There are worse ways to spend your time, but really you can read so many grammar texts (e.g. Japanese the Manga Way) while doing RTK and combine it with listening and speaking practice in so many ways via native media sources, if you had the motivation to devise a regimen divided into language goals, and customize your own stuff, e.g. with Audio Lesson Studio if you want to go a Pimsleurish route: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?p … 11#p137211

I did Pimsleur ages ago and got two things from it: I learned to pronounce the R, and I learned the mental skill of parsing lengthy sentences into segments starting at the end and then repeating into larger chunks, incorporating segments progressively backwards to the beginning of the sentence (if you do Pimsleur you'll know what I mean).

Last edited by nest0r (2011 June 07, 5:44 pm)

I did all 90 in the car on the way to and from work when I had a huge commute. 

I credit my pronunciation and listening skills to it.  When I first got a Skype partner, she told me my pronunciation was 'perfect'.  (I take it with a grain of salt.)  The only thing I did to practice that was Pimsleur.  (And listening to 10 years of anime.)

However, if I had had anything else to do during that time, it would have probably been a better use of my time.  A Skype partner is SO much better that it's crazy.

Pimsleur won't get you far, but it's great pure listening practice for complete beginners. You can start from absolutely zero knowledge and build up basic grammar intuition and learn a little vocabulary with basically zero effort. It'd be ideal for any beginner as something to do on the side while doing RTK. I also think it beats most of the podcast format programs (jpod101) etc, because it's cuts out all the b.s commentary and the question/answer/prompting style of teaching is much better training for real listening than the usual podcast format where they break everything down and explain what is being said. You can just do it during other wise dead time (commute, housework etc), you don't even have to speak out loud when prompted; just listening is enough. I did Pimsleur Mandarin and absorbed pretty much all the content without opening my mouth once.

yea I did not pay for it got from a friend and I did not ask him where he got it. I might do it. It will give me some motivation while doing RTK.

I used it and got up to lesson 40-something before I stopped. I think that it is probably a great way to get started in the language. As others have mentioned, it's simple and yet by the time you finish you will have equipped yourself with some really useful phrases and learned some vocabulary too.

If you have it then you should do it. Especially since it's only 30 minutes of your time. But just like with any thing you study, don't overload yourself and try to do 20 lessons a day, you probably won't be able to retain what you learned and moving forward will be really hard. Unlike SRS, once the CD finishes and you move on there is very little review. So just make sure that you go slow but not too slow.

Have fun. It will be great!

I haven't used the Japanese edition, but I have used the three-level Mandarin set.  I think it was very much worth doing.  It helped my listening comprehension and pronunciation a lot.  I don't think it's a substitute for a grammar book, but it was very good at helping me learn to recognize the sounds and the tones, and got me past the completely tongue-tied phase.  There might be cheaper alternatives, though.

If you're coming to Japan and want to learn basic stuff to get by in real life it's pretty decent.

Yeah listening to real stuff is good too, but it wont show you how to ask what the next station is on the train.

My Japanese level is intermediate at best (although I do have high standards) and I downloaded it on a whim once and skipped to the last lesson in the advanced section, which was laughably easy. Pimsleur is not going to teach you anything beyond some boring textbook sentences that won't help you comprehend the response  at all. It's best to just focus on RtK and then immerse yourself and SrS like crazy after.

nadiatims wrote:

I think some of y'all are missing the point a little. Pimsleur is designed for complete beginners, eg. a business man who suddenly gets transferred and has a week or two to learn some basic vocabulary and grammar, and for that it does a decent enough job. For the complete beginner it's comprehensible listening practice requiring basically no effort. bla bla bla (snip).

No, I WAS a complete beginner, and it was horrible.

Well...you've got to listen to it obviously. But I find you can be pretty damn passive with listening practice and still benefit as long as you either know enough vocabulary already or it's presented in such a way as to teach you vocabulary (for example by making use of translation such as with Pimsleur).

hereticalrants wrote:

No, I WAS a complete beginner, and it was horrible.

I guess it depends how you study it. When I did the mandarin course, I didn't ever bother speaking or repeating when cued, I just listened fairly passively on the bus, fading in and out comprehension, and occasionally hitting the back button on my ipod to repeat a lesson if I wasn't understanding anything, but often I wouldn't even do that. There's so much recursion built in that I started to isolate words and connect meaning without really having to try. Maybe the Japanese course just sucks though...

Last edited by nadiatims (2011 June 14, 10:07 am)