Is Pimsleur still a great way to train accents?

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Re: Is Pimsleur still a great way to train accents?

Postby Pimsleur » Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:42 am

LucasGentry wrote:
Pimsleur wrote:No sure if you are aware, but you can get Pimsleur on a low-monthly subscription basis these days. That's access to the full available course for that low monthly price. Basically $14.95/month for the regular course and $19.95/month for the Premium course. It comes with a full 7 day free trial with access to the entire course.
https://offers.pimsleur.com/free-trial-1417


That's all the levels in a given language, correct? That does sound like a pretty solid deal, as long as I can keep with it.

I'll definitely have to see how I can do with Level I, because I already own that one, then if I can finish level I, I'll look into this for the rest. Thanks for the tip!


Yes, all subscriptions give you access to the entire course (top languages such as Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, etc. have 150 lessons). If you don't have the Premium edition, you can access that as well, which will be a benefit if you only own Level 1 regular.
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Re: Is Pimsleur still a great way to train accents?

Postby Pimsleur » Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:47 am

garyb wrote:I would say it's not and it never has been. It relies on the user being able to accurately reproduce what they hear, which is a talent that not everybody has, and those who don't are likely to just hear and then say the French sounds (for example) as the closest English equivalents because to their ear they're the same. For those who do have the talent, it should work well, but so will any other course that includes native recordings. For the rest of us, something that explains how to produce the sounds, and the differences from similar English sounds, is far more helpful. FSI Phonology is not great but better than nothing, and there are better choices that have been discussed quite a lot on here.


Actually, anyone can develop those skills, it takes practice. As a student you need to model every “sound” and concentrate on speaking correctly all of the new sounds on the basis of successive approximation as you adjust your perception and articulation skills ever closer to the new sounds. You need to anticipate and to look forward to making minor adjustments as you pay particular attention during each of the daily thirty-minute lessons. We haven't heard of people having much success mastering a french "r" visually. In short, your brain--through your ears--needs to first understand the new sound, before you can articulate it.
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Re: Is Pimsleur still a great way to train accents?

Postby Xenops » Tue Sep 18, 2018 10:05 pm

Or, if your library has access to Overdrive or maybe Hoopla, you can borrow courses for free...:)

I most use Pimsleur to force me to speak: every other possible benefit is secondary, and an appreciated bonus if it happens, but I do not expect it. I have been able to imitate new sounds from a Pimsleur course (kh in Farsi or ch in German), but this is not the norm. I wouldn’t touch the Irish course with a ten-foot poll, because I know I would butcher the pronunciation.

The Pimsleur courses also vary in quality: I have found the Japanese, German and Farsi courses to be the best, while Turkish, Finnish and the original Korean to be the worst. The French one is in the middle.
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Re: Is Pimsleur still a great way to train accents?

Postby garyb » Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:13 am

In short, your brain--through your ears--needs to first understand the new sound, before you can articulate it.


This goes against what I've read in several discussions on here that say the opposite: one needs to understand how a sound is produced in order to hear it correctly. I think it's Cainntear who has brought this up and linked to studies in various threads, and having heard his accent in several languages I'm inclined to take him seriously. Some people can understand where the French R, for example, is pronounced just from hearing it enough times, but plenty others need an explanation of what to do with their mouth and throat. I didn't master the difference between "u" and "ou" in French until I read that one is a front vowel (like a rounded /i/) and the other is back (more so than in English), after which it became trivial; before that, I could tell that they were different but didn't have the first clue on what the difference actually was.

I suppose one advantage of an audio-only course is that the learner is less likely to be influenced by letters that are written like ones in their native language but pronounced differently, like R and U in French. It doesn't avoid the problem entirely though, since people are inclined to incorrectly map sounds to similar but not identical ones in their native language (there's a term for it that I can't remember; phonetic interference?). Using French again, the D, T, L, P, many of the vowels (and plenty others, no doubt) sound similar enough to English ones that the untrained ear can think they're the same. The "u" and "ou" could easily be mistaken for being the same sound or at least allophones.
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Re: Is Pimsleur still a great way to train accents?

Postby tarvos » Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:23 am

I specifically train my students to pronounce certain sounds using mechanical explanations. Otherwise, they will retain a strong accent.
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Re: Is Pimsleur still a great way to train accents?

Postby Cavesa » Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:26 am

I'm with Garyb here. It is not particularly good. And even a significantly lower price would be way too high.

It is simply nonsense that people learn the pronunciation the best just with listening and that the written part of a course is somewhat "detrimental" to learning. That is just the marketing talk. Garyb and Tarvos are right.

I did half of one Pimsleur a few years ago (Swedish) and I was totally unimpressed. I had expected something really good and this was a real disappointment. I see why it can be a great resource for a language with few such courses available, but that is simply not the case of French or other mainstream languages. I was unimpressed with the format, the amount of content, the dialogues, the lack of proper explanations. Really, it could definitely serve to some learners as a supplement but the price is rather elevated for that.

I can actually imagine myself learning tons of mistakes due to the Pimsleur approach. As was already mentioned, a learner without the explanation has to guess a lot and it is normal to just guess some stuff wrong. If you repeat the mistake over and over again, you'll just fossilise the mistake and harm your progress.

There are much better resources. As the correct pronunciation is the main point of this thread, I dare to suggest resources that:
1.have both the audio and written material. Learning the ortograph is simply much easier together with the pronunciation, there is no need to demonise it. It looks more complicated than the Spanish one but much easier than the English one and very regular.
2.The audio includes only the native voices. That is not the case of Pimsleur, as far as I remember
3.There should be the basic explanations. It is simply not true that people don't need them. Some people don't and do fine just with guessing from the audio. But most need stuff like the differences between e/é/è/eu pointed out.
4.There should be stuff to practice on, that means audio you can repeat after, dialogues putting all the rules in practice.

There are lots of options with various prices. Some are free (and a lot is piratable or available in better libraries), many have a very good price/value ratio, some are simply overpriced. Let's not forget that a Spanish speaker (even a non native one) can choose from a much wider spectrum of resources, including the monolingual ones.

A few examples of stuff I consider much superior to Pimsleur:
-overviews like this one http://phonetique.free.fr/ or this http://flenet.rediris.es/cours/cphon.html which look good, cover the basics, and can supplement any full course. Or this: https://www.podcastfrancaisfacile.com/a ... ncais.html All this is much better than blindly following a non native audio :-D
-Lingodeer: an example of a free tool with native audio. It is not too advanced and still in beta, but it is very good for an app and the native audio is a huge advantage over most free courses. You can often play it at different speeds, you can record yourself and compare.
-Phonétique Progressive: in the middle of the price range (amazon offers the beginner book for 28 euro) and it offers tons of excellent drills, audio, explanations. There is no risk you would learn something wrong and have to relearn it later and it is a resource for months of work. It is a supplemental resource and proud of it, it doesn't promise nonsense.
-Assimil: more expensive, if you buy the audio too (which is necessary for a beginner, in my opinion). But the content is great, everything is shown in the dialogues that are a pleasure to train with. The slower speed does have disadvantages but I think it is ideal for the pronunciation practice for beginners.

-any good coursebook with audio. People do just fine with the mainstream coursebooks, provided they are of good quality (which is less of a problem now than it used to be) and that the student really does their part (and that the teacher supports them in that and doesn't sabotage it somehow, if the person has a teacher). People don't fail to learn the pronunciation correctly with most coursebooks because of the authors. Vast majority simply doesn't do all the drills and exercises, people rush to the more fun stuff.

And let's not forget that the pronunciation and accent develops progressively. You need to learn the basics but then you need a lot of exposure and practice to really improve. The idea of many beginners that they'll get the one best resource and "learn the perfect accent" is naive. Pronunciation gets revisited in one way or another forever.

What I believe is the number one problem emerging in this thread: the demonisation of French. It is not significantly more difficult than most other European languages, you don't need to spend hundreds of euros to learn just the basics, and the pronunciation and ortograph will not be that much of a problem, if you put in the efforts. The myths are just discouraging the learners and making tons of companies profit from it. For example Pimsleur. Learning the first few hundred words, some touristy phrases, no grammar, that's possible with many tools for free.

Really, French is an exception among the mainstream languages. When it comes to the others, I have never encountered such a wall of discouragement from the publishers, teachers, internet communities, and the general public. The paranoia is stupid and leads to lots of spending.
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Re: Is Pimsleur still a great way to train accents?

Postby tarvos » Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:57 am

I agree with Cavesa. Sure French takes a bit more getting used to with its orthography rules, but it's nothing to really fear. Making mountains of molehills, we are.
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Re: Is Pimsleur still a great way to train accents?

Postby garyb » Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:28 am

Pimsleur does use native speakers' voices, at least on every course I've tried. Otherwise I mostly agree with Cavesa's assessment, although I think it can be useful for drilling in some basic phrases in a language like French, as a complement to other resources including something on correct pronunciation. Again, the price is excessive for an accessory to other studies, but it's not hard to find through libraries etc.
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Re: Is Pimsleur still a great way to train accents?

Postby Cavesa » Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:28 pm

garyb wrote:Pimsleur does use native speakers' voices, at least on every course I've tried. Otherwise I mostly agree with Cavesa's assessment, although I think it can be useful for drilling in some basic phrases in a language like French, as a complement to other resources including something on correct pronunciation. Again, the price is excessive for an accessory to other studies, but it's not hard to find through libraries etc.


I'm glad to be corrected about the native voices, thanks!

Yes, it is a very expensive accessory in a world full of free resources doing the same things Pimsleur does (and better).

It is not hard to find in a library only in a few countries. Let's not forget this forum has members from all over the globe, so this is not really an argument. For lots of us, it is impossible to find such a thing in a library or ask for an interlibrary loan (at least one that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg). We could argument it is not too hard to find a pirated copy, but that is close to the borders of our forum rules. So, I think the argument of the price vs. the real value should not be taken lightly.
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Re: Is Pimsleur still a great way to train accents?

Postby Xenops » Sat Sep 22, 2018 1:18 am

garyb wrote:
In short, your brain--through your ears--needs to first understand the new sound, before you can articulate it.


This goes against what I've read in several discussions on here that say the opposite: one needs to understand how a sound is produced in order to hear it correctly. I think it's Cainntear who has brought this up and linked to studies in various threads, and having heard his accent in several languages I'm inclined to take him seriously. Some people can understand where the French R, for example, is pronounced just from hearing it enough times, but plenty others need an explanation of what to do with their mouth and throat. I didn't master the difference between "u" and "ou" in French until I read that one is a front vowel (like a rounded /i/) and the other is back (more so than in English), after which it became trivial; before that, I could tell that they were different but didn't have the first clue on what the difference actually was.


I have not read the Kjellin paper word-for-word--mainly I skimmed and focused on the "important" paragraph--but I am curious his method stacks up? From the reading I did, it sounds like he is supporting Pimsleur's concept. Or Anthony Lauder?
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