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Another look at Pimsleur

  Tags: Pimsleur
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
36 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5  Next >>
chelovek
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5912 days ago
413 posts - 461 votes 
5 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 17 of 36
01 June 2008 at 11:54pm | IP Logged 
apparition wrote:
mandy_surfer18 wrote:
apparition wrote:
For someone with the ability to study at a desk (i.e. not restricted to learning on their
commuting time only), you can buy so much better for what Pimsleur costs, both in money and in time spent
studying. If you absolutely do not have the time for sitting down to study with a book, Pimsleur is an okay use of
your time. It certainly has its advocates.


What do you recommend that is better (for various languages)?



I recommend Living Language products (Complete Courses, Beyond the Basics, Ultimate), as well as some specific Teach Yourself courses for the more difficult-to-find languages. They are good, solid primers that can be customized according to your style of learning (myself, I prefer not to do the exercises, but rather analyze the sentences, listen to the dialogues, and read-up on the grammar points at my leisure, all while writing as much as possible).

One of Pimsleur's major strengths, outside of its portability, is the gradual prompting of more complex structures, etc. to make you comfortable with actually using the language. Due to time constraints, however, this means not so much vocabulary, grammar complexity, or the like.

I have developed a way to gain comfort with a language that is very similar to Pimsleur by just making the prompts myself. Obviously, I'm on my own as far as pronunciation goes, but considering the benefits in vocabulary and grammatical complexity, it's something I'm willing to take a risk on. I shadow for pronunciation help instead. And all the materials for all of this is still at much less cost than Pimsleur.

To each his/her own, I suppose.



Can you elaborate on the type of prompts you mentioned? Sounds interesting.


1 person has voted this message useful



apparition
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6475 days ago
600 posts - 667 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Pashto

 
 Message 18 of 36
02 June 2008 at 6:29am | IP Logged 
chelovek wrote:
Can you elaborate on the type of prompts you mentioned? Sounds interesting.


Just imagining situations where certain structures might be most used, then writing down and speaking what might be said in those situations. I keep it simple to start, replacing nouns with other nouns, always trying to 'feel' the situation is occurring and writing down my answers (kinesthetic memory). I don't stretch my abilities too far during this time, because I don't want to venture off into ungrammatical creations of my own. By just sitting back and creating situations in my head and consciously changing words for new expressions, the grammatical structures seep into my head much like it did when I used Pimsleur way back when. As I get more comfortable with a language, the complexity is increased.
1 person has voted this message useful



gogglehead
Triglot
Senior Member
Argentina
Joined 5900 days ago
248 posts - 320 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Russian, Italian

 
 Message 19 of 36
13 June 2008 at 12:32pm | IP Logged 
I agree with franzi, Pimsleur is not really aimed at those who have a passion for languages, merely tourists and part timers, and i think the prices that they charge are a bit of a joke. I think I may have had this rant somewhere before, but that is now outdated, because I have invented Gogglehead's revolutionary learning method, which hopefully will bring me the same worldwide success as the aforementioned Mr pimsleur. When I was studying vocabulary, I noticed that I could never recall to mind all of the words that I had studied that day, be it ten, twenty, whatever. I could only ever recall about half. This is because the brain is fitted with a kind of "overload valve", that exists to preserve the accuracy of ingoing information, by cutting out around half of it, thus preserving the integrity of the other half that made it into the longer-term memory.      This is how I developed my amazing Sensory Total Overload Valve Exercise, or S.T.O.V.E for short. That acronym is no coincidence, because once you get going with my method, you really will be cooking on gas!!!!! The concept is a simple one, yet devilishly ingenious at the same time. I fooled my brain by simply upping the intake. 200 words a day, no problem, I will remember 100 of them. 1000? no problem, I will recall 500! and so on. I admit, the first time I tried it with 20 thousand Russian words in a day, it didn't work, but I put this slight hitch down to the fact that i did't even understand the Russian alphabet! But now that I have mastered this, there is no telling when I willl stop! I am sharing this special revolutionary secret because I am kind, not because I crave the sort of praise and adulation I will inevitably recieve from you all, once you reach the stage of becoming fluent in your 50th language when using Gogglehead's revolutionary S.T.O.V.E method. remember where you heard it first people!

PS. don't anyone even think about copying my amazing idea, its patented.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Sulpicius
Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 5852 days ago
89 posts - 91 votes 
Speaks: English*, Latin
Studies: French, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 20 of 36
13 June 2008 at 3:59pm | IP Logged 
gogglehead wrote:
I agree with franzi, Pimsleur is not really aimed at those who have a passion for languages, merely tourists and part timers, and i think the prices that they charge are a bit of a joke. I think I may have had this rant somewhere before, but that is now outdated, because I have invented Gogglehead's revolutionary learning method, which hopefully will bring me the same worldwide success as the aforementioned Mr pimsleur. When I was studying vocabulary, I noticed that I could never recall to mind all of the words that I had studied that day, be it ten, twenty, whatever. I could only ever recall about half. This is because the brain is fitted with a kind of "overload valve", that exists to preserve the accuracy of ingoing information, by cutting out around half of it, thus preserving the integrity of the other half that made it into the longer-term memory.      This is how I developed my amazing Sensory Total Overload Valve Exercise, or S.T.O.V.E for short. That acronym is no coincidence, because once you get going with my method, you really will be cooking on gas!!!!! The concept is a simple one, yet devilishly ingenious at the same time. I fooled my brain by simply upping the intake. 200 words a day, no problem, I will remember 100 of them. 1000? no problem, I will recall 500! and so on. I admit, the first time I tried it with 20 thousand Russian words in a day, it didn't work, but I put this slight hitch down to the fact that i did't even understand the Russian alphabet! But now that I have mastered this, there is no telling when I willl stop! I am sharing this special revolutionary secret because I am kind, not because I crave the sort of praise and adulation I will inevitably recieve from you all, once you reach the stage of becoming fluent in your 50th language when using Gogglehead's revolutionary S.T.O.V.E method. remember where you heard it first people!

PS. don't anyone even think about copying my amazing idea, its patented.


So there's an asymptote on 20,000 words?
1 person has voted this message useful



gogglehead
Triglot
Senior Member
Argentina
Joined 5900 days ago
248 posts - 320 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Russian, Italian

 
 Message 21 of 36
14 June 2008 at 4:14am | IP Logged 
what's an asymptote?
1 person has voted this message useful



patuco
Diglot
Moderator
Gibraltar
Joined 6840 days ago
3795 posts - 4268 votes 
Speaks: Spanish, English*
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 22 of 36
14 June 2008 at 7:58pm | IP Logged 
It's when a curve gets very close to a particular limit but doesn't reach it until a certain value has been attained. Not sure how useful this will be but anyway: asymptote.
1 person has voted this message useful



gogglehead
Triglot
Senior Member
Argentina
Joined 5900 days ago
248 posts - 320 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Russian, Italian

 
 Message 23 of 36
15 June 2008 at 2:50pm | IP Logged 
Yes thanks for the explanation. I might even try to use that technical-sounding terminology when I come to give my seminars around the world, on the amazing S.T.O.V.E technique. I'm sure that pretty soon we shall start to hear success stories on here from people that have used this amazing method
1 person has voted this message useful



chelovek
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5912 days ago
413 posts - 461 votes 
5 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 24 of 36
15 June 2008 at 3:43pm | IP Logged 
Gogglehead, stop trolling, please.




1 person has voted this message useful



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