Follow up Question on Pimsleur's

[Northern_Lights]

Ok I posed a question the other day in this thread

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/41942-vocab-question-difference-between/

My questions was on the difference between 想 and 要. I was given some good advice. Here is the questions that those answered raised.

Pimsleur suggestions using 我想要 as way to order in a resteraunt which I was told was a little text booky and not used in spoken Chineese much.

Further 对不起 is given as excuse me as a conversation starter. I was told this was more of a serious appology.

I like the repetative nature of Pimsleurs, plus the fact it can be used while riding the bus etc. Even though it can be dull as a #2 pencil from 1975 at times.

I do supplement it with a Train Chinese App on my Andriod phone to learn characters and I also listen to ChinesePod101 podcasts my question is am I wasting time with Pimsleurs? Is it teaching me a text book stiff form of Chinese that will not be usefull in real life situations?

[renzhe]

Pimsleur is OK as long as you fully understand that it's extremely elementary stuff. You won't learn Chinese through it, but it's a gentle introduction into very basic sentences, listening and pronunciation.

[Olle Linge]

Further 对不起 is given as excuse me as a conversation starter. I was told this was more of a serious appology.

And you're right. My brother used Pimsleur and asked me about that very phrase. To my (non-native) ears, your interpretation is right and it's not used in the way Pimsleur says. I asked my girlfriend (from Beijing) and she confirmed that it's indeed not very good to call someone's attention by saying "對不起" (as we might say "excuse me" in English).

[Demonic_Duck]

@renzhe I'm not sure saying "you won't learn Chinese through it" is meaningful in this context. I would take it to either mean you won't learn any Chinese whatsoever (patently false in this case) or to mean you won't learn the entire language (since when has anyone, even a native speaker, managed to learn an entire language?) Surely what you mean is that you will learn Chinese through it, but only fairly elementary-level and "textbookish" Chinese.

Personally I've never actually used Pimsleur, but I would be wary of any course that tries to teach you 对不起 as a way to get someone's attention. That's not to say you shouldn't use the course at all if you find the methodology is good and works well for you, but I'd take this as a signal you shouldn't use it as your sole resource, more as something to help reinforce what you're learning from elsewhere.

Edit: perhaps I'm just being a pedant about renzhe's choice of wording (apologies if that's the case, it's a bad habit of mine). I'm assuming what s/he really means is that, if you have any goals for using the language beyond the simplest of day-to-day interactions, you'll need to go beyond the Pimsleur course.

[Northern_Lights]

@Demonic_Duck Agreed. I do like the methodolgy employed. I at least now know to take it with a grain of salt and use other sources which I was doing anyway. I am hopeing the the second and third level goes beyond elemantary level but that may well be a pipe dream. I am hoping to lay a good enough foundation with it to move on to other things to learn the language beyond an elemantray level.

since when has anyone, even a native speaker, managed to learn an entire language

Agree with this statement 100%

[tysond]

The particular phrases are sometimes a bit weird/unwieldy. I remember that 一直往前走 is used again and again for go ahead, which is much harder to say than the commonly heard 一直走 or even 直行. Lack of alternatives is a big program, in the real world people use a lot of different phrases and you can get quite stuck with Pimsleur's linear dialog.

However it does drill some sentence patterns into you. If you enjoy it and got it at a good price (or from the library) it's OK for an basic starting point which you can build on.

[Demonic_Duck]

Yep, can't say I've ever heard 一直往前走 used in real life. I normally hear 直走 or 一直走.

[Ruben von Zwack]

That's not a particular fault of Pimsleur then. I used Huìhuà and they taught "往前走". Never heard of 直. Unless they spared it for volume 2 of course. But it's a BLCU publication so I would expect they teach what Beijingers actually say.

[Demonic_Duck]

I think I may have heard 往前走 from time to time, but 一直往前走 just sounds unnecessarily wordy to me.

[roddy]

I wouldn't be surprised if that vocab has been chosen to allow reinforcement later on (or perhaps it's reinforcement of something else earlier). Plenty of ways to use 一直 and 往（）走, not so much you can do with 直走.

The people writing courses have limited amounts of time and space. You can't have 10 lessons on how to summon a waiter, 5 on how to ask for the bill, and 12 on the taxi ride home. They need to make choices about what's best to teach - what will most generally be appropriate and understood (bearing in mind it's usually best to be too polite than not polite enough)? What is most likely to be heard? What vocab and structures can be applied or adapted in other circumstances?

[renzhe]

@renzhe I'm not sure saying "you won't learn Chinese through it" is meaningful in this context. I would take it to either mean you won't learn any Chinese whatsoever (patently false in this case) or to mean you won't learn the entire language (since when has anyone, even a native speaker, managed to learn an entire language?) Surely what you mean is that you will learn Chinese through it, but only fairly elementary-level and "textbookish" Chinese.

It's a matter of definition, surely.

I don't think that you will be able to do anything useful with what you learn, so I'd say that you haven't "learned Chinese" by the time you're done with Pimsleur, the same way you haven't "learned Chinese" by getting through the first volume of NPCR. Which itself is 10x more advanced than advanced Pimsleur tapes.

At the same time, I'm fine with other people saying that you're "learned some Chinese" with Pimsleur, as long as you are clear about the fact that this means a vocabulary of about 75 words and 30 phrases (estimate based on memory, I didn't count). This is decisively closer to "nothing whatsoever" than "entire language"

I liked Pimsleur, and I found it useful. People just need to know how LITTLE it actually teaches.

[Northern_Lights]

I liked Pimsleur, and I found it useful. People just need to know how LITTLE it actually teaches.

Are you writting about all 3 volumes or are you only refering to volume 1?

[renzhe]

All three. It's very elementary stuff.

[Ruben von Zwack]

How much do they charge, just out of curiosity? I saw 188.- for unit 1 on Amazon, but find it hard to believe anyone pays that. I originally wanted to say to the OP, you are not wasting your time, because practising listening and speaking is never a waste of time. But if that's truly how much they charge, I'd rethink.

I tried to find information about the contents so I searched "Pimsleur Mandarin" and instead landed at a video on Youtube where a jolly Florida人 practises in the car. Apparently he's at unit 3 of Mandarin 3 (!), and... err... he's very enthusiastic, but I wonder if he shouldn't have better invested his 600 quid in a cheap text book with MP3 CD and a teacher to help his pronunciation

[Northern_Lights]

For the record I was able to get my hands on a copy at no charge. Nothing wrong with free, it is just a time investment at this point. I will keep working on the lessons but as before I am not useing it as the only source of instruction. I know a teacher is very important to help with pronunciation but at this time I am not sure if I could find a live teacher.

[Ruben von Zwack]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I meant the guy in the video, not you!

But talking about pronunciation - you know, you can use audacity to record and playback yourself, while you're doing your lessons. It's a free programme.

http://www.hackingchinese.com/?s=audacity

And you can do all sorts of great stuff with it, like slow down parts that you didn't understand, or make your own mp3s from whatever you fancy for practice.

[Northern_Lights]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I meant the guy in the video, not you!

Nah I knew what you mean . I was just saying I am sure I am not much better than the gentelman in the video. Thanks for the tip, I will for sure check that out.

[hackinger]

Hi,

I believe Pimsleur Mandarin teaches about 400 words, about as many as NPCR 1.

The complete course consists of 90 lessons. If each 30 minute lesson introduces 4 - 5 new words, we get the about 400 words. 4 - 5 new words per lesson sounds right from memory.

The Pimsleur course is great because it can be used in the field. I listened to a lesson when biking to work (17km). When biking home I listened to it again. Of course Pimsleur is limited. I studied in addition NPCR and Learning Chinese Characters by Matthews.

One can legally buy Pimsleur for a great price by starting a subscription with Audible (an Amazon company, I used audible.de) and downloading one of the three parts every month and then cancelling the subscription after the third month. I described that here and I think it still works. Currently at audible.de it would cost only 5 Euros each for the first three months.

Edit: There are vocabulary lists to be found in the www. (I would have liked to have those when I listened to Pimsleur.)

For instance:

Pimsleur 1 2 3

Cheers

hackinger

Disclaimer: I neither own Amazon nor Audible - unfortunately ;-)

[hackinger]

Here one can listen to

。