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Is Pimsleur the only good one out there? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Desertbandit Groupie Netherlands Joined 5101 days ago 80 posts - 104 votes  Speaks: Arabic (Iraqi)* | Message 1 of 37 31 January 2011 at 10:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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First of all I would like to say that Pimsleur is one of the best audio programs to start a language with out there.
But so far ...Pimsleur is all I have heard about are there other good Audio programs or is Pimsleur a jewel in a junkyard? It made me wonder edit: Assimil does not count Edited by Desertbandit on 31 January 2011 at 10:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Préposition Diglot Senior Member France aspectualpairs.wordp Joined 5115 days ago 186 posts - 283 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC1 Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Arabic (Levantine) | Message 2 of 37 31 January 2011 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've heard great things about Michel Thomas as well, and having tried both myself, I think I prefer MT, mainly because the content is not always the same and depends on the language and the teacher, unlike Pimsleur (I used Russian, Swedish and Hindi, they all started the same and it kinds of put me off). The good thing about Pimsleur is that you repeat the stuff so much it comes back instantly, whereas I found myself having troubles recalling the needed information sometimes.
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| Normunds Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5965 days ago 86 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian | Message 3 of 37 31 January 2011 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I would say that frequently there are very good language specific courses - no bigtime advertised names. Most of FSI courses are pretty good. Old linguaphone courses. Agostini if you get them for your target (and source:-) language. For Chinese there are lots of good Chinese edition courses or say Platiquamos for Spanish. For Japanese there are tons of good courses.
Now of course even if all of them have lots of good audio material, they still are not "pure audio" such as Pimsleur and make you sit down at some point with the book as well. New linguaphone courses - PDQ are pretty similar in format to Pimsleur and I think as good (or as bad - depends if you like that format or not :-) I agree that all other "pure audio" courses that I've tried so far seem to be of no use at all - reading wordlists with music, reciting phrases with no context - pathetic. Grooves or Earworms - amusing, but no learning value. Now if you think Pimsleur is good you might think of course that Michel Thomas is good as well. Many do favor this couple. For some reason, personally I cannot stomach MT approach. And it has the same big drawback as Pimsleur - it actually covers very little ground. And of course there is Assimil - not sure in which sense it does not count? because it's so much superior? I think it's not sooo much superior, it is simply superior to Pimsleur. It covers more and has better quality material, and it lets you pick up reading as well. But is not "pure audio". That actually is a bonus for me - I like to see the written word; at some point at least :-) 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tomsawyer Senior Member Aruba Joined 5288 days ago 103 posts - 141 votes Speaks: English* Studies: GermanB1, French, Russian | Message 4 of 37 01 February 2011 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I completed the Pimsleur German and Michel Thomas German courses some time ago. From my
results, MT wins hands down. It's not even questionable. Although I believe this has more to do with my particular learning style than the quality of Pimsleur or MT. I'm curious, Desertbandit - have you tried other audio language courses? Any comments on ones that you've tried? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Desertbandit Groupie Netherlands Joined 5101 days ago 80 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Arabic (Iraqi)* | Message 5 of 37 02 February 2011 at 2:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well to be honest I only used Pimsleur so far since its so far known to be the most effective and I agree in the beginning it might look easy and slow but once you go past lesson 20 you have to pay good attention it challenges you quite well and that challenge teaches you the basics of the language very well, only downside to Pimsleur is that...all the repetiveness can get a bit boring after a while...but he who wants something should leave something .
also yes Assimil is on a total different kind of level haha. But anyone else know any pure audio courses besides Pimsleur and MT then? I want to know what everyone thinks. 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 6 of 37 02 February 2011 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
It is not "known" -- that's marketing talking. Yes, a lot of people like it. No, that doesn't mean it's "the most effective".
There's not a lot of all-audio courses in the bookshops. Linguaphone AllTalk is the only other one I can think of, and is based on a "business trip to country X" scenario, and follows a situational "saying hello", "in the restaurant" order of events. I tried using the Italian having previously studied some Italian, but it was definitely too slow for relearning. I couldn't comment on it as a first resource. There are other resources with titles like "On the go" "while you drive" etc, but they're usually little more than audio phrasebooks. There was a short boom in all-audio "podcast" language lessons from people like Coffee Break, but in general I find the attempts to copy radio style detract from the content, and most have a tendency to become audio phrasebooks again. SaySomethingIn.com do English for Spanish speakers and Welsh for English speakers. It overrehearses patterns and many of the sentences produced are nonsensical. Too repetitive, and often ambiguous (in the Welsh, anyway). I learned a reasonable amount from it, but it really irritated me when I was doing it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Desertbandit Groupie Netherlands Joined 5101 days ago 80 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Arabic (Iraqi)* | Message 7 of 37 02 February 2011 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
You think I make stuff up when I post ? Allot of people reccomend pimsleur because it works , thus it is ''known'' amongst them asthe most effective in their journey of language learning . You have no right to disregard someone's opinion . Edited by Desertbandit on 02 February 2011 at 8:37pm 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 8 of 37 02 February 2011 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
well, there is also another opinion, that expressed by Cainntear. How can you write "known" if there are many posts about inefficiency of this approach? Why do you disregard their opinion? Why people like Pimsleur? Because it's easy. Same as MT - I just listen to this guy. And then? Nothing. You can do worse, you can do better - you have to spend about 60 h on 90 lesson set (we do not talk money yet:-). Will it get you further than 60h spent on some other course? Depends. But 60 h is not very much in language learning - there are no miracles whatever Pimsleur website tells you. A week ago somebody posted a thread "why I think Pimsleur is a good course". In the end it turned out it is his first Pimsleur course and he is somewhere in the middle of the first set. He has no idea that even when finishing 90 lessons, he will have barely managed to achieve something and will not be able to communicate apart of few scripted situations they drill. That's the kind of a learned opinion you base your premise upon. Now if you make your post based on this kind of premises and knowledge, no wonder that somebody might post a diverging opinion, right? 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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