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Language plan - it’s not just about Pimsleur | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6553 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 34 of 44 06 March 2011 at 4:42am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Here's a pointer. If you ask her to drink, and she refuses, then you asks her to eat, and she says no, then you
change the times and try lots of combinations to get he to accept, she's gonna tell you "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" Which will make you want to ask "I don't understand what?" And she'll finally slam you with "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND OJIBWE". 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| anakapuana Hexaglot Newbie Panama Joined 5171 days ago 3 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English, French*, Indonesian, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Hindi, Greek, Russian | Message 35 of 44 09 March 2011 at 1:37am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I have read with interest the comments of this thread. May I bring in my own assessment of the Pimsleur method in regard to Russian language?
(I have learned a number of languages "the conventional way" over the years. Russian is hardly my first foreign language) I just completed Pimsleur's 90 lessons course, in about 9 months. Each lesson was gone over at least 3 times and, in the case of some 10 lessons, 4 times over. Results achieved: Q - Am I fluent in Russian at this stage ? A – No; I now do speak what could be termed “survival Russian” or “small talk Russian” but I am unable to hold a specialized conversation and my comprehension of the spoken language – radio talks, movies, songs etc, - is next to nil. Making exception, of course, for phrases constructed with the vocabulary learned during the course. Q – Is my pronunciation good at this stage ? A - Yes, I would say it is. Q – What percentage of the courses have I retained ? A - Certainly over 90% of it comes immediately to my tongue when needed. I would venture to say: over 95%. (Bearing in mind that each lesson was gone at least 3 times over). From the above, one can conclude that I am partly but not entirely satisfied with the Pimsleur method. It's faults, according to my personal experience: Very insufficient vocabulary. I don't know if a vocabulary count of this course has been made: I would estimate the total number of words presented in this course not to exceed 200. The number is certainly under 300. This is not satisfactory. It should have been possible to acquaint us with a minimum of 500 words over the course of these 90 thirty minutes lessons. Insufficient time available for more new vocabulary in these 30 minutes lessons? No. An enormous amount of audio time is lost due to several causes: Silent gaps allotted for repetition: I can see no reason for them unless one is “learning” Russian while driving to/from work, with both hands occupied. I myself did all my learning in front of my computer (this is specific to Pimsleur as it is exclusively an audio form of teaching – no writing/reading is expected until Vol. III), my finger on the mouse, ready to pause and play as required. In any case, I always repeated every words/sentences several times over, many more times than the silent gap would ever permit. It took me an average of 55 to 65 minutes to complete each 30 minutes lesson. The totally pointless “silent gaps” could thus have been put to better use by teaching new words . Such new words could then have been then included in sample phrases as an alternative. Other valuable course time is wasted – and I stress: wasted – in “non target language” commentaries and/or questions. Do we really need to hear from one lesson to the next : “...and do you remember how to say?...” - “How would you say?...” , and so on. A student of a foreign language is unlikely to be a nitwit, Mr Pimsleur. The flourishes are totally unnecessary. This is a language course, not a gossip around a cup of tea. Again, please do not consider the student to be totally unacquainted with grammatical terms: Yes, we do know for the most part the meaning of the terms subjetc/object, adjective, complement, prefix/suffix, verb tenses/inflections, noun cases and such. Don't try to spare our intellect with baby talk. Don't talk about “word endings”; say “cases”. Do not hesitate to talk about past/present/future/conditional tenses. I am sure all of us will understand regular grown-up talk. Don't tell us: “say this when there is more than one”. Again, we are not halfwits and probably will for the most part understand the terribly complicated term “plural form”. Just treat us like adults. Apart from course time wasted, it struck me as odd that over the length of 90 lessons, only five Russian name places should be mentionned, namely Moscow, St Pete's (my private joke), Kiev, Siberia and Crimea. Surely, the sentences could have been peppered with other cities'/areas' names without overburdening our brains. Pimsleur prides itself for having a scientific approach towards memory retention. Thus, new words/terms are repeated from one lessons to the next according to a strict pattern. I thoroughly approve and I have been able to verify that their method indeed does work. However, there is a number of new words that are so close to other Western languages that one is very unlikely to forget them after hearing them once or twice at the most. To wit: “metro”, “president”, and quite a few others. No, we don't need to hear these words 20 times over to imprint them in our memory. Do trimline unnecessary repetitions, please. Choice of new words: Granted: it is tricky to choose the right/priority new words to be introduced but there are in this course some patent incoherences. Learn the names of three or four days of the week and then wait some 15 lessons later to learn the rest? Makes little sense to me. And weekdays are just one example. Audio quality: The audio quality is impeccable and yet... be it in Russian or in English, sometime the ear hesitates between a sound and another: did he say “work” or “ worked”. Was this Russian word's ending an “m” or an “n”? This is a minor issue and, with time, one overcomes these minor hurdles, but a clarification might have helped sometimes. This was the very first time that I approached a foreign language “ the Pimsleur way”, i.e. by listening/repeating only, without the help of formal gramatical explanantions, without memorizing vocabulary lists, without writing down a single word (before tackling series 3). To the student more accustomed to conventional teaching material, the method can at times be frustrating. I, for one, like to understand the why of things. One learns as a native child would, just by listening and repeating. The method has the advantage of letting one's brain work out by itself the mechanisms of grammatical structure and such. Again, It is a trying task at times but the method does indeed work to a point. Conclusions: Yes, the Pimsleur has its good points. However, I would not recommend it for someone aiming at mastering Russian, at least not without the help of supplementary study material. Now that I have finished with Pimleur's Russian, I will have to further my study of the language if I want to become really proficient. I hesitate between the apparently excellent Princeton course ( it frightens me by the sheer amount of material !) and the DLI course (I am presently using the DLI course for modern Greek and I have nothing but praise for it. Simply one of the best courses I have encountered in the course of study of many languages). I hope that my assessment can be of help to those who are about to start learning Russian, the Pimsleur way or otherwise. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5210 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 36 of 44 09 March 2011 at 1:17pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Very interesting feedback. I'm using the Pimsleur course to pick up basic Russian; I'm not aiming to get to an advanced or even intermediate level at this stage; I just want to know the survival and basic conversational stuff. I started with Michel Thomas, which I found to be a lot better at the complete newbie level, then moved onto Pimsleur.
Overall I'm finding it very useful and I'm remembering everything quite well, but I agree with some of your criticisms and think that it is best combined with other resources; above all a written resource, because some of the words and in particular the endings can be quite hard to distinguish on the audio, as well as to get a better understanding of the grammar. The Penguin Russian book is serving me well for that purpose. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| global_gizzy Senior Member United States maxcollege.blogspot. Joined 5706 days ago 275 posts - 310 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 37 of 44 11 March 2011 at 5:26pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Okay, well here is my language plan!
My Mission In a Nut Shell: To Use up Every Spanish Resource I own this year with higher retention rates than I got out of SPN Class. My Materials: Pimsleur Comprehensive -- 4 levels Puntos de Partido -- 18 chapters The Everything Learning Spanish Book Entender y Hablar AMR Spanish II --- 2 volumes Learnables Spanish 1 Realidade Spanish I -- Workbook Mas Practica Spanish II -- workbook Spanish Student Dictionary I've had 3 semesters of College Spanish and I want to minor in Spanish in school but more importantly I wan't to be fluent in the language, I wan't to drill, drill, drill the grammar and conversational bits. My biggest problem is lack of consistency and mismanagement of my time. My aim is to correct that. I'm determined to finish Pimsleur. I'm on lesson 22 of Level 1 but I find the course beneficial and fairly easy, especially when I make the time for it. I'm going to get an MP3 player soon and that should make it MUCH easier to use, instead of having to sit at the computer. I'm going to complete The Everything Book of Spanish first. There are 20 chapters and a CD, it requires minimal writing so I should be able to do a Chapter a day. Sometime this summer, I'm going to go back through my college Textbook to do more of the in book examples, just for extra grammar drill...But I'm not sure when. Step 0, ~10 Days: Finish Pimsleur level 1 and find Easy Spanish Reader. Make time for Spanish everyday Step 1, ~30 Days: Pimsleur 2x a day (1 lesson from LV1 and 1 lesson from LV2), and get through The Everything Learning Spanish book Begin Watching Destinos, 1x a day Step 2, ~30 days: Pimsleur 2x a day (1 lesson from LV 2 and 1 lesson from LV3) Realidades SPN I wkbk*. Record myself reading from the Easy Spanish Reader and compare some of my audio from last year. Finish Watching Destinoes 1x a day. Step 3, ~30 days: Pimsleur 2x a day (1 lesson from LV3 and 1 lesson from LV4**) Mas Practica SPN II wkbk*, continue with Easy Spanish Reader until its done. At this point I'm going to begin compiling a list of Spanish language books available in my school and public library for reading when I feel ready. Step 4, ~40 days: Spanish II from AMR 1x a day. This is an old course that is really high quality, it contains 32 audio lessons with a manual. I'd love <3 to get my hands on LV1 of this program some day. Entender y Hablar is an old conversationally based Spanish 1 Book contains; 20 lessons + exercises and 4 reviews, EyH is to be done 100% orally. Step 5, ~x0 days: Mundo 21 is an Intermediate Spanish college lvl textbook with 24 chapters. I'm going to try and work 1 chapter a week of this book, while doing all the exercises and activities in the accompanying workbook. Real Books for Spanish speakers, I'm going to try and read at least 3 a month with a dictionary. I'm not sure when I'll start officially. Sometime later this month, when I finish Pimsleur LV1, but I'm going to update my language log and keep track of how much I'm actually doing there. This is a great post, and its really helped me to write all this out. I knew in my head what I wanted * These workbooks are more grammar than anything, but this is what I need to practice a lot of. Realidades also contains a reader so I'll be reading from that regularly. I will not do the audio/video section of Realidades as I don't have the audio etc... **There are only 10 lessons in LV4 Pimsleur, so I may do 2 lessons from LV3 each day as review/filler. Step Final Note: Throughout this whole stint of study, I'm also going to read as many childrens books in Spanish as I can get my hands on, begin building a library of authentic Spanish literature and try even harder to watch TV/DVD's in Spanish every day, even if just for several minutes. I'm also going to be working my way through the videos on this site.I'm going to do the simplified version and about 2 or 3 native examples from each of the 85 categories. Edited by global_gizzy on 11 March 2011 at 5:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| kmart Senior Member Australia Joined 6127 days ago 194 posts - 400 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 38 of 44 13 March 2011 at 2:47am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Exactly how I used Pimsleur - driving to and from work. I would have achieved nothing if I hadn't used it in the car. Way too easy for me to find reasons to be "too busy" to study at night, but Pimsleur in the car (and subsequent audio programs such as Michel Thomas and Assimil) ensure that I get at least a half-hour of language practice per day.
For a long-term language student, grammatical terms become second nature, but don't assume this is so for everyone. Not everyone received a good instruction in English grammar in their schooldays, or remember it if they did. Remember, Pimsleur is not a program aimed at the experienced language learner, it's for beginners, not only in the particular language, but to language learning in general. If the course were structured with grammatical terms, many beginners wouldn't cope = bad reviews = fewer sales = no Pimsleur at all. If you know how to learn languages then Pimsleur is not a terribly efficient tool, though there may be good reasons to continue it's use eg useful initial phrases, suitability for use while driving, good pronunciation. There are probably a lot of language learners who actually continued to study because Pimsleur was their first step. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6553 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 39 of 44 13 March 2011 at 5:20am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nice language plan. But when are you going to start conversing? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6553 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 40 of 44 13 March 2011 at 5:55am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I've found that, due to working with a transcript and anki, I only need to go through a lesson twice.
Insufficient for what? I think this is a case of not understanding what Pimsleur is, and how it fits into your language plan. What is your language plan, by the way?
There are about 500 words, just like all Pimsleur 90-lesson courses.
They are there to put a little pressure on you. Never hit pause, and you'll never need to. Start pausing, you'll become dependent on it, and the course won't be nearly as good a prep for actual conversation.
There are many other audio courses.
Terribly inefficient, but to each his own.
That would make the course harder, and less repetition would decrease it's value as a pronunciation tool.
Imo, it's not a minor issue. That's why one should work with a transcript.
I would never expect Pimsleur to teach me more than a very small amount of grammar. Again, understand what the program is, and how/if it fits into your language plan.
It's a great tool, but why on earth would anybody think they could master the Russian Language with Pimsleur alone? 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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