Pimsleur

I dropped Chinesepod and started working with Pimsleur lesson material about seven months ago. I since have completed two of the three levels they offer for Mandarin. I am happy with the system, and have found it to be effective and efficient.

How it Works

Pimsleur is a pure audio approach to language learning. The lessons do not include any text or transcripts. The creator of the approach was a linguist named Paul Pimsleur. A description of the method can be found here.

The key differences between Pimsleur and other, more modular lesson systems such as Chinesepod are:

• Each new lesson systematically builds upon and re-enforces material learned in previous lessons.


• The method involves very little passive listening. It is built around “challenge-response” sequences. The student is forced to think and actively respond for the full duration of each lesson.


• The method is heavy on repetition, but in a stepped and purposeful manner. The frequency of repetition decreases incrementally over time. When a new word or construct is first introduced, it is brought into the dialogue repeatedly at short intervals. The interval between repetitions gradually grows over time. But, it never stops completely. Pimsleur referred to this as “Graduated Interval Recall”, and its purpose is to progressively cement words and concepts into the student’s long-term memory.
  

The downsides of the system are that it requires hard work, and the amount of repetition can sometimes become tedious. But, I’m not sure there are any effective language learning systems that don’t involve hard work and repetition. I haven’t found any yet.

How Much Time it Takes

The three levels of material require more time to work through than I had initially expected. Each lesson is 30 minutes in duration, and each of the three levels consists of 30 lessons. This adds up to a total of 45 hours of material. Should be doable in about a week, eh? In actuality, I’ve found that I typically need three runs through each lesson to achieve the 80% accuracy level that is recommended before moving forward. Since I spend a total of about 3 hours per week studying the language, this translates to two lessons per week, and therefore 30 weeks to complete the 60 lessons contained in the first two levels. Although I started working Pimsleur seven months ago, I have only just recently started on Level III.

Where to Get It

Another potential downside of the Pimsleur approach is its high cost. Simon and Schuster’s list price is in the range of $300 per level. Fortunately, a number of lower cost channels exist for acquiring the material. I’d recommend checking your local library first, as many libraries carry Pimsleur material for some of the more popular languages. Another good option is http://www.recordedbooks.com/. Follow the “Direct to Consumer” link from their home page and then search for “pimsleur”.

I bought the first level from Amazon for ~$220 before I became aware of Recorded Books. I rented the 2nd two levels from Recorded Books. They have broken each level into two parts (A and B), with each part costing $16.00 to rent, for a total of $32 per level.

Many stores and sites also offer a “Short Course” in addition to the three levels in the “Complete Course”. I recommend skipping the Short Course, as it covers just a small subset of the material that is included the complete course.