Two questions regarding Pimsleur Mandarin

[Andre R]

1) If any of you have experience with the program, what do you think is a realistic expectation after the end of 3 (or recently, 4) levels? Do you think that someone accompanying the program with grammar study and character flashcards could achieve HSK1 by the end?

 

2) Any experience with the newly released Pimsleur Mandarin 4? I'm up to Lesson 8 of Pimsleur Mandarin II by now, and am very much enjoying the program. My library has it up to Pimsleur Mandarin III. If I want to continue beyond that, I will have to order the 4th Volume.

 

Thank you

[新墨西哥人]

I'm interested as well to hear what others have to say.

I have one lesson left in Mandarin 1 and I've found it comes in handy during my skype lessons with my chinese tutor. Also I've found it helps me with pronunciation of phrases.

My guess is it can help a lot but that you really need to supplement with actual conversations with people. I'm hoping as it progresses you have to listen to longer conversations as well. I find listening challenging!

[mr.kylelong]

I am a big fan of the Pimsleur programs.  I recommend it as a speaking and listening tool for anyone learning Chinese.  I've gone through levels 1-3 and occasionally go through 3 again to just to get extra practice.  I didn't know there was a part 4 though!  That's great news!  I'll have to look into it!

 

Although I love Pimsleur, there are things it's really good for and things it's not so good for.  It's important to make that disctinction.

 

Things Pimsleur is great at:

-Improving your pronunciation

-Improving your listening skills

-Giving you confidence to speak

-Improving your fluency

-Internalizing simple, common grammar points

 

Things Pimslear is not so great at:

-Learning a lot of vocabulary

-Learn vocabulary quickly

-As a preparation for the HSK listening

 

Pimsleur teaches you a few things REALLY well.  In my opinion the most important thing is the pronunciation.  As everyone knows, Mandarin has a phonetic dimension that most languages don't have- tones.  People say that you can fudge your way through tones and understand and be understood from context alone.  I don't agree.  The reason it doesn't work is that people often overlook another dimension of pronunciation.  Consonents.  I feel like the consonents in Mandarin are too often overlooked.  The difference between /q/ and /ch, /x/ and /sh/, /j/ and /zh/.  These are as important as any other phomene in a word- including tones.  I have collegues who have awful pronunciation and although the can read at high levels, the have trouble ordering 手抓饼 in the street.  Pimsleur is great for this.

 

I can't speak to HSK 1 because I've never done it.  Take a look at the word list and grammar for HSK 1 and make sure that you understand everything.  My guess is that pimsleur will cover most of it for HSK 1.

[新墨西哥人]

mr.kylelong, this reminds me of my liast I've made of the pros and cons for each of the Chinese learning methods I'm employing currently. Although yours is more complete, I think. Enjoy Mandarin IV! I'm excited they have so many levels now as two although I have a long ways to go still.

[querido]

To 新墨西哥人:

I never used Pimsleur (as I was focused on reading and writing), but now that I'm concentrating on listening and conversing I think it was probably more valuable than I realized. Drilling - requiring that one think and answer in a space provided - is relatively neglected by producers of learning materials, and the tutors I've worked with don't fully realize the need for it and how to provide it. (I'm teaching my tutor how to do it.)

I just wanted to encourage you (because there are different opinions about this and you're likely to hear about them in this thread), that once you can converse with X number of words, learning how to read and write those X (with a flashcard program or whatever) is, like, trivial in comparison, to me (studying Cantonese now). Good luck! :-)

[ouyangjun]

I used Pimsleur when I first moved to China around 6 years ago.  At that time a one on one tutor and Pimsleur were my only methods for learning Chinese (over the years I learned how to study Chinese more effectively, but on day 1 that's what I had).  I think Pimsleur is a great tool for the absolute beginner and I normally recommend it to anyone jumping into Chinese language studies. The most important part of Pimsleur for me was shadowing what was being said, since that got me comfortable with different "sounds" of the language and more comfortable speaking out loud (very important you actually say the lessons out loud and don't say them internally in your head). 

 

I've never taken the HSK 1, I took the HSK 4 many years ago, the HSK 5 two years ago and passed them both pretty easily.  Based on what I've seen on my HSK exams I'd have a hard time seeing how Pimsleur alone will not get you to pass the HSK 1.  If using Pimsleur in combination with a tutor and self study - should be doable.  That being said, since I've never taken HSK 1 I'm probably not the best reference for that answer.

[新墨西哥人]

ouyangjun, I'm interested in how you learned to speak chinese more effectively.

And querido, that is a great idea about teaching your tutor to be a little more Pimsleurish. I find that when iskype with my teacher I rely to heavily on writing characters to communicate and my speaking and especially listening skills suffer as a result.

[James3]

I tend to gravitate towards self-study. And as such, I'm really fond of The Pimsleur Method.  For example, I spent 18 months learning Russian, 3 years learning French, 6 months learning Spanish, and 6 more months learning some Portuguese.  I loved the fact that just listening to my Pimsleur CDs in my car, on the way to work and back, could help me gain skills in a language. And ouyangjun is right - it works MUCH better to speak outloud when prompted to answer a question, or when asked to come up with how to say something. It really makes it easier. I've tried it both ways, and just saying it in your head doesn't work nearly as well.

 

So, when I wanted to learn Mandarin, it was a natural for me to head to my local public library and check out The Pimsleur Method for Mandarin I.

 

By now, I'm 6 lessons into Mandarin IV.  I practice several times a week with one or more language exchange partners I've found (after I Google'd practice languages.)  Some live here in the U.S., and 2 live in Beijing.  My Mandarin is still very weak. But it's really cool, as they help me practice, to discover that the way Pimsleur teaches you to say it...is actually understandable to a native speaker.  But my plan is to do the same thing with Mandarin as I did with French. With French, I listened to all 90 lessons (30 in French I, II, and III), and then I reviewed them all several times.

 

Personally, I view the first time through all the lessons as a way to gain vocabulary, sentence structure, and even some grammar. If you know Pimsleur, you know that they don't tell you that they're teaching you grammar, you just pick it up naturally by way of example.  Then the 2nd, and 3rd (or ever how many times you repeat going back through all the lessons) just tends to solidify or reinforce what you've learned.

 

But Mandarin, as you know, is a totally different animal than French, Spanish, Portuguese, or Russian. There's the tones. For some reason, the tones for certain words have stuck in my head, and others...well...not so much. So, here's my plan to really help me with that. After finishing Mandarin IV, I plan to review all the lessons, and then maybe the 3rd time through, I'll find a way to come up with the Pinyin for each lesson, and hopefully, memorize all the Pinyin (including the tone marks.)  Sometimes when I've used Google to do a search for Mandarin how to say _____  it actually comes back with the exact Pinyin, that matches what I hear on my Pimsleur lesson (other times, not so much. I guess just like in English there's several ways to say the same thing, so too in Mandarin.)  But, I've tried not to stray too far from The Pimsleur Method's strict rule that you NOT write anything down while going through your lessons.  I've noticed, however, when I do look for, and find, the Pinyin, it seems to help clear up any confusion I may have had regarding how exactly to say something.

 

So, to answer the original poster's 1st question, yes, I think if I proceed in this manner, and review all lessons (including Mandarin IV) several times, and learn (and memorize) all the Pinyin, and say everything out loud while going through the lessons, and practice often with a language exchange partner, I absolutely think I could pass HSK 1.  But I've never taken it, just read some of the requirements, so take that with a grain of salt.

 

As to the original poster's 2nd question, I'm only up to lesson 6 of Mandarin IV, but I'm very glad I got it. I think it's totally worth it. Several things so far that my language exchange partners pointed out as being a little off, they've corrected. One example is how to say your're hungry. In a Mandarin III lesson, someone from Beijing told me that only a kid says it the way the lesson teaches you to say it. Well, I believe in the 1st lesson of Mandarin IV, they correct that, and teach you the way my Beijinger friend says is right.

 

By the way, I've observed several ways to get The Pimsleur Method. To begin with, I picked up an intro for Russian in a popular bookstore. It contained only 8 CDs, but contained a heavily discounted offer to order the full "Volume I" which contained 16 CDs.

 

Once I had the full Russian I, and wanted to proceed onto Russian II, I think I got it off Amazon (which is also how I picked up my French CDs as well.) Later, when studying Spanish, I stumbled upon the fact that using the site Audible was a way to get a download version. They may have changed, by now, but the only problem with that was you download it and then burn it to a CD. There was no provided way to get an .mp3 file.  And then most recently, I discovered that pimsleur.com will sell you the download version (so you can in fact download .mp3 files.)

 

There's even resellers, who will buy your set of CDs and then resell them. I'm holding onto mine, though, as I hope to pick my French up again at some point.

 

Just thought I'd mention the ways I've found to acquire the media, in case anyone reading hadn't come across them all.

[新墨西哥人]

James3, I've thought about reviewing old lessons as well. Of course I'm just starting on Pimsleur Mandarin 2. My plan was to sprinkle them in here and there - perhaps on a long drive where I can only do one new lesson but have time for another one, or just once every week or so. 

 

As for the pinyin for Pimsleur, I've found that as I've studied the written form I am getting better at figuring out the pinyin. And I'm sure my ear is getting better at distinguishing the sounds (although I still have a long way to go!) And then sometimes I come across a new character or written word, and realize I've learned it in Pimsleur, which I find exciting, for some reason. For example, I recently learned the characters 应该 (ying1gai1).

 

And then I have a question for you -- you say that your Mandarin is weak. I'm curious in what way you find it weak? 

[James3]

新墨西哥人, you're way ahead of me. That's great that you're learning not only some Pinyin but some Chinese Characters as well.  As for me, I've chosen to ignore reading and writing for now. Well, that's not totally true (as I mentioned above, sometimes when I just can't tell for sure what they're saying on a lesson, I'll Google the word, or the phrase, hoping to see the Pinyin - something like "Mandarin how to say ancient city?" - and often that helps clear up any confusion as to the pronunciation, whether that be the tones I couldn't make out, or the consonants, etc.) 

 

But other than that, I'm totaly focusing on just speaking it and comprehending it. One language exchange partner I met (who lived i Qingdao) wanted me to totally discard The Pimsleur Method, and let him start by teaching me the Chinese Characters first. That was an interesting conversation. I just could not picture throwing Pimsleur out the window - it's all I know, when it comes to learning languages now. (Been too long since HIgh School and College to be able to recall in a detailed fashion just how they taught, and how I learned.) Besides, like I asked him, what kid starts learning Chinese, beginning with the Chinese Characters?  lol

 

Oh, when I say my Mandarin is weak, here's what I mean: Every now and then, I accidentally start to play an .mp3 from several lessons ago. And I can't answer all the questions!  But back when I went through it, I listened to it enough times where I could answer 80% to 85% of the questions right - just like the "User Guide" or "User Manual" says to do. You know, back in college I had a roommate who could hear something once, and that's all it took. He had it down. He didn't have to study at all. Made me sick. I've never had it easy like that.

 

But anyway, I know when I circle back around (who knows how many times,) eventually every single lesson will seem very familiar, and I'll be able to answer all the questions or prompts correctly the first time. That's when I'll start to feel more confident. Also, I often listen to Pimsleur on my iPhone (i.e., when going for a walk at the gym, around the track,) and pause after the question, so I have longer to come up with the answer than they give you if you don't pause it. So, I'm not demanding I answer it as quickly as I will eventually.

 

Another reason I say my Mandarin is still weak, is I can't fully use everything I've learned so far (from Mandarin 1, Unit 1, up through Mandarin IV Unit 6) in conversation with my language exchange partners. That is, when I'm on Skype with one of my language exchange partners, I can't pull from, or have complete command of, all the words, phrases, questions, and statements I've supposedly learned so far.

 

But that's okay. I expected that. Fortunately going through The Pimsleur Method with other languages prepped me not to demand perfection the 1st iteration through the Mandarin lessons.  I truly feel that the first iteration through the lessons is kind of like creating building blocks, like creating pieces of the puzzle. Once I'm done with Mandarin IV, I'm going to feel like I've got this huge puzzle, with all these pieces scattered all over the floor. They're not all put together yet, but hey - I've at least got the pieces (which I for sure didn't have before.) Maybe I feel like the 1st time through is the hardest...and like it's burning new neural pathways in my brain, ha, ha.  Then with subsequent listenings (and practicings) of the lessons, slowly the pieces start to fit into place. But personally, I think the 1st time through is the hardest, and when the most difficult work is done.  All those pieces are words, phrases, grammer, and an overall feel for the language. I just love how The Pimsleur Method somehow instills in you (often without even pointing it out, and without you even knowing it) the order of things, or the general sense of things. Do you put the time first in a sentence, or last? Do you put the location 2nd in a sentence, or next to last, etc.? Eventually you just get where you have a general sense for the language.

 

Anyway, sorry to ramble, but as you can tell, I'm totally enjoying this journey, and am totally sold on The Pimsleur Method. (You'd think I was doing a commercial!  lol)  After I've gone through several iterations of all the lessons, and taught myself the Pinyin, and next the Chinese Characters, then I want to use Rosetta Stone to further my comfort level, and eventually take some Mandarin courses at a local university, to really firm it up. But that's a ways off.

[新墨西哥人]

I'll ramble too.

 

I might be ahead with written but certainly not with spoken!  If I went to China today I'd probably have to whip out my iPad and write down what I want to say! I think spoken is much more useful, although overall I like doing both simultaneously and think it will pay off down the road. But I think it takes twice as much time, as I'm just not spending as many hours on spoken. I think one really has to put in the hours.

 

I also think I have hurt my spoken Chinese by studying written. But again, this is because I am reading more than I listen. Even when my daughter and I watch Little Einsteins cartoon in Mandarin, I can understand the characters flashing by more than the spoken. I try to close my eyes and just really listen.

 

I too, wonder if I remember past lessons. Yesterday I repeated Lesson 2. Fortunately that one was super easy (Ni hao, Ni shi meiguoren ma?). But it was great to practice the overall sound of the sentences. I think I can never get too much of that. I think for me the harder lessons were directions and those Beijing streets. (I had a hard time figuring out xue yuan lu in pinyin - I had to google it)

 

I have managed to work in some phrases from Pimsleur into in my Skype lessons -- wo bu zhi dao, deng yi hui er, etc. Especially the words that end with "er" as I study a more southern accent in general. Anyway, when I use a pimsleur-leanred phrase I can say it more quickly and "flowy". I guess I should get my teacher to teach more PImsleur style like was suggested earlier, in this thread, I think.

 

OK, enough rambling, I'd better get back to work.

[James3]

I guess some people choose to proceed on both fronts at the same time (I mean, both reading/writing as well as speaking/comprehending.)  I tried out Rosetta Stone Mandarin for a few weeks, and was doing both it and The Pimsleur Method. It seemed like too much for my brain, though, so I returned it and got a refund, planning to try it again once I've fully maximized whatever I can learn from Pimsleur. But I'll never forget how it so fully addressed a yearning I had been having to "begin learning some Pinyin." Immediately, they were immersing me into associating Pinyin with sounds and pictures. I loved it. Yet, for my sanity, lol, I decided to proceed only with Pimsleur for the time being. I really tend to be a single-tasker, instead of a multi-tasker, and try to really milk whatever I'm doing, to get every last ounce of utility out of it. Like you said, though, the oral takes a lot of time, and trying to do both was just too much for me at the time.

 

That's cool that you do this with your daughter. I bet there's lots of material out there originally created for kids that would be quite helpful to adults, but I don't think I know enough yet, to know what's good and what's not.

 

And yeah, they've addressed directions and street names several times, and wow - it takes quite a lot of practice on my part to get it. I just don't know how someone gets enough practice in a normal classroom setting. That's one area where I still feel like Pimsleur really rocks.  I mean, you can just keep repeating the same lesson until you've got it.

 

Funny how everyone leans a different way in their focus. I'm probably going to end up doing lots of communicating with people in Shenzhen, yet I'm trying to learn more of a Beijing-type dialect for now. Hope I don't regret that, lol.

 

That's interesting that you've observed being able to say things you've learned via Pimsleur in a more "flowly" fashion. I too have experienced trying to say something to a language exchange partner that comes straight off a Pimsleur lesson, and it is easier than trying to construct something new (that I've not heard before, for example.) But hopefully, by the time I've gone through all the lessons multiple times, it will become much easier to carry on a conversation, whether or not I'm using phrases I've learned from my lessons.

 

But hey, congrats to you for starting this whole process. I don't think I realized when I started just how much time this endeavor could consume if I let it. But I just love it. I'd really get a kick out of moving to China for a year or two and totally immersing myself in the language, the culture, etc. And going through Pimsleur's Mandarin I thru IV would probably give me a fair foundation, if I decided to do something like that.

[Demonic_Duck]

I've never taken the HSK 1, I took the HSK 4 many years ago, the HSK 5 two years ago and passed them both pretty easily.  Based on what I've seen on my HSK exams I'd have a hard time seeing how Pimsleur alone will not get you to pass the HSK 1.  If using Pimsleur in combination with a tutor and self study - should be doable.  That being said, since I've never taken HSK 1 I'm probably not the best reference for that answer.

I've never taken any HSK tests, but from what I've seen of HSK1 it's pretty basic. I've also never used pimsleur, but I'd be surprised if after four levels of the program one couldn't do the HSK1. However, I guess that being purely aural/oral, pimsleur doesn't cover pinyin, and you'd obviously have to know that for the reading part of the test (but pinyin is simple enough to master).

 

You can find sample HSK tests online if you're curious.

[James3]

Demonic_Duck, thanks, I hadn't realized one could find sample HSK tests online, but I just searched and found one. Cool! I'm obviously going to have to learn how to read a bit, but at least I have something to shoot for.

[Demonic_Duck]

Well yeah, but again, for HSK1 all you need to learn is to read the pinyin, rather than the characters. Not that I would discourage you at all from learning the characters too (in fact I'd recommend you do that, if you plan on studying long-term).

[raydpratt]

My version of Pimsleur Mandarin, which I got from the public library, had volumes 1A & 1B, and then 2A & 2B, which is probably your volumes I, II, III & IV.  I am currently studying volume 2A lesson 11, which is about lesson 41 of about 60 lessons total.

 

I recently had a temporary job standing with a sign for six hours a day for three days, and I mastered the lesson that I was on and then let the lessons run all the way up through volume 2B lesson 20 without really trying to master it on the way. I did surprizingly well because what I have already learned has prepared my mind for Mandarin word order.

 

I do not know what the HSK1 test covers, but Pimsleur's philosophy of language learning is not to prepare you for a test of your vocabulary, but rather to teach you all the common function words of a language so that you can figure out the relations being asserted among words that you may not know, or often will not know. You presumably will then be able to ask a speaker what various words mean without asking about the function words that are tying everything together in a spoken sentence.

 

At a couple points in my learning, I did a review back through the whole series up to where I was. And, I stay with a current lesson until I have done it five times with no mistakes.  Pimsleur does not recommend my method, but I like it.

 

I didn't start with Pimsleur, but rather with a book and CD that teaches how to pronounce pinyin.  I wanted to avoid an anglicized pronunciation of pinyin from the very start so that I could avoid the deeply ingrained mistake that I made with Spanish. Nonetheless, Pimsleur is my material of choice.  I have forked off a few times and studied some characters and sentences in characters, but it was Pimsleur that made that easier, so I am waiting to finish Pimsleur before I attack characters, pinyin, and vocabulary in earnest.

 

After I pass the most minimal test of Mandarin available -- and get a certificate -- I am going to jump back into Spanish and really learn to pronounce and hear it correctly.  I wish that I had started with Pimsleur for Spanish from the beginning. After that, I want to study for and get a Spanish GED. After that, I would like to reach at least the same level in Mandarin, and then Cantonese (the American Chinese with all the really good martial artists who left China -- sorry! that was uncalled for!).

[新墨西哥人]

It sounds like you have levels one and two of Pimsleur. Each level has 30 lessons. So if you like you can continue on even further...

 

What CDs did you use to master the sounds/phonemes of Chinese?

 

I repeated an early lesson last night, as I was really tired but wanted to practice speaking. I find when I do these easy early lessons (it was lesson 5 from part 1), I can focus most on the tones as the grammar patterns and vocab are now super easy (yes!)

 

I too, want to relearn Spanish using Pimsleur. I'm slightly wary of doing so as I don't want to take away from my Chinese study, as I don't get as much of that in as I would like. But living in NM, I have a lot of opportunities to speak Spanish.

[James3]

Demonic_Duck, oh, I guess I missed that part...so to take the HSK1, you don't even have to know any Chinese Characters! You know, when I first started learning Mandarin, I didn't even know there was such a thing as the HSK exam. But the more I study, and practice, and the more I hear about the HSK exam(s), the more I think I might like at some point to see how I'm doing by taking at least the HSK1.

 

raydpratt, Pimsleur - what a perfect thing to do while you had that temporary job! And I think your method of repeating a lesson until you do it right 5 times is admirable. Sometimes I get in too much of a hurry to move on, I think. I've not done this yet with Mandarin, but I remember several times when studying French, deciding it had been too long since the early lessons, so I just started over, from the beginning.

 

You know, I'll never forget the time I made the decision to drive to my public library, during lunch, and check out The Pimsleur Method's Mandarin I. After all, how hard could it be? After having used The Pimsleur Method to learn some Russian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, I could learn anything!  Right?  Well, then I got back in my car, after having checked out the Pimsleur I CDs for Mandarin, put the 1st CD in my CD player, and headed back to work.

 

Well, I've never laughed so hard in my life! I'm not sure what was funnier, hearing them say the Mandarin, or me trying to imitate them!! Either way, by the time I got back to work, I'd decided I couldn't do this. So, after work, I stopped by the library, and turned the CDs back in.

 

One time I heard a motivational speaker time talk about "self 1" and "self 2", and how sometimes we argue with ourself about something, and end up letting self 2 talk self 1out of something we really wanted to do.

 

Well, let me tell you...self 1 and self 2 were really arguing by then!

 

Self 1: Glad I took those Mandarin CDs back to the library. There's no way I can do that.

Self 2: Oh, and just what are you going to be doing, on the way to work and back, that's so urgent and important, that you can't be at least listening to Mandarin, like you used to do with French, and Russian?

 

Self 1: Uh...

Self 2: Just like I thought.  Since that's the only time you were going to be listening to it anyway, what do you have to lose, by going back to the library and checking it back out?

 

Self 1: Well...

Self 2: Exactly!  All you're going to be doing now is just listening to the radio, or talking on your phone.  And where's that going to get you?

 

Self 1: Okay, I see your point.

Self 2: So, then why don't you go back to the library, and check those CDs out again?

 

Self 1: Maybe.

Self 2: What do you mean maybe? If you're not going to be working on learning Mandarin, you're just going to be listening to the radio.  So tell me, what do you have to lose?

 

Self 1: Nothing, I guess.

Self 2: That's what I'm trying to tell you.

 

Self 1: But it sounds so much harder than anything I've learned before.

Self 2: Okay, so it's hard. So what?

 

Self 1: But as hard as this sounds, it'll take forever for me to learn it.

Self 2: So where's the fire?  Who said you have to do this quickly?  You can imitate sounds pretty good. So give it a try.

 

Self 1: Alright, alright!

Self 2: So, when are you going back to the library?

 

Self 1: I'll go in the morning, on the way into work.

Self 2: Okay, let's do this. Remember what that one guy said, "The only way to fail, is to quit."  So, just start, and keep going, and you'll do fine.

 

And by now I'm on lesson 8 of Mandarin IV.  Just like 新墨西哥人 said, there's 30 lessons in every level, or volume, so that means by now I've done 97 lessons. And I'm loving it. And just think, I almost talked myself out of even trying. There's a lesson in that.

 

Sure, my Mandarin's not perfect, and I still can't read or write, but hey - I'm at least learning!  I've started, and that's the hardest part.

 

For anyone who's struggling with their Mandarin, and feel like they just want to quit, what else are you going to be doing? And what's the rush? Just think of how your life can be enriched if you just stick with it, what doors might just open up to you if you just hang in there and keep going.  And if you're not using The Pimsleur Method, maybe give it a try. You'll be glad you did.

[Dan12]

Has anybody here actually used Pimsleur Mandarin IV then?  Everybody here so far just seems to be working their way up to it.  Does it rate as good as the first three?

 

I'm half way through Mandarin III now and I really want to move straight onto IV as soon as I'm finished, but I've been trying to wait for some... *ahem* "cheaper methods" of getting hold of it first.  No luck so far though.

[新墨西哥人]

James3 said he is working through Pimsleur IV.  Have you checked out the forums T&C's on discussion of pirated learning material. (minor edit by Roddy ;-), sorry )