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Title: Pimsleur English for Mandarin Chinese Speakers: Third Edition (Pimsleur Language Programs) by Simon & Schuster Audio ISBN: 0-7435-0876-9 Publisher: Pimsleur Intl Inc Pub. Date: 01 December, 2001 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 16 List Price(USD): $295.00 |
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Average Customer Rating: 4.78 (9 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent for the spoken language
Comment: Once again Pimsleur offers an excellent course for the spoken language with relevent conversations and a teaching style that is both automatic and effective. Users should realize that spoken and written Mandarin are different and this course is ONLY for the spoken language. However, it is excellent for listening and speaking. The speakers in the series are clear and easy to understand. My only objection to this course is the lack of written material to accompany it (though the booklet that does come with it is very intersting and informative). Unfortunately, much of Mandarin sounds alike and most 'words' have multiple meanings depending on tone, accompanying words and context. A pinyin or other phonetic guide to the conversations would be very helpful. But for those with a good ear who want to learn by listening and speaking, this course is excellent.
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent tool to facilitate further study
Comment: This was a very solid method of learning that focuses heavily on speaking and conversation. Learning characters at the same time as the speaking language can be very intimidating and most professors would agree that there should be a substantial amount of lag between the spoken and written chinese. (see Chinese Primer Ta-Tuan Ch'En - the books I use for my Georgetown University Chinese classes) The Pimsleur method does not offer character knowledge, but it does allow a student to grasp the tones and sounds which are so vital to the language. I would suggest to anyone who is listening to the audio cds to begin with the cds and then, only when comfortable with pronounciation and tones, to go pick up some character and vocabulary texts. This was definitely money well spent because it really was a great way to begin my intensive Mandarin Chinese course.
Rating: 5
Summary: Money well spent... effective learning tool
Comment: Pimsleur's Chinese is as of yet by far the best money I have spent on language learning materials. The method of repetition, questioning, and recall combined with a broad variety of phrase combinations and sentence structures (these are really the key to "unlock" your language knowledge) provide a solid foundation of spoken chinese. In my opinion, the most priceless facet of the Pimsleur method is the impeccable pronunciation that develops from learning by listening alone- there is no pinyin here to pollute one's chinese phonetics with crude approximations of chinese sounds. In this manner one picks up difficult chinese initals (j, zh, c, q, etc.) as well as the tones much more naturally. The serious flaw of the Pimsleur method as applied to chinese, though, is the issue of reading and writing- the ideographic language cannot be taught through CD's alone. If you are at all serious about learning the language, a tutor, class, or at the very least a character workbook of some sort is a must-have. By learning the written language, you will also catch on to some of the grammatical and idiomatic subtleties that that course fails to address (although to Pimsleur's credit they do a great job of fitting a solid base of useful, conversational chinese into only 15 hours of instruction).
My personal experience with the course was a lot of fun- I had enrolled in a course at school and wanted to get a bit ahead of the class, so I bought the course. I started off, with my small previous knowledge base, and took off at a break-neck pace, doing two or three lessons a day- while driving in the car (this is a HUGE plus to the Pimsleur system; it is totally hands-off), waiting for class to start, or just sitting at home in the evening. I know this is not the pace suggested by the course materials, but I found that the more aggressively I tackled the lessons, the more I wanted to learn, and that the faster pace was not harming my retention in the least. On the rare occasion that I did struggle, it was simple to just repeat the lesson until I felt comfortable with it. After just two or three lessons, I found myself mumbling chinese to myself to practice the tones and pronunciations and at one point even attracted a compliment from a chinese passerby who wanted to know who my tutor was! After about eight or ten lessons
(well under a week for me), I could order, settle checks, and make a bit of small-talk in a chinese restaurant, much to the amazement of the waitress!
Having a comfortable grasp of the Pimsleur material helped me immensely in class, too- I found it much easier to associate the written characters with the words I was already familiar with from Pimsleur than to try to learn both the characters and the words all at the same time. The speaking and conversation practice you get from the Pimsleur courses is invaluable and will make you sound like a pro compared to those attempting to learn from a book or in a large class setting.
Overall, this course is a great investment if you are planning a trip to China (the first lessons are useful skills in introductions, restaurants, and short conversation) or are just interested in learning the language (the lessons topics and vocabulary grow more diverse as you progress through the course). I personally cannot wait for levels II and III.
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Title: Chinese (Mandarin) II by Pimsleur ISBN: 0743506618 Publisher: Pimsleur Intl Inc Pub. Date: 01 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $345.00 |
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Title: Chinese (Mandarin) III (Compr.) [CD] by Pimsleur Language Programs ISBN: 0743525469 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $345.00 |
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Title: Reading and Writing Chinese: A Guide to the Chinese Writing System by William McNaughton, Li Ying ISBN: 0804832064 Publisher: Charles E Tuttle Co Pub. Date: September, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Pimsleur Instant Conversation Mandarin by Pimsleur ISBN: 0743529138 Publisher: Pimsleur Intl Inc Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
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Title: The Starter Oxford Chinese Dictionary by Boping Yuan, Sally Church ISBN: 0198602588 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: 15 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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