Grammar in Pimsleur (Language Programs, Books & Tapes) Language Learning Forum

Grammar in Pimsleur
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Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes

22 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

jerrypettit
Groupie
United States
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Speaks: English*

Message 17 of 22

02 September 2010 at 1:14am | IP Logged

+1 for starting with Pimsleur. I rip the audio onto my computer where I chop out the
phrases I don't know and import into an SRS (I use Supermemo). Otherwise, repeating
those lessons over and over can get a little old, since much of it would be time-
consuming repetition of what I already know.

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shmjay
Newbie
United States
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian, German, Spanish

Message 18 of 22

02 September 2010 at 1:17am | IP Logged

I pause, and I had no problems working through Spanish and German I-II-III-Plus. And I felt no guilt over doing so. My answers were usually correct, and were certainly well over the 80% mark. After all, no one said in the instructions that I was obliged to stick with the time provided; the time given could have been an artifact of making the CD and fitting two lessons on it.

If pausing was acceptable to Michel Thomas, I figured Pimsleur would just have to accept it too. ;)
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Desacrator48
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United States
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Studies: Spanish, French

Message 19 of 22

02 September 2010 at 2:15am | IP Logged

There should be no problem with pausing in Pimsleur...I do it myself. But if you pause often the first time around, even if you get it right, that is still a hint that you must go back and repeat the lesson with less pausing if none at all.

Pausing is fine because if you have to take a few seconds longer to form the sentence in your head and reinforce the reasoning why, please, go ahead and do it. This is just another form of language stimulation.

I do every Pimsleur lesson 3 times (am halfway thru III of French now), and I can definitely tell you there is some serious pausing for the new phrases and words in the new parts of the lessons. I even pause and rewind a bit to make sure I am hearing the new words and phrases correctly. Therefore the lesson takes me longer than the 28 minutes it says on the track.

But by the 3rd time, I have hardly any pauses, if at all. If I did a lesson a 4th time (which I've never done), I'd imagine I'd be close to 100% without any pauses. In summary, if you don't mind doing the lesson 3 times in a day (which shouldn't be a problem if you are a serious beginner of the language), please by all means pause the track the first or second go-around. You are not taking a timed test and there is no hour glass with sand trickling down as you learn.

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hobbitofny
Senior Member
United States
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Studies: Russian

Message 20 of 22

02 September 2010 at 8:53pm | IP Logged

leosmith wrote:

hobbitofny wrote:

I would NEVER recommending a pause in a Pimsleur course to think through the answer.

Agreed.

Elexi wrote:

I can see no logical reason why pausing 'slows your progress'

I think most people don't pause, but I could be wrong. If one pauses, and moves onto the next lesson at 80%, they will probably
not be good enough to go without pausing on that lesson. When they finish the program they will have a lower degree of
mastery over the material. The level of mastery will be like Michel Thomas, which is disappointing here because Pimsleur covers
less grammar and about the same vocab in a lot more time.

Pimsleur is designed for the beginner. Grammar is simple enough for the beginner to understand all the sentences without
pausing or looking anything up. The learner actually thinks through the sentences without needing the pause. It's easier to do
with Pimsleur than Michel Thomas because it's not as content dense.

Elexi wrote:

A beginner can't speak at a near normal level

I rarely have any problems speaking at the same speed as the speakers. If I do have problems, I repeat the lesson.

I agree.
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Tony
Senior Member
United States
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin

Message 21 of 22

25 August 2012 at 11:17am | IP Logged

Elexi wrote:

A beginner can't speak at a near normal level because they do not have the language embedded deep within their minds. I can see no logical reason why pausing 'slows your progress' - a beginner will learn more at a deeper level if they pause to think through a response and then pause again to analyse their mistakes (if they make any) - If they embed the rule by understanding how it works, they will learn faster than going through Pimsleur 4 times to learn a response by rote like a Pavlovian dog responding to a bell going off.

What an excellent point! You explained that very well.

I also think that pausing Pimsleur (and taking as much time as you need to answer) is helpful for people who want to do more than one Pimsleur lesson per day.
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atama warui
Triglot
Senior Member
Japan
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Speaks: German*, English, Japanese

Message 22 of 22

27 August 2012 at 9:31pm | IP Logged

There's nothing wrong with pausing Pimsleur. I started with it myself, then stopped, did some RS I pirated off the net, then returned to it after some 2 weeks.

If I was to start from scratch, I'd go the following route:

- Do Michel Thomas, both Beginner and Advanced.
- Follow up with Pimsleur-
- Do VocabULearn and Learn In Your Car simultaneously.

You can do MT as often as you need, repeat and pause to your heart's content.
When you feel confident with that material, do Pimsleur at the "prescribed" rate.
You can already accompany that with some grammar exercises you can find on the net. For Japanese, that could be Tae Kim's guide, IMABI or Timwerx.
Once you finished Pimsleur, VocabULearn and Learn In Your Car are great companions for speech drills and vocabulary far into a B1 level, towards B2.
You can already do other activities like Lang-8, chatting, grammar stuff after MT.

The 3 months Pimsleur takes to finish will take you pretty far.
The last 2 audio courses I recommended will take several months to really master.

However, in the end, you will be able to produce sentences with a vocabulary of ~5000 words. That's B1, already approaching B2. All in all, I'd say somewhere between 8 and 18 months for the whole ordeal.

You will of course have to do stuff on your own, but having a "course backup" is a good feeling.

Edited by atama warui on 27 August 2012 at 10:01pm

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