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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| FergusMac Triglot Newbie Scotland Joined 4814 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English, Lowland Scots*, Swedish Studies: French, German | Message 1 of 6 24 September 2011 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
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Hi to everyone
I have just found and joined this forum, and I have to say I am learning a lot from it. I intend to resurrect my vestigial French (my sister lives in Belgium and is moving to France) and I also want to learn German for a silver wedding trip in 2013. I used to live in Sweden, where I learned the language on a government-funded course for immigrants. My wife is Swedish, and she learned German as a child from listening to her German mother and grandmother, and then at school in Sweden. She also worked for a time in Germany in the 1980s, though she has not used German at all since then. She overheard me using the trial German lesson from the Pimsleur website, and she commented that it sounded quite effective to her. She also heard me repeating the dialogue from the first lesson in a Linguaphone German course I bought a few years ago, but had not seriously used, as my planned trip then did not materialise. She corrected my pronunication, which she said was quite dreadful. I thought I was replicating the sounds I heard through the headphones, but, clearly, I was not. I felt totally disheartened, though I realised it was not her intention to upset me. She told me that the other course (Pimsleur) was obviously better for me as far as learning to speak in the language was concerned. On the basis of her comments, and of the advice frequently repeated on this site to use a mix of methods, I think it might be better for me to start with Pimsleur, and then move on to Linguaphone or FSI and possibly Assimil after I have confidence in the sounds of the language, and some knowledge of vocabulary and structure. Any advice or alternative suggestions would be much appreciated. I have tried Michel Thomas in German and French, but I am sorry to say that I find the "students" in the recordings extremely irritating. The Paul Noble course appears to get round that problem, but I have seen mixed views on that in the forum. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5421 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 2 of 6 25 September 2011 at 1:38am | IP Logged |
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First of all, welcome to the forum!
If you find pronunciation very difficult then Pimsleur can be very good in the way they break the sounds down but the courses are very expensive for the amount of content they actually teach. They can be a decent introduction into a language though, some people swear by Pimsleur as a starting point, others don't like the pacing and repetition involved but it's a matter of personal preference. You can still improve your pronunciation over time by listening to and repeating the dialogue, especially if you try to do it in real-time by trying to reading aloud a word or two behind the speaker and try to match the pronunciation and intonation. This will often work a lot better than listening to a whole sentence before trying to repeat it. I'm not sure how up-to-date the Linguaphone courses are these days, though I think they are switching to their "All Talk" courses entirely now. I saw a friend's Finnish course that was published around 1999/2000 and it still had the same content as that found in courses around the 1960s or '70s. Linguaphone courses are still high quality though you will learn some words and sayings which will have since be supplanted. Assimil courses are generally very good indeed and they start off with very slow and clear speech and slowly pick up in speed throughout the course to a relatively normal speed, though still a little bit slower than normal. I've only heard good things about the German With Ease course so you might well want to check it out. I find the French and Japanese courses excellent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7124 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 3 of 6 25 September 2011 at 4:36am | IP Logged |
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Fergus, if you're worried about your pronunciation/accent, play the 'foreign' bits of your materials on a loop in the background as much as you can, even at a low volume. It will help you to absorb the sounds of the language unconsciously. Also make a deliberate effort to get the sounds of the language right from the outset, including mimicking intonation. Use slow language to begin with, and try and get a native speaker or an experienced speaker to help you with any issues you have. Record your utterances after the model, and then listen carefully to isolate what you are doing wrong, and also what you are doing right. Neglecting correct pronunciation has the same effect as neglecting grammar - you end up with ingrained patterns that are incorrect, and difficult to remove or change.
For the record, I think Pimsleur and Linguaphone would be a great combination, although, I wouldn't do one then the other. Instead, I'd use them both together. You can easily do 20 minutes of Pimsleur on top of your other study. I'm also a fan of the Living Language Ultimate courses and the Hugo '3 Months' series. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5265 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 6 25 September 2011 at 5:03am | IP Logged |
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Welcome to the forum, FergusMac! I agree with you, no one method will get you to the promised land- in language learning, there are many rooms. Listen to your wife, though not a true native speaker- she's as good as. If she's telling you that something is working for you- no brainer- stick with it! You are in a very fortunate position to have your wife right there to help you with German. Edited by iguanamon on 25 September 2011 at 5:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5568 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 5 of 6 25 September 2011 at 7:02pm | IP Logged |
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The one thing I found with Pimsleur German was that its 'inference' approach to word order and grammar became fairly confusing by about the middle of level 2. The two best things I know to get over this issue is Michel Thomas (personally I would recommend giving it another chance - you will come to appreciate the learning effect the students have on drilling these problems into your brain) and Hugo German in Three Months, which is also good for the troublesome issue (for most English speakers) of cases and prepositions with cases.
What version of Linguaphone do you have? All Talk or the books detailing the exploits of the Kuhn family? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| FergusMac Triglot Newbie Scotland Joined 4814 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English, Lowland Scots*, Swedish Studies: French, German | Message 6 of 6 25 September 2011 at 7:46pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks to all of you for your comments.
Elexi, the Linguaphone course I have is the one featuring the Kuhn family. The audio is on CDs, but they are, I think, copied from the cassettes. The accompanying books give instructions about the use of the "cassette". It is clearly from the same stable as the Swedish Linguagphne course I bought to keep my Swedish in practice when we moved to the UK in 1989. I'll give Michel Thomas another go. I do like the fact that he starts into relatively complex sentence formation at an early stage. It's just the students .... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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