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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 7006 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes  1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 35 01 July 2008 at 5:45am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello,
Let me first tell I have no conflict of interest here. Not a Hodder, a Harrap, a Pimsleur, an Assimil person, no vested interest at all. What I say hereunder is my experience, I'm certain it may become anyone's experience, but this is not intended to be proclained the Holy Truth. My feeling however is that id could be the Holy Truth, at this stage ;-) I used to swear only by Pimsleur followed by Assimil for learning languages. I spontaneously discovered the shadowing method with Assimil because that's all I could do in my car with Assimil (not going to read while driving , right ? ) only to discover here that Adarschir/Arguelles had coined this "shadowing". I sweared only by Pimsleur + Assimil for a few reasons: 1- Pimsleur is so great to start a new language because it's only audio and prevents your brain from using the wrong pathways that reading (in my opinion) induces. This allows for the best possible pronunciation. If you are to read then pronounce a new language, you'll tend to pronounce with an untoward accent. What you learn with Pimsleur, in my experience, you hardly loose. It gives you the core knowledge of a new language. The results are that even after just a few lessons if yo address people in the target language they think you're fluent and they throw a flow of words at you (that you don't understand for lack of vocabulary and exposure). But while Pimsleur provides very good survival skills, it does not give you many words, and unless you deal with a language that has many cognates, you have real trouble understanding conversations. That was quite OK with me when learning Spanish/ Portuguese/ Italian, as I am French (yeap, no one 's perfect). But Pimsleur is very hard when it comes to learning a very different language such as Arabic. I had to rehearse every lesson of Eastern arabic many times before i could progress to the next one. Such was not he case with level 2, and I think it's because my ear and "tongue" were more acquainted with the language (my tongue was at last "rolled up"?). I had discoverd Pimsleur Portuguese by chance in 2003 (I think it was 2003, not that sure but who cares?). One great feature of Pimsleur is that I found it VERY REWARDING, GIVING YOU ACTUAL SPEAKING ABILITIES QUICKLY whereas Assimil painstakingly will do so after months of usage. 2- After Pimsleur, Assimil provided me with loads of words, idioms, syntax usages, and understanding abilities. I'm talking about Assimil's Brasilian Portuguese/Spanish/Italian/German which I did without Pimsleur having a good basis for German from school). I cannot use the Assimil Arabic CDs that are so incredibly sloooooo. I can't repeat the words. That's a disappointment (Arabic Assimil). Assimil is very rich and provides astounding conversational skills, I've seen people opening howl eyes at my using of their language. Thanks to (Pimsleur then) Assimil. 3- Therefore, after I had completed a few courses I thought I had discovered the Holy Grail of language learning in the Pimsleur/Assimil combination, because I could understand, speak, enjoy speaking, I could also speak and (most times) not be identified as a Frenchman from my accent and it was such a pleasure to have the museum clerk hand me the museum guide in the local language after we had chatted rather than asking me wether I wanted the French or English version of it... And it was not too straining to learn. Pimsleur I can do while running, driving, shopping (when you speak to yourself in the street,people think you're on the phone nowadays, so they don't call the police anymore). But one day.... 4- End of 2007, I don't even remember how that happened, maybe I had landed by chance onto Hodder's website, or maybe it was Harold Goodman (Volapuk-something on this forum) writing in the Michel Thomas thread, I discovered Michel Thomas's programs. Wow!. I bought the Arabic and Chinese foundation/"advanced". The Chinese one showed me Chinese is indeed easy (yes, I swear, it's easy or rather, made easy. No hair shirt way of learning languages as Mr Micheloud would say), it's easy if you discard the writing/reading aspect, and the program gave me surviving abilities that I'll have to expand. It really is a funny impression to hear oneself speak Chinese and even greater impression to be understood by Chinese natives. You don't understand much though, except simple replies such as "me yeo, pu shi" etc.... Arabic (Egyptian) was marvellous too, and it opened my eyes (brain actually). The dialect is somehow different from the little Syro-Lebanese I had learnt (but learnt well) with Pimsleur. Some Lebanese tell me I have a Syrian accent, and other Arabs ask wether I've been living in Lebanon, until they discover my great limitations in understanding and conversation. But I now have a much better use of what I know after the MT course, and I understand things I did not get the grasp of in Pimsleur. The Michel Thomas course gave me better abilities when it comes to build new sentences. The progress is impressive and now that I am doing Pimsleur Eastern Arabic again, I find that MT boosts the Pimsleur Program. I therefore intend to do either Pimsleur or Assimil Chinese, and the next level of Arabic of Pimsleur when they release it. Or maybe give Assimil's sloooow Arabic another chance. Michel Thomas very intelligently and painlessly teaches you grammar, much much more than Pimsleur, but less vocabulary and ready to use sentences. Both do well one after each other, but MT first should be better. Pimsleur first for easy languages is OK, and will give you a better pronunciation than reverred Mister Thomas imself in the "old" courses for Italian, French, Spanish and German. I have another indirect experience with Michel Thomas, that of proxies that have used Harrap's Michel Thomas Anglais and Espagnol, for French speakers: I noticed this unblocked their abilities to build sentences and actually express themselves. The other good news is that the Espagnol MT for frenchies is with a natural Spanish speaker, and they have Italien and Allemand in preparation. The world may prepare itself for Froggies speaking foreign anguages at last. 5- My recommendation for learning a new language from scratch now would be to first use a Michel Thomas program. Then use either Pimsleur or Assimil or both. This is the point of view of a LAZY LEARNER who learns mostly now while doing something else that does not use too much of his cpu/brain, such as driving on easy traffic, running , walking the dog (doggie understands Arabic now too), etc... Assimil did require some, well, a lot of sitting with the book before I could just use the CDs to shadow and reshadow. But this was at a stage where I was very motivated because I had gotten a good grasp of 3 new languages with Pimsleur. This may not suit learners who have more time, but I'd like to stress that Michel Thomas programs very smartly give you the understanding of a new language and train you to build new sentences out of nowhere, and as with Pimsleur, you don't forget easily what you learn with it. In addition, Michel Thomas is rather cheap countrary to Pimsleur (which is awfully expensive). Assimil is cheaper, but if you start learning with Assimil, you need stron will and time, because it's not quickly rewarding. And again, you'll get much more out of Assimil (and Pimsleur) after you use Michel Thomas's method. One problem with Michel Thomas is that for old courses for English speakers,according to what I read, Michel Thomas himself is the teacher and his pronunciation is not native at all though his intonation is correct. Whereas in Pimsleur, Assimil, and the "post-Michel Thomas courses such as Mandarin Russian Egyptian (Japanese, Greek, Portuguese, Polish and Dutch are coming) and the versions for French speakers, they use native speakers. Those were my 2 cents (of a Euro). Z. Edited by zorglub on 01 July 2008 at 7:54am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6681 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 2 of 35 01 July 2008 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree. Michael Thomas, Pimsleur and Assimil are good methods.I think it's possible to find out a good combination between the three methods. However, don't you think it's interesting to use real native materials? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Feculent Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6167 days ago 136 posts - 144 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German | Message 3 of 35 01 July 2008 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Out of interest how good an accent does Pimsleur give you? I've heard many people imply that they could get native like pronounciation! Is this true or just exxageration, I was just wondering because if you could get to this high a level then Pimsleur would be worth the ridiculously high price and it's lack in real speaking abilities beyond phrasebook ability.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7090 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 4 of 35 01 July 2008 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I got the demo cd of Michel Thomas's new cds--Chinese, Russian, and Arabic--and found the Chinese
excruciatingly slow. Even on the demo of the last few tracks, the Chinese was being spoken at an incredibly slow pace. There were large pauses between each words and as such, the tones did not flow together at all like they would in normal conversation. It is important to learn how tones work together, and not just separately, because they take on different sounds when used with other tones. I hope that the "advanced" course is better. To the original poster, do they speak faster in advanced? Do they reach anywhere near the Pimsleur-level speed (which itself is quite slow but much better than the new Michel Thomas ones)? The original 4 Michel Thomas courses were great because they covered a huge amount of grammar painlessly-- you were saying things like "If I had known you weren't coming, I wouldn't have invited Robin." The new ones, while they did do one thing right--hire native speakers--teach MUCH less. Different tenses are hardly covered at all, based on the "table of contents" on the Hodder website. I loved the ones for Romance languages. The new ones seem disappointing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 7006 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 5 of 35 01 July 2008 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | ||
Hello, i don't know, it worked very well with me, (that's why I say it gives you the best POSSIBLE pronunciation, but people say i have some special gifts for accents (but I sing out of tune...) I do not think it's only the rapid pattern of repetition questions and answers design of pimsleur that induces a good pronunciation, my feeling is that it's above all the absence of writen material that's most impotant. But the fact that there are at least 2 voices, male and female, may be important too, and so is the fact that there are more words and sentences than in Michel Thomas. I can tell my son has done 25 lessons of Spanish that did not give him a native accent, or not yet, but fairly good intonations. many people have written (outside Pimsleur ads) that Pimseur helped them a very nice pronunciation. certainy some people will not achieve it, especially English speakers I think ! One important point I think , to succeed, is to really speak out loud when using whiever method you use, and not fearing to be heard and sound ridiculous. If you try and match the native speaker's pronunication, you may sound stupid to yourself, but not necessarily to a native. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rollo the Cat Groupie United States Joined 6040 days ago 77 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Russian, Ancient Greek | Message 6 of 35 01 July 2008 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Alex,
The Russian and Chinese verb systems are nothing like those of the Romance languages. The question is, what do they cover in addition to the verb system. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ymapazagain Senior Member Australia myspace.com/amywiles Joined 6965 days ago 504 posts - 538 votes Speaks: English* Studies: SpanishB2 | Message 7 of 35 01 July 2008 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | ||
I used pimsleur when I first started learning Spanish and had comments from native speakers that my pronunciation was really good. At the end of Pimsleur your standard of pronunciation may be great but you'll still have a long way to go before reaching even an intermediate level of actually using and understanding the language....so it's still way over priced if you ask me! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 7006 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 8 of 35 01 July 2008 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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They start speaking faster in CD 2 of Chinese, not in Arabic.
I was not happy with this slow pronunciation until i realized, in CD2etc of tha advanced course (vocab not out yet for Mandarin and Arabic) tht this was what allowed me to correctly pronounce tthe mandarin sentences fast with the right tone . had it been fast from the beginning , i would not have done it correctly, I think. Now, they don't cver as much because obviously these lanuages are so different from our European ones. No cognate at all no Germanic cognate no romance cognate. Arabic is a bit slow in Mt, and I did not realise because i had been exposed to the faster pace of Pimsleur. But it's not too slow. Just slow. And don't gforget that MT is only (but that "only" is so important) a primer, but what a primer !You don't know how to ask for the bill for xample , at the end of MT arabic and Chinese. They chose to teach more important things. And yes Pimsleur is overpriced. Except for Americans who seem to get it as a free loan from many public libraries.
Edited by zorglub on 02 July 2008 at 2:48am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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