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Best and Worst of Pimsleur? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 8 21 December 2011 at 12:41pm | IP Logged |
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I've been listening to the Hungarian course and I was pleasantly suprised by the quality. While it doesn't do explicit grammar instruction it does mention verb, case endings and vowel harmony. I think the strongest point is the pronunciation, with some of the crispest audio I've ever heard.
In your opinion, what are the best Pimsleur courses ? And what are the worst ? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6552 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 2 of 8 21 December 2011 at 1:41pm | IP Logged |
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I've found the quality to be about the same across the board (Japanese, Mandarin, Thai, French, Russian), as well as
the problems. They are all useful to me, because I design my language plan for them to fit in nicely. But I would have to say the tonal languages are a little more useful, because getting good at pronunciation is more important in those, and that's perhaps the greatest strength of Pimsleur. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4891 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 3 of 8 21 December 2011 at 6:04pm | IP Logged |
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Pimsleur courses are all the same; the only difference I've seen is that the Romance
languages (that are easier for most of us to read!) have short reading lessons, while Arabic and Japanese (where transcriptions are needed) have none. I listened to Italian 1, Lesson 1 last night, and realized with a sinking heart that it was the exact same dialogue that I had heard in half a dozen Pimsleur tapes. And I instantly knew what the next couple months would hold. There'd be days working on variations of "Tell Jennie Jones you understand," "Tell Jennie Jones she doesn't understand," and that you speak Italian, and that you know Italian. Then there will be a couple lessons of asking her out to lunch at one o'clock, but she can only do two o'clock, but you prefer four o'clock, and where is the hotel and would you like some water? And I don't think I can go through this again. For me: I did Spanish 1 & 2, and French 1 & 2. I enjoyed both, and did learn quite a bit, but was chomping at the bit towards the end of each. I did a preview of French 3 recently, but I think I've jumped far ahead already of the level it is at. I completed Eastern Arabic 1, and retained almost nothing. The structure of Arabic isn't suited for Pimsleur's standard conversations. For example: many sentences don't have verbs, and the past tense is easier than the present - most Arabic courses start with the past, and take quite awhile to move on to other tenses. If Pimsleur adapted their conversations to Arabic, it would be fine. As it is, they have you learning complicated structures before you learn easy ones. I did a Japanese short course (5 CD's) and can say simimasen with confidence. I can't say it was worth it. I had the same problem inferring the structure of the language as I did with Arabic. I also tried a German short course. And, I can say bitte I suspect none of the short courses are really worth it. My Conclusions: * The best Pimsleur are the first and second courses you do. The worst are any after that. * Pimsleur is better suited for the Romance, and maybe Germanic, languages. * Pimsleur Complete Courses are better than Short Courses, though the law of diminishing returns might kick in by the third level of the complete courses. Edited by kanewai on 21 December 2011 at 6:06pm 11 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Lianne Senior Member Canada thetoweringpile.blog Joined 5117 days ago 284 posts - 410 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Toki Pona, German, French | Message 4 of 8 21 December 2011 at 7:01pm | IP Logged |
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I've had great luck with developing a good accent using Pimsleur. One thing that bugs me is that the dialogue is the same for every language. It's not just that it's boring, it's that it confuses me! I did some of Pimsleur German 1, and all of Pimsleur French 1, and though I pretty much never confuse French and German words, when someone asks me how to say "I speak French well", I automatically think "Ich spreche gut Deutsch!" I KNOW that's not French (nor is it even German for "I speak French well"), but those sentences are now linked in my brain!
I still like Pimsleur for the pronunciation, though, and for the feeling of progress (though I'm getting that even more with Michel Thomas now). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4891 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 5 of 8 09 February 2012 at 6:38pm | IP Logged |
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Just for the record: I've gone back to Pimsleur for Italian, and it's like revisiting an
old friend. I still stand by all my complaints, but there really isn't an audio program like it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5036 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 6 of 8 09 February 2012 at 8:02pm | IP Logged |
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Kanewai, I definitely agree with the points you made in your longer first post.
I used Pimsleur phases 1-3 for Japanese, and it was my first language to use Pimsleur with. I like it because I like speaking the language, and this really helps internalize some of the responses. But yes, the same things can be inane for those of us who use them with multiple languages. I just finished the short course for French, which I'm doing for the 6WC this go round, and the fact that the first lesson was the same as the Japanese or any other first lesson, was rather mind-numbing. Once I got over my distaste of the first lesson, I did have fun using the French short course. I could even feel some pronunciation improvement in the short amount of days I had it. So if that was all the French I ever learned, I could say I was an American, ask for directions (though I might not understand all answers), ask for wine or beer, and in a pinch say I didn't understand. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Asiafeverr Diglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6344 days ago 346 posts - 431 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, German | Message 7 of 8 14 February 2012 at 12:30am | IP Logged |
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I thought the Mandarin Pimsleur was fantastic since Chinese grammar doesn't differ that
much from the English one. On the other hand, the Cantonese Pimsleur has tonal mistakes almost every lesson so it's better to ignore its English instructions unless you learn the same vocabulary from other sources too. I did a few lessons of Japanese Pimsleur with no additional resources and while I don't mind them not explaining grammar, it would have been nice to talk about the particles; after about 15-20 lessons I didn't even know these particles existed even though I heard many sentences using them. As mentioned by kanewai, doing a few lessons of Pimsleur isn't worth it. I've tried the free Pimsleur lesson in about 10 languages and I can't remember any of them because I haven't had any more practice. 4 years after trying Pimsleur Japanese I completely forgot what I had learned from it, yet I had no exposure to Mandarin for nearly a year after completing all of Pimsleur Mandarin and I still managed to use it after moving to Hong Kong. If you're gonna do Pimsleur, do the whole thing or at the very least the first 30 lessons in order to reinforce the language in your brain. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5132 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 8 of 8 14 February 2012 at 2:01am | IP Logged |
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I thought the Turkish course was pretty good.
Most people complain about the (lack of) depth of the courses, but I discovered that it actually covered far more than I would have thought initially when I went back and revisited the course a year later. Yes, the vocabulary count is low, but the Turkish course did a really good job of demonstrating the different Wide and abilitative tenses, in addition to the usual simple present, past and future. I wish there were a Turkish II course that covered other tenses/moods, such as narrative, dubitative, conditional and subjunctive, but for a beginner course, Turkish I was pretty decent. It covered vowel harmony thoroughly, and taught you possessives even though you didn't realize that was what you were learning. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful |
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