Pimsleur Courses (Re)Considered
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- In this video I describe some of the features of Pimsleur courses and the ways that I have found them useful despite their limitations.
If you are in a position to support my efforts to share knowledge through these videos, please consider contributing at ko-fi.com/alex...
oh my god, an Arguelles resource review, truly christmas came early
Merry Christmas!
Much agreed. And it's always nice to see a Rothbard picture show up away from their natural habitats.
Pimsleur is how I learned my first second language German
Day 1 German lesson 1
Day 2 : lesson 1 followed by lesson 2
Day 3 : lesson 2 followed by lesson 3
Etc
In that way I did the entire course twice. The 3 sections and the advanced like bonus lessons. Had some books I dabbled in also after which was easy to make some connections in. Pimsleur is a nice way to stay structured. Looking to do another language with them it's very low stress learning
Please share how you alter the audio for yourself
What did you do after Pimsleur? Many people inadvertently say they filled-in some grammatical as well as vocabulary gaps w/ Assimil. I'm hearing that, nowadays, Glossika has improved their graduated-interval learning, as well as introduced A.I. speech-pronunciation confirmation technology, making it a highly useful next-step, post Pimsleur! ^_^
I'm going to try your method with Pimsleur Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish etc !
@@ib3scope yeah I ran thru probably....5 other courses with no trouble knew more of the information in them then you would think so just sort of flew thru a few books the assimil and the sort. But really I started putting it into a mixture of practice and study, so doing some reading in the language, daily news I would read in German, lots of music. Etc. And look up new words. After you have those basics and a good "feel" for the grammar and how the language works then you can add some daily flashcard practice to expand vocabulary I did that, add a couple thousand words. But the pimsleur was helpful in getting me comfortable incorporating and using new words in a proper way, and with pronunciation versus just reading books.
Also, personally.....I went back and played some games like RPGs the final fantasy stuff in German since I knew the story in English. That gave me an hour of entertainment each night while keeping practiced, reading things, learning new words, not just language learning programs but actual content
@@jessie4696 pretty ambitious, might work. With tonally far languages from your native I imageine to get fluent it may take just a bit more effort, and more repetition then I did.
@@Spookytooth92 it will work for every languages Especially Japanese and mandarin.
Welcome back, sir. Your voice of reason and moderation are as ever sorely needed in the field of language learning.
You're welcome!
Pimsleur courses are unique in the training method used. Of course the material does not get to an incredibly high level, but it gets high enough. I used their German 4 and 5 courses to prepare for a trip to Deutschland after three years of college level courses, and I found the program to be very helpful. If I wanted to step it up, I would probably start reading books in German and watching German television. From what I have found, Pimsleur is the ONLY system that trains the user to generate language based on prompts and situations, as opposed to translating from English into X and from X into English. It’s more than just a language program. It is a brain development operation. They are building and fortifying neural pathways in your brain. That being the case, they can’t also take on bringing the language level up to the highest level. Use a different program for that. Use both. But DEFINITELY use Pimsleur. It is unique. It is like strength training and field training in football. You’re not going to forgo the weight room just because it doesn’t teach you how to throw and catch a football. Pimsleur is indispensable.
You are not the only one to swear by it, but there are different strokes for different folks.
Happy to see you here... really. I'm a medical student in Brazil and I really appreciate your advices. I already can speak English and French too and you are a big inspiration to me... thanks
You're welcome.
Your assessment is quite fair. There are things about Pimsleur that make it almost indispensable for me. They are also fun for me. But I definitely find that I have to go outside to other sources to clarify a lot of things. A few examples which I'm sure you're aware of:
For languages that have considerably unfamiliar phonetic elements to English, simply listening and mimicking is not enough. One runs the risk of completely failing to grasp precisely how a particular phoneme is being produced anatomically. I have fairly precise ears but I've found myself perplexed by a sound on a few occasions and had to look up the phonetics of the language to get it right. In fact, at this point I simply make it a rule to double check phonetics with other sources regardless of how sure I feel about my accuracy.
Some languages have a lot more reading material than others and the ones with the most reading material I feel are definitely far more effective. Mostly, because that ties in with phonetics. Particularly for languages with very consistent phonetic spelling systems such that they act as their own IPA basically. I found their Romanian to be very solid in that respect. All I needed was the 20 reading lessons to really get the phonetics down fairly well.
And then, obviously their explanation of grammatical elements is intentionally very minimal. I guess they don't want to overwhelm the average touristy-type language learner with grammar so they just say a few things like, "Notice how...etc." and leave it at that. In some ways I think this can push one to be more focused and use their awareness more to sort certain grammatical concepts out intuitively. But it's definitely not sufficient when things get more complex.
All in all though, I really enjoy doing Pimsleur. It's just not quite comprehensive enough for genuine fluency. I did all 3 levels of Russian (prior to the new app where they expanded to 5 levels) and went entirely through them again 3 more times. Even though there was a naturalness and spontaneity with the information I learned in the course, it still only amounted to a survival level of vocabulary. For example, if I was dropped in the middle of Moscow I wouldn't feel completely lost. I could communicate but I couldn't have any real conversations. I couldn't get more than 2 sentences without getting stuck on a word or grammatical structure I don't know how to form. It was pretty frustrating. I don't know how much farther the extra 60 lessons in the updated app version will get me. Also, despite the glories of spaced repetition, the reason I went through the lessons 3 times is because after 6 months or so, i realized I'd forgotten virtually everything. Maybe that's just age showing though 😛
Thank you also for this second substantive post about the strong points and weak points of the Pimsleur system.
Great to see you back Alexander. I really value everything you have shared and I am just thrilled to see you back online. Your work has helped me learn 3 languages. I deeply appreciate everything you have done.
You are so very welcome!
Whenever my motivation goes down, I came here to watch videos about different language learning courses. Thank you sir for your great job
Thank you for your kind words!
I bought the first 10 lessons of Farsi 8 or 9 years ago and loved it. If nothing else, it's fun to go through the lessons when you have the time.
There are 60 lessons now, plus 60 lessons of Dari. Try them back to back if you really want to have fun!
Interesting. Over the years, I've started to realize one of the most important (at least to me) characteristics of a language course is how flexibly its materials can be used at different levels of progress.
Honestly, I did write Pimsleur off year ago, so it is great to have access to the whole range now.
Thank you for your thoughts, Professor! I do admit that back when you first made your original comments about Pimsleur, I just assumed that was because you are an in-depth language student who had already created your own methods. I absolutely adored using Pimsleur when I first started learning German. At the time, they had 100 lessons (3 full courses + a mini-course with 10 lessons) and now they have 5 full courses/150 lessons. It was the thing that got me to actually speak and understand spoken language, which I had always lacked when I took foreign languages in school.
There is certainly more to Pimsleur than I gave it credit for back then, hence I am trying to make that up now.
Great video review! I personally found the Pimsleur method quite useful (used it for French, Italian, Spanish, Farsi, Ukrainian and Turkish). It provides essential phrases that are crucial for interacting in a tandem setting. However, the lack of a script can be a downside. There were instances where I encountered words where I was not sure about the spelling, which could be frustrating. It took me multiple rounds to fully absorb the material, and I ended up doing some audio editing to save time for the review.
Even for an advanced learner, Pimsleur can offer useful phrases that might not be covered in traditional textbooks. Completing all three (for some languages 5) levels can solidify your knowledge at an A1 level and even introduce some A2/B1 concepts. Nevertheless, I wouldn't solely rely on Pimsleur alone. Combining it with other methods and resources (Assimil and some university level courses) would provide a more well-rounded learning experience. Keep up the great work with your reviews!
Thank you for your kind evaluation of my evaluation.
Thank you for posting this video.
In my experience, I think that with every self study course that I have tried, I felt that I was still at an advanced beginner level after I completed it (even if the course says that it is "advanced" or "B2"). I have done several Pimsleur courses (including the 5 levels of Pimsleur German), and I believe that Pimsleur is the best self-study course for achieving a basic familiarity and comfort with a language. I think that most people, after finishing a Pimsleur course, supplement it with a course that provides a more comprehensive overview of the grammer, such as Assimil, Living Language, or Colloquial, or they do both Pimsleur and another course at the same time. The reading discs and booklets for levels 2 through 5 do cover a lot of vocabulary. (If anyone wants to see what is on the reading discs, all of the Pimsleur reading booklets can be viewed in pdf form on the Pimsleur website.)
Your idea of doing Pimsleur Hindi and Urdu together is an interesting one. I have considered doing Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian together. There is a uniformity to Level 1 in different courses. The first lesson, almost always starts out by teaching the word for "excuse me" The first lesson ends by having us say "I speak a little (whatever the language is)" and the instructor then says, "And it's true. now you do speak a little (German/Polish/Dutch or whatever the language is)". Some more examples: Lessons 15 and 16 are generally arithmetic in the language. In lesson 22, a second instructor is added who only speaks in the target language. There is however some variation in the courses depending on the language. For example, in some languages, unlike English, people don't normally ask how someone is doing, when greeting someone.
Thank you for the detailed response. I am starting my next round of videos with Pimsleur because I have recently gotten access to all of their methods for all of their levels. I do see a great overlap or "blueprint" for the lessons. I think that doing the Scandinavian languages together would be a great idea. Try it and let me know how it goes.
@@ProfASAr Professor Arguelles,
Thank you for replying to my comment. Your response gave me the encouragement I needed to start doing the Pimsleur courses for Scandinavian languages together. My plan is to do 2 lessons at a time for each language. (Lessons 1 and 2 for each language, then lessons 3 and 4 for each language, etc.) This may take a long time, since there will be 90 lessons, or 120 lessons if I also include Icelandic.
I am also watching television programs online and RUclips videos for the Scandinavian languages. The Easy Languages channel is good way to practice listening. To me, it is amazing how much the Internet has expanded opportunities to listen to foreign languages. Someone in the United States studying Scandinavian languages 20 or 30 years ago would have had few chances to practice listening to the languages.
I would like to add to my previous comment that, in terms of how much I learned after 5 levels of Pimsleur German, after I did the 5 levels, I found it easy to use André Klein's graded readers for German. Also, when I would watch German news programs or read German books, I would have a general idea of what was going on.
I will tell you how studying the languages together goes. So far, it has been interesting to see the similarities and differences.
Great content as always! Thank you, professor
You're welcome.
I used the Pimsleur Thai in the past when I was a linguistics student in Thailand. Overall it may be a good course but I was made aware of one shortcoming. While in Thailand, and asking how much something cost, I used the phrase Pimsleur taught. It usually accomplished the purpose and people would repeat the price to me but one time during a break in between linguistics classes, I went to the coffee shop to get some coffee. I asked the Thai woman who worked there how much it cost and she responded but the look on her face told me something was wrong. My linguistics instructor, a woman who had lived in Thailand for 20 years and spoke the language fluently, was standing next to me during the interaction. She told me that the woman gave me an odd look because I was asking her something that was more like, "I'm strongly determined to pay how much?".
I don't know how good the rest of the course is. I later switched to some other courses. That was several years ago. If I was going to move back to Thailand and live there for a few years I would take classes with a teacher to get started again.
I haven't tried the Thai yet, but that is a good warning - thank you!
Have you ever thought of putting out a language learning CD? Your input would be so valuable.
Thank you, Larry, for the suggestion. Are you saying for a particular language, or about language learning tips in general?
@@ProfASAr Im saying for Spanish for starters......then Italian and so on.
I've been dabbling in Spanish for a couple of weeks and managed to find a cheap set of Pimsleur Spanish at a used book store. I'm thinking of getting it because the beginner's book I'm using doesn't have any audio.
Best of luck to you in your studies!
I don't consider any language learning "system" to be necessarily good, or bad, or to be the silver bullet for language acquisition. I consider Pimsleur and the others as just one tool in a tool box for learning. Besides, different people learn best in differing manners, and even the same person may respond better to one approach or another, depending on the day or mood.
Very well put. I think anyone interested in learning needs to try as many methods as they may subjects, in some cases. It can be frustrating, but it broadens your perspective in ways that are invaluable.
Indeed, different strokes for different folks - I have always supported this!
I have Pimsleur French, but I just couldn't stick to it when I started French last year, instead, I opted to focus on Assimil and other products. I keep thinking I should return to it--maybe it can help activate my speaking.
Now, if Pimsleur ended up offering 3-5 courses of Lithuanian, I would definitely start there, because I have a hard time thinking about how to schedule my time with the other resources I have on hand; Colloquial Lithuanian and Beginner's Lithuanian.
Although I now see value in Pimsleur, if Assimil works for you, I would definitely give that priority for French. For Lithuanian, speaking of all-audio courses, are your familiar with Easy Way to Lithuanian (available from Audioforum)?
@@ProfASAr No I am not familiar. I will give this a look. Thank you!
@@ProfASAr I haven't begun Lithuanian yet, but one of my biggest fears is that, well, I've found using Assimil, or Linguaphone by an alteration of your method very appropriate for my style of learning. I just don't have access to similar resources for Lithuanian. I have Beginner's Lithuanian (and the associated audio files), but great trouble for me is how to organize myself when there are not simplified (daily) chapters such as in Assimil. This has been the most beneficial aspect of Assimil in my opinion, that I am easily able to see how to fit in a lesson every day--the habit-building enterprise has been fairly simple. Faced with the traditional chapters of a text like Beginner's Lithuanian (no matter how good it might be), I find the task very difficult of splitting up the material into 15-30 minute, progressive daily chunks.
Glad to see the Professor back. A downside of Pimsleur is that they don't make multiple levels for all languages except the popular ones. I guess it is all about making money.
They do only have 5 levels for the most commonly studied languages, but the fact that they have 2 levels for Pashto, Dari, Persian, and 3 levels for Eastern Arabic, etc. is encouraging.
@@ProfASAr I am learning Polish. Pimsleur has only 1 level.
Pimsleur will only make higher levels or create a new language program if there are a lot of requests.
They created Icelandic level 1, due to the high amount of requests from the language forums. Creating an Icelandic level 2 is extremely slim, and not ever likely to happen, as the higher the level, the less people want to learn.
Just like college, the high amount of people are in introductory classes, but taking the next level becomes less and less. Not to mention the highest levels of particular subjects, which some classes are cancelled, because they can't even get eight students to enroll.
Despite many ppl give Pimsleur a bad name, I think they're very useful if they go along with some other learning materials.
Indeed, hence my re-evaluation of them.
I notice people bad mouth Pimsleur, because they expect to be at a high level after completing the programs. It is somewhat telling, when specific people state they want to learn a language badly, but claim they can't even put 30 mins. daily.
@@alanguages Pimsleur is good 'coz the speak slowly n' it's very repetitive.
@@fromfleshtoclay34 Those are some features, but they also use native speakers. It encourages learners to actively speak.
@@alanguages totally
I like your point on rounding out a language from learning in novels. Do you know any other ways to do that?
Upcoming in forthcoming videos!
Hi dear Sir. 2 questions:
1) how advances should you be before you start shadowing?
2) how many languages would you say to be prudent to study at the same time?
1. You can start shadowing as a complete beginner.
2. This is a complicated question - it depends on many factors and circumstances.
@@ProfASAr I am trying Japanese, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, and Russian all of them simultaneously. My Main Languages are Spanish and English, thus, Japanese and Russian are the most changeling in my case. Have you written a book? Should I just watch all your brilliant videos or is there another source of picking your brain? Thanks
@@alejandron301 not very bright to study more than 2 languages at the same time or similar when you start them from zero
For Which languages are you using pimsleir? I agree with your assessment, it is good for starting in a language, particularly for me to help habituate my ear to the proper pronunciation, and use it in tandem with another course.
As I mention here, with variants of Persian (Farsi/Dari) and Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu).
Professor! On the subject of Back & Forth study routine: I begin to feel that my Assimil 2 Russian training session (consisting of 13 different activities, lasting in total about 1,5h of solid training) is now beginning to be intimidating when I try to run it in one stretch or even two.
On the other hand, It feels much more managable when each (or every two) Assimil lessons are interspersed with a silent reading of some different material, also Russian, but not having this feeling tone of TRAINING. No need to do second language (although I started Latin), just changing the manual seems refreshing. Do you find it a good direction? Thank you!
Yes, if changing the material every other day makes it less stressful for you, by all means do that!
Professor, would you mind reviewing Speechling and its paid version, Glossika?
Sorry, I don't know anything about either of these programs....
@@ProfASAr Yes. I would love to get your thoughts on Glossika, too.
I absolutely disagree that Pimsleur is a phrase book. I might say it is a grammar example book. That is, by the time you are done you have examples of every conjugation and declension and a few other grammatical rules. A phrase book would simply give you a phrase like "I would like a X (pizza, salad, hamburger steak, etc). Pimsleur doesn't prepare you with lists of items to fill in the blanks. It sneaks in the grammar of the language throughout 3-5 levels by giving you what on the surface appear to be everyday tourist phrases. Perhaps some Pimsleur course are different from others, but I have done three and found them deeply informative about grammar. The problem might be that when you are done, you might not realize what you accomplished and that you have the structure of the language in your head in so many examples. Anyway, welcome back Professor.
The fill-in-the-blanks approach is what the old Berlitz system used.
Thank you so much for the input. You may be quite right - I have just gotten access to all the Pimsleur courses and so am experimenting with them. Thus far they seem utterly random to me, most particularly in the numbers: they never say 21, 22, 23... but rather 38, 67, 41, 22... and so it seems to me with the grammar as well. If I discover otherwise, I will be happy to acknowledge this! Best regards!
@@ProfASAr Professor, I believe everything in their approach is done with painstaking care for the best reasons. I recall having read materials on research teaching EFL when I did a stint teaching, and some of the research results indicated things like: never teach vocabulary for bunches of things in the same category together (animals, colors, foods). What happens is you'll get 2 confused and 10 years later when you speak the language fluently you'll find you STILL struggle with that same confusion and have to pause to think every single time. If you separate the learning in time and do not associate the 2 animals in the mind, you're likely to NEVER encounter this difficulty. The same thing happens with numbers. When you learn them sequentially, it is hard to access them randomly. To this day, to say 6 in Spanish I have to count in my head "4, 5, 6".... The Pimsleur way gives you random access from day one.
Another thing they do is to teach words by breaking them into syllables - teaching from the ultimate syllable backwards to the first. Research they did proved students are more able to maintain the correct intonation or emphasis and reproduce the word better when taught this way. I'm still blown away no one else has copied it to this day, decades later. I think I read about this in Paul Pimsleur's own book way back when I was in undergrad.
Professor you should upload this on TikTok as well. They have a really big reach and a good recommendation algorithm.
Edit: thank you for the video
Thank you for the suggestion - I don't know about TikTok but will look into it.
I doubt you can make good videos with only 15 seconds.
@@one8576 you can make much longer videos on TikTok now.
@@zxasskickerxz770 Like 3 minutes long instead?
That's quite a dramatic shot there. Is everything alright?
It is just dark lighting - the sun was setting.