I was asked to post this as a discussion. Previously I posted it as a note. I'm on lesson six of the Pimsleur Approach to Mandarin (there are 100 lessons total) and I have already learned so much.
The great thing about this program is that it doesn't take language learning by a step 1, step 2, step 3 process, such as learning common greetings first then how to count, and then how to say colors. In fact, by the third lesson you're already having full conversations in Chinese.
It literally forces you to stop thinking in your head, "This is what I want to say in English, now how do I say it in Mandarin?" Instead, you blurt out the language without realizing it. It's like you're learning as a kid, and you're simply mimicking the adults you hear speak a language.
The greatest compliment I had so far is after a Skype meeting with a member of iTalki who lives in Beijing. She said, "Your Mandarin level is much higher than I thought it would be, have you been learning for a few years?" She was surprised to find out that it had only been six days -- 30 minutes a day. I was equally as surprised how easy it was for me to talk to her. Now when I watch my favorite kung fu movies, I am even recognizing complete phrases. I can't wait to see where I'm at within 100 days.
I learned about the Pimsleur Approach and chose it over Rosetta Stone due to this woman's review of it (I'm posting part 2, but there is a part 1 as well) where she basically sais she learned more Spanish in just a month of Pimsleur Approach than she did in several months of Rosetta Stone, and when she visited a Spanish speaking country people were asking her to translate for them.
Anyway, I love hearing: 你普通话说得很好
I'll post it here:
Do any of you have experience with Pimsleur?
Hey Matt -- the first lesson starts off by hearing a conversation between two people that goes like this:
Excuse me, can I please ask if you speak English?
No, I don't speak English, are you American?
Yes, I'm American.
Do you speak Mandarin?
I speak a little Mandarin, but not very well.
By the end of it you can understand it, so (I'm not very good at writing the Chinese pronunciation or spelling into English, so bear with me).
Duibuqi, qingwen, ni hua shua yingyu ma?
Bu, Wo bu hua shua yingyu. Ni shi meiguo ren?
Shi, Wo shi meiguo ren.
Ni hua shu pu tong hua ma?
Wo hua shua edyer (that word is hard for me to spell) pu tong hua, ca shi shua da bu hao.
In the next lessons, these fundamental words are gone over again and again, but you start to slip them into other phrases and sentences, and what happens is that you start to recognize entire conversations that you haven't heard before by the 6th lesson, and when you're asked to answer questions by the audio narrator, you blurt out the answers without even thinking -- not even realizing that you actually knew the answer.
So, very quickly, before you know it, you start speaking and understanding basic conversations (even in movies for example) without even really knowing why.
The other thing is that you don't even really think in your head "What is it in English from Mandarin?" Or "This word is English, and this is the word in Mandarin" You just think -- Mandarin, you don't translate it in your head you just speak it. It's really cool.
I didn't realize how much I had learned by the sixth lesson until I weirdly enough held my own during a Skype call in Mandarin.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I think I understand now the differences and benefits of both ways. I'm interested to see your notebook entries in the future and see how well you progress. Good luck!
Hi, William. I have been teaching Mandarin to someone for about a week. Can you remember what stuff you knew after those 6 days? I would be interested to know what kind of things you knew so that I could compare.
Very Interesting. Thank you so much
