pimsleur

[guest1234]

Nin Hao

has anyone used the tapes from pimsleur. Have they been any good and have they helped. I have only seen them mentioned on this forum I have not seen the here in the UK for sale.

I am just starting out properly and need all the help I can get.

cheers

phil

[beirne]

I went through the first set of Cantonese tapes and they were OK. I already know Mandarin so the similarity in languages helped. I then tried Egyptian Arabic and gave up because I couldn't get the rhythm of the language. I mention Arabic to say that it may or may not work for you. Even with Cantonese I found myself pronouncing some things incorrectly. My girlfriend, who knows a smattering of Cantonese, had to point this out when I tried some on her. I like it better than other all-tape courses, though, because it doesn't get boring. Other companies put out vocabulary tapes and I find them fairly useless.

One benefit of Pimsleur is getting an accent. When I tried the Cantonose with my girlfriend she asked why I have a good Cantonese accent when I don't have a good Mandarin accent. Repeating phrases helps :-)

I got curious and checked the UK Amazon page. The only Pimsleur courses they have are for Brazilian Portuguese and Albanian. I guess it may be hard finding the Chinese one there after all. There must be a big demand for Albanian courses in the UK.

In summary, Pimsleur isn't a bad way to start but it can get pretty expensive and won't take you all the way through the language. If you are really curious just get one of the beginner courses, that usually cost about $50, then see if you want to go farther. I stopped there because I didn't want to spend the money.

[Joseph_H]

I picked up the $50 begginer's Mandarin set from the local barnes and noble bookstore. I found it very helpful. Becaue you repeat the phrases right after native speakers, you can quickly pick up the accents and tones. The set I bought has eighteen half-hour discs which go over basic conversation, counting, diretions, etc.. I regularly refer back to them to make sure that I sound right when I'm speaking. I consider it well worth the fifty bucks, and would highly recommend the series.

[J.B. Frog]

I just finished that same set, and I'm looking to start the full course. I've seen Chinese I (the first part of the full course), used, for $125 on Amazon, but it sold quick. But, it's nice to know you can find it for significantly less if you keep your eyes open. And as someone else on this forum has said, you can always sell them again.

Have they been any good and have they helped.

Definitely. It's one thing to hear a teacher talk a few times a week but the habits of grammar come easier by 'interaction' with native speakers.

I thought it was well done; it hasn't covered as much vocabulary as a formal class, but I guess that's its nature. Hopefully it'll speed up as it goes along. Their special twist is that they refresh your memory on material just as you're about to forget it. I've only used one other audio set a long time ago so I can't really say how it compares, but I liked them enough that I'll continue with them.

[Monster]

I have used the level 1 course through the 20th lesson, spending 10 hours on each lesson. I then traveled to China for 2 weeks. It was most interesting as I met my companion in Guangzhou and spoke to him with my limited vocabulary. His first reaction was that my speach was so formal. In addition, as a native speaker of 40 years, there were some phrases that I had learned from the Pimsleur course that he could not understand what I was saying. I then spent some time with a native speaker that had no English ability whatsoever and was able to communicate in a limited way and I felt comfortable and more confident the more I spoke. The lesson in all this is unless you have access to a native speaker, you will not gain the self confidence you need just from the audio alone and your progress will be slow. If you make it a hobby, it can be fun and when you get the chance to use it you will feel it has been all worth while. My problem at the moment is to find a decent dictionary to help me understand what I think I hear on the audio as it is not always clear. Anyone have any suggestions?

[mark1888]

I have completed the first set of 30 and am now halfway through the second. I would definately reccommend them to a beginner who is commited to studying chinese. The cost is quite high, but if you commit yourself to listening to 1 lesson every day or two days you will definately make progress. Everything covered on the course is useful and the design means you can easily remember the words and phrases when needed.

Monster I have been using the Oxfrord Starter Chinese Dictionary and have been able to find any words used.

ISBN 0-19-860258-8 Oxford University Press

[J.B. Frog]

These guys either outright buy back your old ones or let you trade up for much cheaper.

http://www.lingoshop.com/chinese/courses/language_courses.htm - Net, looks about $76 per set, less for cassette version.

http://www.cheappimsleur.com - Net, about $56 per set!

I didn't see either site selling the used ones though, kind of strange.

[Jamie]

I think Pimsleur is the best way to get started if you're not getting formal training through a school or tutor. After getting some basic vocabulary and pronunciation practice under your belt it becomes a lot easier to book study later to supplement your vocabulary.

[markpete]

I've used the Mandarin I, II, and III CDs from Pimsleur. I liked them a lot. They are pretty short on the number of vocabulary items (~135 for the Mandarin III course), but the repetition of the vocabulary in different contexts is great for really learning to use it. I've been told that my tones were much better after using these CDs. Overall I think these are a great place to start studying Chinese. You'll learn some practical vocab and get to practice your tones and pronunciation.

Two disadvantages are that there's no written list of the vocabulary you'll be learning (for later review, it helps if you make the list as you go along), and that they are pretty expensive. I think the cost is worth it, though, and you can probably recoup a lot of that cost by reselling the CDs, which is what I plan to do.

[xuechengfeng]

50 bucks doesn't sound bad.

For anybody who has tried these, any recommendations on what level I should get? I don't know how much vocabulary I already know, but I'd say I know over 500 characters, and have been studying for a little over a year.

[fingerbang]

Hi, i have just started learning pimsleurs cantonese 1, has anyones created a script or vocab list, or know where i can get one, i am having a bit of trouble with their pronunciation. i.e. when the say ngoh (I/me) it almost sounds like they say moor. this gets really confusing after a while. I hope some one can help my little conundrum. Let me know if anyone else has had the same problem.

[rherschbach]

Hello,

One very cheap (i.e. free) option for Pimsleur is to download it via Netlibrary. Many public libraries in the US provide access to this to their cardholders. Although I'm not sure about this, I think there are institutions in the UK and other countries which also have this service.

You can then listen to the course on your mp3 player (not Ipod-compatible, alas).

I think it's a great introductory course. It does two things very well -- it helps the beginning student get past the unfamiliarity of the language, and it teaches a limited but essential set of vocabulary words and grammar concepts, using a method which all but ensures you'll retain the material learned. Parts 1 and 2 are great; but by the end of Part 3 the limitations of the system are starting to outweigh the benefits. And that's probably why it stops at Part 3.

[snarfer]

There seem to be quite a few individuals selling Pimsleur on eBay, including some who sell an MP3 version at a steep discount.

That said, I have to note that Pimsleur isn't very cost-effective in comparison to purchasing Chinese textbooks, many of which have CDs, tapes, and even DVDs associated. For less than $150 I recently purchased an amazing stack of brand new Chinese learning material including approximately 50 audio CDs, 40 tapes, 2 DVDs and 20 textbooks.

I find the Chinese-produced materials quite effective. I've converted all the CDs to mp3 and listen to them on my ipod whenever I'm in transit. Obviously the vocabulary is far more extensive than Pimsleur's. Pimsleur totals about 15 hours of material, including lots of pauses and instructions in English. I have more than 100 hours of material, all in Chinese, with explanatory texts...

[stephanhodges]

Snarfer,

I was wondering at the content of the CD's that accompany the Reader, if they are people reading sentences, mostly dialogs, or just recitations of word lists, etc. I've also PM'd you to ask for a detailed list of materials, but you could reply here for that too, if you feel it's relevant.

[quanxie]

Yes, I have been listening to the level I lessons for the last 4 months. There are quiet helpfull and the key word is repetition... I would recommend these to anyone learning Chinese..

Phil

[rherschbach]

HI Snarfer,

I''m very interested in this stack of Chinese-produced materials. Where and how can they be obtained? (by someone living in the US)

also, does anyone happen to know if a transcript or vocabulary list can be found somewhere for the "David and Helen" audio files that are available online?

Thanks,

Rob

[snarfer]

Basically what I did was I went Wangfujing books, the foreign languages bookshop and the BLCU bookstore and bought all, or nearly all, the listening courses and supplementary reading materials that came with CDs. I found that most of the BeiDa (Peking University) produced materials come with CDs. Some of the older BLCU materials, notably a listening course that Roddy recommended in a post a while back, are only available on tape, however.

In the end I decided to skip most of the tape-based courses, as I had already accumulated some 67 audio CDs. If I work through all that material and I still need more, well I'll probably be back in Beijing by that time to get it! BLCU may also have remastered some of the old stuff by that time, saving me the effort of converting from tape to mp3 (yuck).

As far as the New Practical Chinese Reader is concerned, what I actually did is I ripped all the CDs for the first 4 texts onto mp3 then I edited the mp3 files into separate files for each section, so I could separate out the recitations of new words and the drills from the dialogues themselves. This way I can make different playlists and listen, over and over again, to actual conversations and stories, complete sentences, on my ipod, and on my telephone mp3 player. This was a labor-intensive process. Luckily, for the fifth textbook, the publishers have made different tracks for the different parts of each lesson. The DVDs are just videos of the dialogues with the audio from the CDs dubbed in, so they are a little wierd. Maybe I will try to get them to play on my ipod video, just for the sake of gadget fulfillment.

Tomorrow when I have some time I will post a complete list of what I bought including ISBN numbers. And as I start using the stuff I will try to write some short reviews. A lot of it has been published recently, so people might not know about it.

I believe that it is possible to order this material and have it shipped to the US. Postage will probably be equal to the price of the books themselves, however. And it might take a couple months to arrive.

[snarfer]

Here is a preliminary list. I will edit it later:

New Practical Chinese Reader: 5 Textbooks, 4 Workbooks, 24 Textbook CDs, 9 Workbook CDs, 2 DVDs. Also has 4 instructor manuals with tapes, which don't seem all that useful.

Listening Course ISBN 7-5619-1367-2: 2 Books 6 CDs (Too lazy to type in the Chinese title right now). This is the first in a series of 5. The others are only available with tapes.

Telephone Chinese: 1 CD

Jiandan de Nanti: 1 CD. Some funny stories, I hope.

Interesting Chinese Reading New Edition: 2 CDs

Funny Chinese New Edition: 3 CDs

An Intermediate Chinese Primer: 2 Books, total 6 CDs

Zhengji Kouyu Jiaocheng: 1 Book, 2 Cds

Zhengji Tingli Jiaocheng: 2 Books 6 Cds

Chinese Intermediate Listening Course: 2 Books total 12 CDs ISBN 7-301-07972-9/H - 1227

[kudra]

also, does anyone happen to know if a transcript or vocabulary list can be found somewhere for the "David and Helen" audio files that are available online?

I spent a lot of time looking for the books on line about a year ago and did not find anything.

There are some supplementary materials at yale, but no copy of the text that I can find on line.

I ended up buying the books. Even then I searched for a week for a used copy. At the time there weren't any on Amazon. I thought I had a bright idea and called around to a few campus books stores, yale coop, harvard coop. The savings for the 1 used copy I found at the harvard coop was small. yale doesn't resell them.

So I ended up buying new copies, which was pricey.

I would say that it's been worth it for me, but if you are trying to study on the cheap you might hunt some more for a used copy. In the end it was more expensive, emotionally and monetarily, to search than to just cough up the money for new copies.

How are you finding the mp3s? I like them, sound quality is pretty good, and I can get into it while I take the train to work. There are about 4 or 5 speakers. The only problem is overall story line, beaten to death about Americans going to China, love interests..... I am resigned to it.

[rherschbach]

I like what I've heard. They're a notch above my level, which is nice. Glad to hear you found buying the books worthwhile -- I was thinking about just coughing up the $$$, if they really are useful.

Thanks for the info!

Rob