Beyond Pimsleur

[chrisnhong]

The Pimsleur CDs are excellent, they have a nice low learning curve, but they stop at a fairly simple stage. I tend to spend some time sitting in traffic, so I learnt a good deal from them, but I haven't found anything similar to extend my knowledge easily. Doesn't need a low learning curve, but finding audio courses that have more than just Chinese is difficult.

 

I now have to spend precious time reading, sometimes watching DVDs etc. For those that have been through this to fluency, what did you find helped most after finishing Pimsleur?

[lele]

The Pimsleur CDs are excellent, they have a nice low learning curve, but they stop at a fairly simple stage.  I tend to spend some time sitting in traffic, so I learnt a good deal from them, but I haven't found anything similar to extend my knowledge easily.  Doesn't need a low learning curve, but finding audio courses that have more than just Chinese is difficult.

 

I now have to spend precious time reading, sometimes watching DVDs etc.  For those that have been through this to fluency, what did you find helped most after finishing Pimsleur?

I do not know.

 

Rong will finish the series today at my University and we are wondering what to do next.

 

There are so many books, CD's, DVD's, and other supplies, as well as a plethora of language schools (the first two I went into to screen seemed like they were pretty crappy).

 

If I did not have to go to school, I would teach her intensively myself, but given the time, and the confidence on her part, I do not think that this is ideal.

 

Any advice?

 

Thanks!

[DocMartin817]

I use Pimsleur when I am driving to and from work. I have bought a number of CDs most of which are not very good. But I did get a fairly cheap but legal copy of the Rosetta Stone on EBay and I like that program for home study. Also lots of my Messenger talk with Liwen includes short language lessons.

[leejcandle]

I used Pimseluer is too basic, even at level 3. I've used Rosetta Stone for both Mandarin and Japanese with pretty good results. I bought a copy for Julia. Rosetta Stone is quite structured, and it's very good for pronunciation drills. Julia has already improved in her use of plurals after only maybe a week and a half.

 

Where I've gotten surprising help is from the "250 Essential Chinese Characters for Everyday Use" series. I have the books and the flash cards. I was thinking I'm going to learn more characters. But they include good example sentences, which is unexpectedly introducing me to more vocabulary.

The problem with that series is I don't think it's good for beginners; or at least you need a dictionary along with the books and flash cards.

 

I've started writing and translating a few example sentences for Julia from our everday goings-on. We've had a couple of misunderstandings simply because she overused or misused a particular phrase.

 

For the benefit of your Chinese or Vietnamese SO's, my Asian friends from China or Vietnam tell me their greatest language aid was watching TV; lots of it.

[Carl]

8 months and you got a two year visa. That is an amazing timeline. It appears that our Department of Homeland Security and Department of State can learn a few things from your Visa department.

[chrisnhong]

It probably took a month longer than it should have. My lawyer's office sat on the request for medicals for 3 weeks before I got them, then I made the mistake of sending them to my SO by air mail. Took more than 2 weeks. As previously noted, it's a 3 step process. Apply, wait, send medicals, wait, interview. My SO made a mess of the interview, but my lawyer contacted the consulate, they interviewed me, visa granted.

 

The US process seems to need a whole language lesson in and of itself.

[chrisnhong]

Our television is going digital here, so I will be able to buy a set-top box to provide subtitles for everything broadcast here. That will be useful for my wife to learn, particularly if I can watch at the same time.

 

I don't think that it works that well the other way. The lack of a phonic system means that it's tougher to marry up the text with the words being said. I'm well on the way to learning my characters, but it's tough going.

 

I hate learning off a computer. I bought a good package when in China, but I've been using the recorded speech to make my own, very basic version of the Pimsleur stuff. It's the best way I can think of to learn stuff thoroughly...

[david_dawei]

This is a plug on book learning... I have bought many books on chinese learning and found one author superior to the rest.

 

He is: Yong Ho. If you do a search,you should find a few books by him. His "frequency dictionary" is great. His "beginner's chinese" explained many of the problems I encountered with the language... he also publish's an intermediate book.