is there anything where that has basically a script of pimsleur? there are some things they are saying i cant quite make out and therefore am probably pronouncing wrong, for instance "a little" in the first lesson. to me it sounds like skoshi but that doesnt seem right at the same time.

The idea of Pimsleur is audio recognition and reproduction, so if you want to follow their thing just keep listening to it and mimicking. It doesn't really matter if you can figure out how to spell it in roman letters or not. You've got to develop the ear for Japanese sounds sooner or later, so just keep listening, I think. It took me a few good listens to be able to pick out any of 'shitsurei shinakereba naranain desu' in there (god), but ultimately as long as what you're sayings seems to sound like what they're saying...

As it happens, you're right. It's actually sukoshi (すこし　少し) but with the standard dialect is does, in fact, sound a bit more like skoshi. Which is the whole reason it doesn't want you to use scripts. If you're sitting there reading the word 'sukoshi,' you might ignore the fact that when it's actually said the 'u' is really deemphasized.

Anyway, that's just the whole Pimsleur way of doing things. I don't actually necessarily advocate sticking strictly to it or anything (or using Pimsleur in the first place), but just be aware that typing things up or reading scripts is actively fighting against the Pimsleur 'method'.

Edit: But since you asked, here's the only one I'm aware of. It doesn't go up very far. http://goofypunter.blogspot.com/

Thanks. I know my kana but I'm trying to get some kind of base to start being able understand some kind of japanese whether it is a bit more in anime, news, manga, anything really. I just want to get to the point of using kana or something else to be able to have a renewable source of japanese I can understand well I am doing heisig. I'm open to suggestions but pimsleur does seem to be doing a good job as far as recognizing sounds and it is certainly keeping me on my toes.

There's actually a pdf floating around that's a full transcription of Pimsleur Japanese I with the text of the conversations and vocabulary for each unit in both kana and rōmaji. It's from the 2nd edition, I think, as it's marked "Last Modified: February 2, 2003" on the cover page, but it should still be pretty useful even if you have the 3rd edition.

Try doing a search for "Japanese Level 1 Notes (Original Work).pdf"

If you don't find it and it sounds like something you'd be interested in, you can shoot me an email and I'll send it to you!

http://kirbysnihongo.wordpress.com/absol...apanese-i/
Although I agree with QuackingShoe...

hi everyone,
since it took me a while to find the lesson notes, I uploaded it for you at:
http://www.uploadbaz.com/hh2zscol94pe

astatira Wrote:hi everyone,
since it took me a while to find the lesson notes, I uploaded it for you at:
http://www.uploadbaz.com/hh2zscol94pe

Cool, thanks.

Ignore the script. It's totally counterproductive. No matter how much you think you leave it to your ears, as soon as you read it, you'll unconsciously have the sounds mutate on you. That's the whole reason English native speakers suck at pronouncing Japanese.

Use scripts, or rather written stuff, when you got the pronunciation down. Do Pimsleur without scripts. It's not necessary to drill it anyways, you'll see while you progress.

Romaji are also a bad idea as an English native. Using a set of letters not useful to transcribe the English language in the first place (the roman letters were made for romance languages with a different sound set), it tries to make Japanese pronunciation "look like English" to enable natives to guess an approximation of the sounds, but it just won't work.

As someone who's done what you are proposing, I would like to suggest not doing pimsleur. There are many other methods that are much more efficient. I went through the first 2 levels and don't feel that I learned very much and what I did learn didn't come easy. The pdf you found only covers the first level, so once you finish level one, you'll be in the same place you were when you posted this question.

The reason I say the Pimsleur is not very efficient is that there is no easy way to srs individual words and phrases. So you could go through a few lessons and and absorb 80% of the content, but what you don't know starts to add up making it harder and harder to learn the new lessons. Then you end up re-listening to old lessons several times, listening to material that you've already absorbed 80% of in order to learn the last 20%, which will probably take a few more listens to get everything. You start spending more and more time rehashing already learnt material to find the little bits you need to study. If pimsleur audio tracks were broken down into individual words and phrases and added (along with text of the material) to an srs program, I feel you would get a lot more out of Pimsleur.

I am now doing the core6k route that I lot of people here recommend and I'm much happier than when I was doing pimsleur. Not only because of the srs factor, but core 6k is almost an integrated method which includes listening AND reading.

Core6k sounds interesting, I don't think it was around last time I was considering starting studying (see original post date on this thread). I've found some threads discussing it but I can't seem to find the main thread for it, would you be so kind as to link it for me?

I actually did Pimsleur, all 3 levels, then followed it up by Michel Thomas and in the end, I had a pretty good pronunciation and all the puzzle pieces fell into place. That's a long time ago now tho, and I did a lot of other activities in the meantime, but I wouldn't say Pimsleur is bad. It's just, trying to milk it to the last drop is not efficient.
What it does tho is, it makes you familiar with a nice, broad base, and Michel Thomas then explains lots of that, enabling you to expand on it. For me it was enough to have a good start.