Anybody tried the Pimsleur lesson series? What are your thoughts on it? I'm looking for an… - Feed Post by armerala
Anybody tried the Pimsleur lesson series? What are your thoughts on it? I'm looking for an effective way to improve my intuitive understanding of Japanese (rather than having to put in so much effort to "actively" understand), especially in speaking in listening.
Obviously there is no one-step solution, but I'm just curious if that would be a good addition to my learning routine. Or if you have any different ideas for exercises/practice to help with that, I'd love to hear those too!
Obviously there is no one-step solution, but I'm just curious if that would be a good addition to my learning routine. Or if you have any different ideas for exercises/practice to help with that, I'd love to hear those too!
posted by armerala
Comments 3
my parents bought the pimleur cd's for Spanish. Basically it would play a very short conversation then it would give the definition for and make you repeat back every single word or phrase that was in that sentence one by one and it would play back the original conversation again .
this tricked you into thinking you learned a lot be cause that one sentence that sounded like jibberish before actually made sence to you now because you learned the little bit of vocabulary that was in that sentence.to me it was very repetitive and slow to have to repeat every word and it didn't cover much ground (haven't tried the Japanese addition though, it might be alright to try)
but my favorite way to learn Japanese is to listen to music or watch something in Japanese with or without subtitles after a while certain words will stick in your brain faster than others but just hearing it gives you a good sense of sentence structure and the vocabulary being used more than once in a variety of ways helps you to get a better idea of the meaning to the words. even hearing something you don't understand multiple times strengthens the connections in your brain for when you finally do learn the meaning you have heard it so many times it just clicks
thanks for the question ;) hope this answer helps
Thanks for the reply. Pimsleur does seem to be a bit gimmicky from your description and from some other reviews I've read since posting. Maybe it works for some people, but I think I'll personally save myself the ~$100. I'll take your advice and put more focus on absorbing media and see where that takes me. Worst case, it's not like I can't revisit the idea later anyway.
I have levels 1-3 for Japanese. They were a very helpful supplement to taking my first few semesters of Japanese classes in university. I agree with what @therushy said about the lessons being repetitive and slow at first but once you get into level 3 it speeds up. I'm actually planning on getting level 4 just to do during my drive to and from work (it wasn't released yet back when I purchased levels 1-3).
Another option that you might find more useful and definetly cheaper is a textbook called Shadowing. Instead of listening to someone explain the sentences in English, it's all Japanese. And you can read the transcripts of the conversations in English and Japanese in the textbook.
https://www.amazon.com/Shadowing-Speak-Japanese-Beginner-Intermediate/dp/4874243541
