Qweas ( http://www.qweas.com/ )

I agree with you. It would be pointless for ChinesePod to suddenly try to appropriate the Pimsleur method. It wouldn’t exactly be a case of blazing new linguistic trails. I’m doing this because I believe there’s a chance to do something radically new, not in order to copy others. I know that pretty much goes for the rest of the team.

Ken Carroll

Pimsleur and a bunch of others sit at the opposite extreme of a continuum (think of a VERY long line with one sitting at each end). A few others cluster around the Pimsleur end (e.g. FSI), and the bulk of them are around the middle, but chinesepod is almost on its own way up the other end.

Some of us find Chinesepod isn’t enough, so we try stuff from down the other end. We like it, it works for us. Then we have a four way choice:

1. Use the more boring material at the Pimsleur end, that provides lots of repetition, practice, etc etc
2. Forget it, stick with chinesepod and make do
3. Use both approaches together
4. Change chinsepod to become a mixture of the two, to sit more centrally on that continuum

What we’re talking about here is tending towards number 4, and I can’t see any good coming of it, for any party.

Aunty Sue did a good job summarizing the key points of the pimsleur method, but she missed the most critical one: the language elements (vocab and gramar) are repeated at specific intervals through out the courses across lessons. And the intervals of repetion are not random, they are strategic and scientifically based. The pimsleur people claim that this feature is fundemental to their success.

But, this feature is not only missing from chinesepod, it is antithetical to the fundemental principal of chinesepod: Modularity. I have read (over and over) in this blog that Chinesepod does not want to impose an order on their lessons, that learning needs to be student directed, etc.

Certainly students need to be self directed and motivated, but I don’t think that providing a structure which makes learning more effective is in conflict with the learners initiative.

A couple months ago I did frequency analysis word used in the chinesepod lessons and “published” it in this blog. The study demonstrated that 75% of the vocabulary at any level is not repeated or repeated only once. Of course this is consistent with goal of modularity but it reduces the effectiveness of the material.

Both of these systems are pretty cool and make a huge contribution to set of materials available for learning mandarin. But personally, I prefer text books which offer dialogs and text in a convenient format (convenient in the sense that it is in a book not scattered across a web site). This allows me to review just by re-reading the passages. This, by the way, is my number one complaint of pimsleur: they do not provide any text (pinyin or hanzi) for review.

You’re right onto one of the beauties of Pimleur. Half the time, you simply repeat, but the rest of the time, you have to make it up. The instructor says “Señora Gomez is going to invite you to lunch. Please answer that you’re not able on any of the dates she offers.” To me, the very nugget of Pimsleur consists of the moments when you must jump in and - especially - come up with the right word order on your own.

As far as narrative is concerned, Pimsleur Spanish has much more humor than Pimsleur Chinese. But in both, there is a progression. It’s not like Rosetta Stone (today office supplies, tomorrow reptiles…)

My point is somewhat simple– memorization is not the same as memory.

What is more, I believe that most of the fun associated with learning a language comes from being successful. Success is impossible without moving the stuff you are learning from short term to long term memory.

There is no contradiction in being interested in memory AND the other things you mentioned.

Yes this person is not ‘whole’, but I think we spend a lot of time thinking about memory and not about the production, output and ways language really works. I really think that language learned ‘absent’ memorization tricks and false satisfaction can be much more pleasant, fun and well-retained.

It’s like calling a house a bunch of bricks, and I’m talking about what we call home. The bricks of language I have no disagreements with anyone, but I think teaching/learning about home/language is under represented.