Pimsleur tapes really worth hundreds of dollars?

[gao_bo_han]

Hey all,

I've been reading reviews of the Pimsleur tapes on amazon.com, and they almost appear to be worth the ridiculous amount of money they sell for. I am hesistant to spend hundreds of dollars on the set without getting some feedback from the members of this board. Has anybody used the Pimsleur set to improve speaking/listening and did it help you personally (or someone you know who used them)?

By the way, thanks to beirne for his suggestion of "Making Connections". It is 45 unrehearsed, seemingly natural conversations between native Mandarin speakers, and it is definitely helping me a lot. You can find it on

http://www.cheng-tsui.com

Anyways, if anybody has experience with the Pimsleur tapes let me know.

Thanks,

Bo Han

[beirne]

Hello again. If you haven't already done so, try checking your local library and see if they have the Pimsleur tapes available. They won't have the big expensive sets, but they may well have the Quick and Simple version, which gives you 8 half-hour lessons.

If they don't have it you can buy it for $19.95, which is still a good way to try it out.

I have gone throught the Cantonese Quick and Simple, and tried the Arabic and Mandaring. The Cantonese one was OK. I was looking for something I could listen to while I commute, and this was much better than other language tapes which are pretty much just flashcards on tape. Other advantages are that you get some good accent practice and you get decent practice speaking the language in realistic situations.

The downside is that it can be real hard learning a language just by sound. Sometime the pronunciation is a bit hard to hear clearly. I let my Mandarin teacher hear some of the Cantonese while I repeated it. She had to correct me on some of the pronunciation because I heard some of the words incorrectly. If there had been a book I could have verified what I heard and gotten it correct.

Cantonese wasn't too bad, though, because I already know Mandarin and Cantonese was similar enough. I later tried the Egyption Arabic set just for something completely different. I gave up on the 3rd lesson. It was just too hard go get the pronunciation and flow of the language just by listening.

Finally, I am now listening to the Mandarin CD. I've been studying Chinese for a few years, but wanted to try it to fix up my accent. I haven't gotten too far but just because of boredom.

In short, you should try it if you are interested, but get the Quick and Simple version first.

[Ken]

I have been using Pimsleur Comprehensive CDs to learn Mandarin. I have NEVER been able to learn a foreign language, but with this program I am conquering my demons.

Pimsleur is not vocabulary intensive. However, while providing a functional vocabulary, it trains the ear to hear tones and the tongue to pronounce them correctly. Even if that is all you get out of the program, I think it would be worth it.

To the extent I am able to converse with native speakers, they say that I speak Mandarin very well.

[badboy]

I have Pimsleur's Mandarin 3. The CD's are good, but I don't think they are worth the price being charged. My main complaint for Mandarin 3 would be that it the content is still a bit too repetitive, and the speakers are too slow for this level and not at conversational speed. I would prefer the speed to be comparable to Living Language's Ultimate Mandarin, which I think is better value for the money despite the mixed reviews on amazon.com.

[eric]

certainly not worth hundreds

[zh-laoshi]

The Pimsleur method is good to a point...you do need a written guide to help you along, and the Pimsleur method relies mostly on speaking and listening.

Anyone needing online help with Chinese (Mandarin for now, Cantonese is in the works), you can get a language course at http://www.speakuplanguages.com for a reasonable price. There is a free lesson too to show you how easy it is.

[roddy]

Anyone needing online help with Chinese (Mandarin for now, Cantonese is in the works), you can get a language course at http://www.speakuplanguages.com for a reasonable price. There is a free lesson too to show you how easy it is.

Firstly, I just clicked through the entire website and couldn't see a free lesson anywhere. Secondly, if you are going to advertise your own commercial website, at least have the courtesy to make it clear that is what you are doing.

During the course, you'll be learning 3,000 of the most common words. Sound like a lot? Just by learning 6 words a day, you'll learn them all in that six month period

6 months = 180 days. 180*6 = 1080, not 3000.

Do you have any maths courses? I'm obviously in need of one.

Roddy

[zh-laoshi]

I apologize for the mix up on the free lesson and the bad math. Our webmaster "thought" the link for the free lesson would be ready today, which I found is not yet. Also, the math problem has been fixed - it was supposed to read almost 3,000 words at 16 per day.

So, the free Chinese lesson is not yet linked. I hope to have it done soon.

Thanks for pointing it out.

Sean

[xuechengfeng]

u might as well try them out..

i'm paying thousands upon thousands of dollars to get it as my major

[pazu]

I've used the Pimsleur Vietnamese and Thai before, they're good and easy to learn, I just jogged and listened to the tapes everyday, just to make sure I would do more rather jogging...

The Vietnamese one is, however, quite ... what word should I use, suck? Or not to that extent, but it's the Northern accent (Ha Noi accent), which is quite different from the South (where I'm now staying), and they didn't make it clear some unique sounds in Vietnamese like the đ , as in có được không? (= is it okay?), the kh sound is different in the North and South too, so after learning the 10 lessons I had no problem to say hello to my Vietnamese friends, and that's it. My friend just can't understand some very simple questions too...

Okay, but this may be the Pimsleur Vietnamese problem, I've used the Thai one, and I went to a Thai restaurant to ask the staff if they could understand me, unlike my bewildered Vietnamese friends, the Thai staff were surprised, and said my pronunciation was good.

So it realy depends on the program, I guess the Mandarin one should be quite okay because you don't have to make a huge difference between the English B and Mandarin B to speak the language, the sounds are different but who cares?

As of the Cantonese one, I'm a native speaker, I just couldn't help laughing... maybe it's the way to teach a language, but the demonstrators sound too weired to me.

[chapka]

I'm using them now. You can get them new for about half their list price on eBay, or sometimes even cheaper used.

I ripped them to my iPod and use them on the subway home from work 3-4 times a week. I'm learning just for fun, so it's nice to have a system that's not intensively paced but not boring. I usually do each lesson 2-3 times and end up doing a lesson a week or so. I've now finished the first 30-lesson course and am starting on the second.

Pimsleur includes not reading or writing, which I think does help your pronunciation but is frustrating, since I'm trying to learn to read/write as well; I've been making my own flash cards from the vocabulary. In fact, I signed up here to get some help with that--but that's another thread!

[1/2_azn]

i think if you are a beginner then they are really quite useful..they get you into the feel of Mandarin however, they lack extensive vocabulary.. also very good for teaching pronunciation

[benotnobody]

The pimsleur cds/tapes/whatever are ok, but their not a substitute for a good class. plus, they're pretty expensive. But if you can afford it, they're good for picking up basic skills in whichever language you choose.

[Haoqide]

I think they're worth the money for sure, especially if you currently have little or no experience with Chinese. It's been said elsewhere, but eBay or Amazon or some other used-CD site would be a good place to get them at a reduced cost.