Pimsleur European Portuguese: new, expanded edition

[Speakeasy]

For those of you who are not on Simon & Schuster’s mailing list for their Pimsleur courses, you might be interested to know that a new edition of Pimsleur European Portuguese has just been released. The previous edition contained only 10 lesson units, whereas the new, expanded edition contains 30 lesson units. In my opinion, if you already have the Pimsleur Brazilian Portuguese course, you need not purchase the European Portuguese version as other alternatives exist for developing an appreciation for the minor differences in usage and pronunciation.

[peterbeischmidt]

On the subject of new Pimsleur courses, does anyone know whether there exists an overview of the different generations or versions?

More specifically, has anyone used the old Pimsleur Russian course?

[Speakeasy]

I, too, have searched for such a listing in the past, but have not been able to locate one. However, I admit that I did not bother asking the publisher, Simon & Schuster, as my curiosity on the matter was at a rather low level.

Nonetheless, from my personal experience with the Pimsleur programmes for French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, and German, I am under the impression that the "differences" between the various editions are quite minor and perhaps even inconsequential, such as the publication of new "editions" following the adoption of the Euro, whereas the majority of the "true" content remained unchanged. Yes, I can appreciate that currencies do matter and that language-teaching materials should reflect actual use. However, in the cases that I had an opportunity to review, these were, for all practical purposes, the only changes worthy of note.

As to Pimsleur Russian, I purchased a used set online, a couple of years ago, that seems to be a mixture of the 2nd and 3rd editions. I greatly appreciated the learning experience with the Pimsleur French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, and German programmes, despite the requirement of having to intuit the grammar and the absence of a simple glossary. However, for Pimsleur Polish and Pimsleur Russian, I found the additional effort of deducing the case system and the verb structure so onerous that I did not complete either programme and I reverted to the major audio-lingual methods instead. For this reason, I cannot comment on what differences might exist between the current and any previous editions. Rather, the intent of my reply is to underscore that, for me, the inherent weaknesses of the Pimsleur method become more apparent as the target languages differ from those that have strong links with my own language base ... does this make me a "language wuss"?

[peterbeischmidt]

As to Pimsleur Russian, I purchased a used set online, a couple of years ago, that seems to be a mixture of the 2nd and 3rd editions.

I found the first eight lessons of an older Pimsleur Russian course. Apparently, the main difference is that the older course emphasizes polite forms such as 'Не хотели бы вы ...'
whereas the newer one relies on the plain form such as 'Вы хотите ...'. I still don't know how many lessons it contains. 16? 30?