JayR9 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4499 days ago 155 posts - 162 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 1 of 32 26 January 2012 at 1:03am | IP Logged |
I am using Pimsleur to learn Mandarin and although I am only on lesson 5, I dont know If I am getting the best out of it.
What are the best methods and how many times am I suppose to listen to each lesson?
What Is shadowing and should I be doing this aswel with it?
I feel that sometimes when he ask's for me to give an answer, Im not fast enough or get some words wrong.
I am using Anki aswell trying to learn words and phrases from it.
I know all this takes time but I am wondering if anyone else felt similar to this at the beginning stages.
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jerrypettit Groupie United States Joined 5825 days ago 79 posts - 103 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 2 of 32 26 January 2012 at 6:19am | IP Logged |
Personally, I chop up the Pimsleur audio with an audio editor as I listen (Audacity is a
free one; I use Sound Forge), and import the resulting MP3s into SRS software (Anki is
free; I use Supermemo).
That way you're getting the optimum repetition on the phrases you're having most
difficulty with.
It works for me!
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JayR9 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4499 days ago 155 posts - 162 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 3 of 32 26 January 2012 at 8:47am | IP Logged |
Thanks for your reply. I have both Anki and Audacity.
So do you put it in as just audio or both audio and pinyin with the English on the otherside as the answer?
Do you also put It as both Recognition and Production or just as one? What are the differences and benefits of using one or the other or even both?
Thanks again
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iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5061 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)
| Message 4 of 32 26 January 2012 at 12:45pm | IP Logged |
My response is 1) do not use Pimsleur as your sole method of language learning. Use it in conjunction with another course or method. 2) Don't chop it up and "audacity" it. Use the method as intended. Try to answer with the pauses provided and if you can't do it in that time, do the lesson again. If after a few attempts, it still isn't working for you then try something else. I find that the more I did the lessons, the more I got into the method. That being said, Pimsleur isn't for everyone. YMMV.
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6708 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 5 of 32 26 January 2012 at 2:20pm | IP Logged |
I agree with Iguanamon. I don't think there's a big point in extracting the sentences and use them for shadowing since there's so little content anyway. The pauses are already annoyingly long, and I think one should be able to follow the course in realtime.
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JayR9 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4499 days ago 155 posts - 162 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 6 of 32 26 January 2012 at 3:39pm | IP Logged |
Hi, Thanks for your comments. I like Pimsleurs method and am going to stick with it, But I just wernt sure if I was doing it right.
I want to get the most out of It and do it correct thats all.
Thanks again
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Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5681 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin
| Message 7 of 32 26 January 2012 at 3:40pm | IP Logged |
I've used Pimsleur in two similar ways.
In the first time, I used to live at 30 minutes walking distance from job. Listening to Pimsleur was a good way to enjoy my walk through a nice golf field.
In the second time, I was living at 30 minutes traffic jam distance from my present day job. Pimsleur even helped me to "enjoy" traffic jams. When there weren't enough cars, I needed to go around until complete the lesson.
Now I live too close by car and the walk would be unpleasant, so no Pimsleur any more :-))
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jerrypettit Groupie United States Joined 5825 days ago 79 posts - 103 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 8 of 32 30 January 2012 at 12:02am | IP Logged |
The "chopping up" method has certainly worked for me in that I only listen to the
Pimsleur lesson itself AS A LESSON once--then by importing the, say, 30 or 40 phrases I
have chosen to chop out per lesson, into my SRS I'm concentrating on the phrases I
actually am needing to learn. Simply to repeat the entire lesson as a drill seems an
inefficient use of time.
Anki would allow you to put the pinyin on one side of its cards, if you wish. I use
Supermemo, so am limited to the audio only the way I do my importing--but that's what
Pimsleur wants you to do anyway.
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