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Response to past Pimsleur discussions | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6378 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 129 of 148 26 November 2007 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Why is this considered greed? You say yourself that a serious product wouldn't sell well. Since Pimsleur's method does sell well obviously that's what people want. So who is hurt in this transaction?
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| Pres Diglot Newbie Japan Joined 6206 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 130 of 148 27 November 2007 at 8:28am | IP Logged | |||||
Seconded! Is this available anywhere? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hobbitofny Senior Member United States Joined 6232 days ago 280 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 131 of 148 27 November 2007 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think this is the file you asked about http://www.pimsleurdirect.com/tips-and-advice/From-The-Files -The-Pimsleur-Tapes On the screen is this pdf link.
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| Ge'ez Newbie Canada Joined 6402 days ago 14 posts - 26 votes | Message 132 of 148 04 December 2007 at 12:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Most of you probably look at "bang for the $", but that might not be the market for Pimsleur. "easiest (less headaches and initial time) for effectiveness" might be more appropriate. A mid-sized company, government, SHOULD not be a problem with ~$800. Expensed write-off (30-60% off) and the other tax payers. How much more was the Concord ticket trans-Atlantic for a 4-5 hour savings, many years, many folks.
If I owned a company with 5+ employees that deals with Spanish speaking clients, German, Japanese....I would hesitate to pay $800. The effectiveness part could be basic small chat, that is good enough to impress the client, the effort was made. It is also a good starting point? (I've never completed a level 3) If someone wants to learn further they can do so by whatever method they choose. (conversation, reading, more detailed course or a mixture) Saving time and making things as EASY as poosible (motivation) is worth $$, in my opinion. I think the strength of Pimsleur is not only the memory function of interval recall (re-test word recollection after time x) but its use the of the words in varying contexts. Also, it uses the Johann Sebastian Bach method of leaning...start with a simple concept, a word, a do the most with it. Chapter 1 takes you from 0% to 80-100%, chapter 2 from 80% starting point and use the same wording in many more contexts. To contrast, other programmes' chapter 2 starts off at 5%, re-do 20%, re-do 40%...and you work your way to some understanding. Most programmes, I've seen, tried, as one is learning chapter 45, one is still hit with 90% new material (headache). A learing course only brings you so far... eventually more importance on practical vs theoretical will have greater value in learning or developing further vocab. and its uses. The key to the programme, IMO, not an expert at all, is that Dr. Pimsleur tested the users to find an effective method. That is what many other programmes lack. Looks good in planning, looks good in print, effectiveness..."after the completion of the course the student will have a greater appreciation for the culture... Can the 10,000 (person's that purchased/ not necessarily College language students) actually speak, converse, talk, exchange ideas verbally with target audience...well...the student will have a better understanding of how the grammar looks and how the natives use it. I don't think any programme is ideal, they should all be very different for different languages and different users. If you know French, Italien...Spanish learning should not be the same as an English speaker with no language experience. SOV languages should be taught using whatever method works best (for the intented user) and other languages that are not SOV use a different method if the intended user is of SOV thinking. My question is: How much testing did Dr. Pimsleur actually do, and how about other courses? (not an expert here) 1. # of users 2. Isolating different methods- ex: conjugating only 1 verb, but to its full extent and use it in as many usefull sentences as possible than differentiate with new verb #2...VS the current methods. 3. Another example, languages heavy on affixes (Amharic) tagged to nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs..being tested using a single word and the 50 possible combinations that be gained mileage wise...the J-S-Bach method, 1 word maxed out in all its usefull applications. I'm I correct in thinking that most course designers should focus more on the boxed objective section at the beginning of every chapter on: If 10,000 users...this is the best way for their needs. Further, if an addition 10,000 users tried to make it better it could not be done. As the designer, I can attest to this being the best method. Instead of: After this chapter the student should be able to conjugated the future-imperfect...(unless that's the objective) --business, government, many people don't think twice about paying $800 extra on a flight advance of a few hours for no other reason than to get the employee home earlier for dinner. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6551 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 133 of 148 11 November 2009 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
Salvation is only possible from one method.
So wrong. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5534 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 134 of 148 11 November 2009 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This seems to be a pretty old thread that got bumped here, but I'm glad it did as I hadn't read this thread previously.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 135 of 148 11 November 2009 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
Why not explain why you think it's wrong. For what it's worth, I think it's correct. Why? I hear people all the time who speak the language from the spelling and get interference from the spellings. For instance, the consonant cluster CHD in Scottish Gaelic is pronounced /xk/, but many learner say /xt/ or /xd/. The sound /xk/ isn't any more difficult than /xt/ or /xd/ -- in fact to me it seems easier (which would explain why it became pronounced that way). The only realistic explanation is that their brains are fixated on the English D because of an early focus on the written form and memorising letters (=English sounds) instead of sounds (Gaelic ones). Other people attempt to make phonetic transcriptions (and some teachers encourage this), but most learners' perception of the target language's sound system is too poor to produce a useful transcription. Early writing of any sort risks fixing the phonetics in the student's mind, rather than leaving them free to alter/improve slowly. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6537 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 136 of 148 11 November 2009 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Wow, this thread was brought back to life after 2 years! It's sort of fascinating to read old posts of yourself going
back that far, although I couldn't help but cringe half the time. Now that Gradint is available to the public(I wonder how Charles would feel about this), which has GIR based off of the modern language journal in 67, some real progress can be made off of Dr. Pimsleur's idea. By the way, is Gradint only available for Mandarin when it comes to text-to-audio? I'd really like something for German and Hebrew. Edit: I just started using the program and I found out that German is indeed one of the computerized voices available. Does anyone know how to add languages to the list? I'm looking for Lithuanian and Hebrew. Edited by Kugel on 11 November 2009 at 8:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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