn't answer correctly enough times, but it's because there is one new sentence or word which I just can't understand or pronounce or memorize. Edited by Leopejo on 06 April 2008 at 5:28am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7089 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 21 of 43 06 April 2008 at 9:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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You probably know this already, but in case you don't:
Because the FSI courses are developed with taxpayer dollars by the federal government, they are in the public domain and available freely. You can find many of the courses (including French) online at http://www.fsi-language-courses.com/ . (start with French basic course, not phonology, because Pimsleur should have already covered you for pronunciation). Loquella, a language-learning website, has also created a free course based on FSI french, if you'd like to try that: http://www.loquella.com/learn-french/ Good luck with whatever you try next! 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| gingermidget Newbie United Kingdom profile.to/estellewe Joined 6451 days ago 29 posts - 28 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 22 of 43 06 April 2008 at 9:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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Wow, I just read the original post in this thread and was extremely impressed at the dedication and sheer determinedness, my hat goes off to you!!
I have the foundation, advanced and vocabulary courses of the Michel Thomas Italian course, and I was wondering if the same concept would work using this rather than Pimsleur, which my library does not have and is too expensive to buy? For instance, if I was to start at the very beginning of cd 1, and then if I make a mistake go straight back to the beginning? I know that Pimsleur is supposed to provide more vocabulary, but vocabulary asides, do both Pimsleur and Michel Thomas bring you to a similar level of competency once completed? Sorry for all the questions, but it would be interesting to know if this same method would also apply for the course I already have. Estelle 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fsc Senior Member United States Joined 6334 days ago 100 posts - 117 votes Studies: French | Message 23 of 43 13 April 2008 at 3:44am | IP Logged | |||||
That's what used to happen to me but it was usually about 5. Some things just clicked but there always seemed to be the 4 or 5 phrases or words that just wouldn't click. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fsc Senior Member United States Joined 6334 days ago 100 posts - 117 votes Studies: French | Message 24 of 43 13 April 2008 at 4:21am | IP Logged | |||||
Since completing Pimsleur, I have been repeating some earlier lessons in Level 2 when I was only going for 80-90%. Unfortunately, it's as if I never did the lessons. Sure things are familiar but it seems I am getting only 10-20% correct on most of them. If I am not messing up the tense, I am messing up the word order. If I am not messing up the word order, I am leaving out 2 or 3 words of a 6 word phrase. If I am not doing that, I am drawing a blank on how to even start the phrase or just saying the completely wrong words. Anyway there is to mess up, I am doing it. I don't know if I am just that dumb or what but it's very depressing. I see people say when they go back through the course they have no problems and it makes them feel like they really progressed. I feel like I wasted a bunch of time. Not because the course is bad, because I am not getting it. I am glad I got it from the library and didn't pay for it. I have tried some other courses from my library and they all seem to suffer from the same problem. They just say a word or phrase in English, then in French, then move on to the next one. No teaching, no memory aids, no grammar, no pronunciation, no repetition, and no conversation. I found I know a fair amount of what they are saying but when I don't, I don't get it because of way these courses just want you to memorize one phrase after the next. I did do one 3 audio hour course which was great. It's called "French In No Time". It is a real beginner introduction course but their method is great. Lots of English in it but I feel it gives a great introduction and foundation to beginners. I learned things from that course that eluded me all through Pimsleur. In one section they tell a 5-10 minute story that includes the French words for about 8 body parts. I listened because it was part of the course, but I didn't really think (or care) that I would remember. It is now 5 days later and I still remember the names of those 8 body parts without even trying. In fact, I don't think I could forget them if I wanted to. Too bad it is only a very basic course that doesn't take you very far at all. However, I highly recommend it for those just starting French. It actually teaches and gives you a foundation to build on. I would much rather havd a slow course which gets you to remember as opposed to one that goes fast but with no method to help you remember. I also took 5 minutes to try to memorize two words I didn't know from another course. Today, I only remember one but don't recall what it means and can't remember the other. I have still been repeating one Pimsleur lesson a day since completing the course, both as a review and to for memory retention while I try to find the next thing. There is sure a big difference between Pimsleur and the other courses I have tried so far. Edited by fsc on 13 April 2008 at 5:18am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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