sábado, 29 de marzo de 2008

Pimsleur



This is a very interesting concept in memory-training. To be honest, I'm frankly very impressed with their system, and I take a lot of impressing. I'm using Pimsleur courses at the minute for both Cantonese and Polish, and am finding them both very satisfying!

Realistically, it'll take a lot more than a few hours of CDs to achieve the fluency you're looking for, but for a complete beginner, these seem to be a great way to start!

Watch out, though: they do rather seem to assume that you're an American man! And they're VERY focused on the spoken form of the language; little reading and no writing. Very little grammar. But great focus on pronunciation and their way of helping you to remember the words works for me!

2 comentarios:

Anónimo dijo...

Ha - if only a bunch of beginners cds would do the trick for me. The best - and most frustrating - advice I ever got about how to master a language: master a very closely related one, and then you'll find the target much easier. Ha, ha. But I've got to admit, it's true. I laboured for years - YEARS - over blasted German and am now picking up Dutch like its...well, something very easy. Talk about the long way round...!

rocinante dijo...

hee hee! you're quite right, always travelling!! i have to say, though, that learning ANY language will help in learning any other one. all that work with german cases will help with latin, russian or polish.
enjoy your dutch!