Japanese Pimsleur Progress Report

[Fantt]

Seven lessons into Pimsleur Japanese I

I'm actually learning things! I doubt that people in Japan always speak so politely, but I feel like I'm getting a solid foundation on the language.

I have also learned to say, "Would you like to have a drink at my place?"

Heh.

Only 83 more lessons to go.

:-)

[blessed]

hehe, well done. :D

I just got it as well, but its really annoying, cause I'vew done japanese for a year, and I get most of the conversation on the last lessons, but sometimes don't get it on level 5. :( good program though.

[thereisnospoon]

I remember the first few lessons, about inviting someone out for a drink, then also how to understand their rejection :lol

[Fantt]

いいえ　けっこです。。。あとで

:d

[Sy-l]

Hi new here *Waves to everyone" I just started these lessons aswell. Nice to know other ppl are using pimsleurs lessons. :)

[Fantt]

Welcome! I'm awfully new here myself. I'm mainly using Pimsleur because a friend of mine is doing the Russian one and he was telling me how great they were.

[Fantt]

Does anyone have or know where to get the transcripts for these? I've seen posts with people talking about having the transcripts... where my best chance to find them?

Thanks!

[Sy-l]

I havnt seen any of them around but would be good if they were available. Well anyways ive completed the first units :D But only thing thats bothering me is that whenever i speak/listen to someone ill be thinking in romanji which aint good.

[PaulTB]

But only thing thats bothering me is that whenever i speak/listen to someone ill be thinking in romanji which aint good.
Quite right.

You should be thinking in romaji. :p

[Sy-l]

Nahnot really when i speak in cantonese i think in chinese. :s When i speak english then i think in romanji aswell. Maybe its cuz i dont know katikana/harigana. Kanji some of the words i reckognise in chinese.

[Fantt]

I'm beginning to think in both romaji AND kana when I'm listening to Pimsleur. Kind of a hybridized bastardization of the two. Probably not too good, but I'm slowly leaning towards kana, which may be ok.

Just finished lesson 15 last night. Doing 1 lesson a night seems to be working very well.

I've learned how to harass women, how to order beer and sake and how to beg for money.

[Sy-l]

I've learned how to harass women, how to order beer and sake and how to beg for money.

lol nice way to put what you learnt in to mind

[Fantt]

Some things Pimsleur has taught me to say in Japanese:

Goof afternoon! Would you like to have a drink back at my place?

Would you like to have dinner with me tonight? At 7 o'clock or 8? Ok, how about 10? Now?

Do you have any yen? Please give me 15 yen. Please give me 10 dollars. I have no dollars. Please give me dollars. I have no yen. Good evening! Please give me yen.

Good morning! I'd like 13 beers, please!

[Sy-l]

lol

Anybody happen to know the harigana/katakana/kanji for the phrases they teach you in pimsleurs?

arigatou
domo
konnichiwa
etc

[Glenn]

Check out Teach Yourself Japanese for writing basic greetings in hiragana. By the way, the are mostly written in hiragana. It's a bit more unusual to see them in kanji.

[Sy-l]

ちりか゜と　is that arigatou? or am i totally off?

[Glenn]

Somewhat close. It's ありがとう. Colloquially it's often abbreviated to just ありがと, though.

[msfi]

I've stopped using Pimsleur. I just can't learn without knowing how the words are spelled or what they mean. For example, in the second lesson you learn eigo-ga wa karimasu ka? (apologies for the romaji, I am having IME issues!) But when I heard it I thought it was 'agogo karimaska' or something. Icky. I'm not a strong auditory learner anyway.

So I'm going to stick with my textbook (Japanese for Everyone, which I really like) and it's tapes, watching NHK news etc. Works better for me.

I'll be in Japan in one month! Just for four days though :(

[Fantt]

Are you watching NHK news online? If so, can you share the link?

Thanks!

[David Hallgren]

Here are a few great links if you want to listen to or watch Japanese media, enjoy!

http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/ann/news/web/index4.html?now=20040531204415_300k
http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/japanese/tvnews_j.html
http://www.nhk.or.jp/r-news/
http://www.japanese-kanji.org/modules/xfsection/article.php?articleid=49

[msfi]

Not NHK online, the local TV station carries the nightly broadcast at 5:30am, so I tape it and watch it at a more reasonable hour :)

[Elizabeth]

http://www.nhk.or.jp/r-news/


I've been able to get this one to work exactly twice, the vast majority of the tries there's either an unable to find the specified file message or nothing.
I love reading and listening to Japanese news, so it would be great if something could get it to happen more consistently. :-)

[Fantt]

Thanks for the links! Elizabeth, I got that link to work the first time I tried it. Well, I got one of the links on that page to start playing audio...

[PaulTB]

I love reading and listening to Japanese news, so it would be great if something could get it to happen more consistently. :-)
FNN-NEWS always works for me.

What player do you use for the
http://www.nhk.or.jp/r-news/
link?
It worked first time with Windows Media Player 9

[Fantt]

More of an update now:

I finished Lesson 18 last night. If you look on the Learning Japanese topic, I have a post there about some frustrations I've begun running into. Basically, I don't want to parrot Pimsleur - I want to more or less understand what they're saying and why. For the most part, my limited knowledge of Japanese is serving me well here, but some of the stuff I just have no clue on the why part.

The more I think about it, the more I feel I may just forge ahead and not worry too much about fully understanding the why part. I think it will come in time and the more that I can expose myself to now, the better off I will be in the long run. I think that as long as I continue to study outside of Pimsleur, I'll be ok.

Only 72 more lessons to go!

[Sy-l]

Don't worry about it too much Fantt we'll get through it together :p

iie desu ka?

[Fantt]

hai, ii desu.

What lesson are you on? How's it going for you?

[Sy-l]

I'm on Lesson 31 Level 2 atm

[tekk2k]

Hi, I am new to the forum. I am on lesson 18. I thinks it pretty good. But I find it wierd that they would teach you how to ask someone out to dinner before they teach you to introduce yourself. Does anybody else find that weird?

[Fantt]

Yes. :D Hang on, though, because they teach introductions in just a couple of lessons. I think I'll be doing lesson 21 tonight, so we're pretty close in our progress.

[tekk2k]

Yes. :D Hang on, though, because they teach introductions in just a couple of lessons. I think I'll be doing lesson 21 tonight, so we're pretty close in our progress.


Hey thats pretty cool. I am just doing the pimsleur right now. Are you using any other helpful tools for learning japanese?

[Fantt]

Yeah... I've spent way too much money over the years aquiring stuff to learn Japanese. I've only recently gotten serious (again). I'm also using the Nakama 1 text book, the Instant Immersion Japanese software, Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, and I have various other grammar related books that I turn to when confused.

[Sensebend]

I have completed to lesson 3, I just listen to them over and over again (until I understand what is being said) and try to match the words with my Japanese dictionary and write them in kana and romaji.

[myrrhine]

i've liked pimsleur so far, all 8 lessons - now attacking the kana with the japanese for busy people kana version and their 'learn kana' book - i'm liking the combination.

i figure if i'm not hardcore about it, i'll never really make myself learn the kana (time for kanji later...), but pimsleur's a good way to actually figure out how to say things rather than spending weeks only reading things outloud to myself r-e-a-l-l-y-s-l-o-w-l-y...

[Sy-l]

Cool more people using Pimsleur! GL with that :) So hows your progess coming along then Fantt.

[Fantt]

I think I'm on lesson 29 Part I. I'm not doing them 1 a day like I was - it was taking up too much time, but I still think they're very much worth doing. Part II is going to go even slower because I want to create my own transcript notes as I go.

[BamaFan2989]

cough cough is there a way to get the audio with torrent? cough cough

excuse me

[Fantt]

If there were, you'd probably have to find it using some sort of search tool. We can't discuss that on these forums.

[Sally_Hawn]

Pimsleur is really a practical tool to learn how to speak a foreign language. I think it deserves customers' "financial supports" to keep the program alive.

[BamaFan2989]

oh i was talking about something else

i was talking about Japanese for Busy People

sorry wrong thread

[myrrhine]

say, about transcripts - does anyone happen to know if there are official transcripts out there anywhere? or if someone's posted their own transcripts online somewhere? i know it's all supposed to aural and whatnot, but i think transcripts would help me sometimes - or perhaps just vocab lists?

[Fantt]

Myrrhine, PM me your email address and I can send you someone's "notes" for Pimsleur Level 1 (Lessons 1-30). It has transcripts of the dialogues and new vocabulary and grammar notes for each lesson.

[Bagaboo]

Hi guys! I am REALLY new at this forum.
I have been listening to Pimsleur the past few days, 5 to be exact and just like Fantt I started doing one every night, let us just hope that I will continue doing that in the future.

Pimsleur seems to be a very good program for beginners, especially when you hear how they say it over and over again; it is really hard to forget some of the words they use.

I have written transcript notes along, not so many right now thought but if anyone is interested I can e-mail them.

[TwistedMac]

I'm on 6.. again.
i did 1-8, but it took me like 3 weeks, cuz i kept forgetting to do them..

Then I took a break and started from scratch.. now i've done 1-6.. and then one more 6.. and then again.. 6..(so that's 8 days for 1-6) I'll do 7 tommorra... I can't seem to get anywhere, and if they smack more than 6 words together, I get confused.. daym I suck at this... I wanna be able to atleast remember every new word of the lesson before I move on :p

[Fantt]

Yay! I finished Part I of Pimsleur - all 30 lessons! Of course, I think I need to go through the last 5 lessons a couple more times though, but for the most part I pretty much understand the lessons. Yay!

[myrrhine]

congrats!
me i just did lesson 11 which didn't go so well since it was about a week since i did lesson 10. tabe-what? heh...

anyways, i've been borrowing so far and was thinking of buying, perhaps a used version and i was wondering if anyone knew if there are different editions - more importantly, if there are big differences between different editions. is lesson 15 of pimsleur from a few years ago going to be much different from lesson 15 as it sounds today?

[Fantt]

I don't think it would be a big problem. I think that all the Pimsleur stuff is about 30+ years old and deal with fairly universal stuff. I still find it very amusing that you spend the first 10 lessons or so learning how to hit up Japanese women. Maybe that's a bit dated.... nah...

[RJ_91]

Hey everyone! New to this forum and currently studying Pimsleur Japanese I. I am on lesson 16 so I have already developed some pick up lines from the previous lessons. :-)
Its getting kinda tough as the sentences are getting longer. I am going to really sit down and take some notes now - something I recommend doing from the beggining.

Good luck to everyone. I'll give an update next week!

[Sy-l]

Nice to know more ppl using it :)

I'm having trouble cramming level 2 lesson 2 in my head lol especially when they make you repeat summink about leaving and the sentence is like EXTRA long.

[Fantt]

I'm trying to create a transcript/notes document for Pimsleur Part II. It's TOUGH! I'm having a heck of a time getting through the sample dialogue. I think I've finally done it. Anyone with Pimsleur II like to take a look at my first transcript and see if it jibes with what you hear on your copy?

[vartotojas]

Well, i do learn Pimsleur's French and am at the 26th lesson of the second course (i usually take one lesson a day). I am also interested in japanese, mostly because of anime, but that's another story. :wave:
Anyway, the course is kinda too long. It's ok that it repeats words and this makes me remember, but it's getting really boring. I get two or three new words every lesson now, which is not hard to remember. I don't feel content about waisting 30 minutes for learning 3 words. And plus, it almost doesn't explain any grammar. This sucks. I know about that 'learn like a child' and etc crap, but I've got Michel Thomas French Course and in less than 3 hours I've repeated the same and even learned more, what I learned with the whole Pimsleur's I-st course.
Another thing that the course is made like for a tourist (there is that street, how do i get to the bulovard, etc). I want to learn the language, not to waste time.
However, i've started the course and am not going to end it in the middle. It will teach me some french, but i don't feel that i'll achieve sufficient level after these three courses (even though it's more than 35 hours of learning, after all).

[myrrhine]

well haven't touched pimsleur for a while now (tsk tsk) but i've been doing quite a bit of work in my japanese for busy people... which makes me appreciate pimsleur all the more. i'm with vartotojas in that it spends way too much time on some things - but! i've realized that over time that it has successfully led to my retaining the knowledge! whereas jfbp has not to the same extent. i'd say sum total they've both taught be about as much, though i've progressed further in the jfbp.
sigh, revision time... ah language learning!

anyone looking at this trying to decide how to begin chipping away at japanese, pimsleur's great, but i found it much more helpful once i started using it in conjunction with a more standard textbook. it's especially helped my understanding of the particles. oh those particles...

righty-ho, particle time!
particle man, particle man...

[Fantt]

does the things a particle can!

[BrownCow]

I have done the first 4 lessons an then pritty much gave up... because I was busy 'n' stuff.

I will try my dangdist to complete it next year though! :balloon:

[hayashi]

I just finished lesson 90 last week, which I think is everything Pimsleur has to offer. I wish there were more lessons because it is very helpful listening to people speak. I don't have anything negative to say about the series except that I wish I had notes on each of the lessons. Sometimes, they revisit things learned in earlier lessons and I can't remember all of it.

Living in Southern California, I spend a lot of time in the car so it was pretty easy to just listen to one lesson a day. Overall, it took me about 9 months to get through all 90 lessons because I listened to every lesson twice. Stick with it and you'll learn a lot.

[vartotojas]

Hontoni?
And can you understand ex. what is said in animes, etc?
Like, watching an anime (if you do watch them) app. what part (percents) you can understand?

I have finished my french course a while ago, but i don't feel like having learned a lot. I just can barely understand it and i am not satisfied about the course. Dunno, maybe the japanese course is better?

[hayashi]

After completing Pimsleur, you will NOT understand everything that is said in anime. You will understand bits and pieces but you will still need subtitles. Pimsleur provides a pretty decent INTRODUCTION to Japanese but it really just scratches the surface. This is not a criticism of Pimsleur, which I enjoyed and think was worthwhile, but more of a comment on how much there is to learn. 90 lessons of 30 minute length is only 45 hours of learning and a lot of that is repetition to make sure it "sticks," so there's only so much you can learn in that amount of time.

Pimsleur's 90 lessons do not ever, for example, get into the plain verb forms but instead stick to the polite forms. When you watch anime or Jdoramas, most of the grammar you hear uses the plain form. Also, as in real life, people don't always speak in complete sentences in animes and doramas. Plus, there are lots of idiomatic expressions in Japanese (and in every language) that you just can't pick up in a 45 hour course.

I would highly recommend Pimsleur for what it is, but you should look at it as a introductory tool rather than something that is going to give you the degree of proficiency needed to understand anime.

[oc_sportbiker]

I have 3 scanned Reading booklets (pdf) that are about 30 pages each.
cannot attach them. this is a 12 meg rar file. if somebody would let me upload to a site that will host it, we can share it.

joel@softwareoutlet.com

[Fantt]

If those are the ones that come with the Pimsleur discs they're probably copyrighted and if so we can't freely share them (or least not talk about it here).

[oceanfr]

you can try yousendit.com

[yorkii]

good stuff... i wasn't aware that there was such a following of Pimsluers Japanese, i feel like ive been slacking seeing the progress of Mr. Fantt..!

ill have to catch up.

i'm only on lesson 15 :(

ill use this thread to post any problems i have..!

:happy:

[razen]

hello ppl!!

i am so hapi to find many ppl using pimsluer. im no alone.

hey i was wondering if someone can direct to where i can download the the transcipts of the japanese dialogues. there are some words that im not so sure if i am hearing it correctly. knowing how a word is spelled would really help. romaji only, i dont know kana.

[Ben W Bell]

I've only got to lesson 16. I must say I don't do it every day, and sometimes I do other things. Flicking through JfBP, All About Particles, A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns, Japanese Core Words and Phrases: Things You Can't Find In A Dictionary, trying to get my Hiragana mastered and some other bits. I'm progressing slowly but feel I'm getting a better grounding in the language. I do like the Pimsleur though, but the transcripts are very useful.

[DaMaNiAc]

I've been trying to do the pimsleur tapes as well as I am visiting Japan in September. It's just trying to fit the time to actually sit down and listen to them. Currently up to Lesson 16 :D

[Juice]

Just do them while on the toilet like I do. It really gives you some quiet time to concentrate

[Ben W Bell]

Just do them while on the toilet like I do. It really gives you some quiet time to concentrate

And some really strange looks from people who walked by while you were in there I bet. :-)

[cacawate]

Yeah, Pimsleur does get a bit repetitive, but it sticks no doubt. I'm doing Pimsleur's Norwegian right now and all I hear in my head all day is 'Forstår du Norsk?' 'Nei, jeg forstår ikke Norsk.' Oh man, it's getting to me... 'Hvordan har du det?' 'Bare bra, takk!'

Oh, on a side note. I think we should have a Scandinavian section here; headed up by the one and only Twisted Mac.

Back to Pimsleur! 'Snakker du Engelsk?' Ahhhhh...

-Jeff

[Vinylhoer]

I just finished lesson 18. Sometimes I take a lesson everyday, but other times I don't do any lessons for a week or so. Then I have to go a few lessons back because I forgot the newest things.
I'm glad I have the notes for level I, because they are very helpfull. During the lessons I can check the way the words are written which helps me with my pronounciation. And after each lesson I can take some time to check what new grammar was introduced exactly.

[yorkii]

I just finished lesson 18. Sometimes I take a lesson everyday, but other times I don't do any lessons for a week or so. Then I have to go a few lessons back because I forgot the newest things.
I'm glad I have the notes for level I, because they are very helpfull. During the lessons I can check the way the words are written which helps me with my pronounciation. And after each lesson I can take some time to check what new grammar was introduced exactly.

where did you get the notes from dude..?

[Bramicus]

I don't think it would be a big problem. I think that all the Pimsleur stuff is about 30+ years old and deal with fairly universal stuff. I still find it very amusing that you spend the first 10 lessons or so learning how to hit up Japanese women. Maybe that's a bit dated.... nah...If you listen to his other languages, you'll find that he teaches almost exactly the same things at the same times, in each language. Pimsleur's taught me how to hit up women in four different languages already -- and be turned down in each of them! :lol:

I'm currently listening and re-listening to the first two discs (four lessons) of the second volume of Pimsleur Japanese. I had the same frustrations as [someone mentioned above] in not knowing the written versions of what was being said; the transcriptions you (Fantt) sent me for volume 1 were a tremendous help -- thank you, thank you!!! I only wish I had transcriptions for the second (and third) volumes as well, so I can be sure of exactly what is being said.

To see what other progress (or lack thereof) and frustrations I am having, see my other post in this forum, Computer reading/speaking program needed (http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16975).

[Fantt]

As soon as I get done going through the Genki texts (both volumes), I'm going to work on creating transcripts for Pimsleur II and III. I'm only on lesson 5 of Genki (out of 23), so it will probably be 4 to 6 months before I begin. I may actually create a seperate document for each lesson that I work through and post that so people can help me correct any errors that I introduce. We can also work on getting the proper kanji where they belong and maybe I'll figure out how to through in the furigana too. It should be an interesting excersize. Then at the end, I'll combine everything into one giant document and get sued by Pimsleur. :wave:

Actually, I'm not sure what the legality of it is, but I'd never sell it, and I'm not sure how useful it would be outside of the audio.

[Bramicus]

I've seen it, and I don't think there's any copyright problem with what you're doing. You're not copying the audio tracks, you're not doing a word-by-word transcription, you're not doing it for profit, and you're doing it to help people who are studying from the legitimately purchased Pimsleur recordings. So I highly doubt it runs afoul of copyright, and in any case it would be fair use.

[slider]

Hi folks Im using the Pimsleur Japanese dictation and have reached chapter 20 however Im finding it difficult hearing the ga sounds in the following sentences and similar 'nanin kodomosan ga imasu ka' anyone else have trouble with hearing them...i cant hear the g in ga at all..... :(

[Bramicus]

Yes; they speak quickly on purpose (so you can learn to understand actual conversation in real life), and often swallow sounds, for often example when "g" follows "n" and vice-versa: the two merge sometimes.

[slider]

doumo arigatou !!

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

[slider]

Incidently I managed to get hold of some Pimsleur notes however they dont seem to correspond exactly to whats on the tapes...must be a different edition :(

still useful though

[Ben W Bell]

The British edition is slightly different to the US edition, and the notes in circulation pertain to the US edition. The differences are very slight however, mainly pertaining to nationality related issues (pounds/dollars, English/American etc)

[slider]

aa so desu ka ?

Hey without meaning to dump in this thread whereabouts in the UK are you BEN

doko ni sunde imasu ka ??

[Ben W Bell]

Canterbury, Kent ni sunde imasu. Anata wa?

[slider]

Belfast, Airurando ni sunde imasu. :)

[Ben W Bell]

Belfast, Airurando ni sunde imasu. :)
Ha, I'm a Comber lad born and bred, but living in England now.

Comber, Kita-Airurando.

[slider]

Happy days Im living in Newtownabbey at the moment however moving to Lisburn in the very near future. How do you find peoples reactions to you learning Japanese ie friends and family. Im having my back ripped out of me at the moment...lol.....

O-shigoto wa nan desu ka.

what do you do for a living ?? *says sorry to admin for going off topic* :)

[Bramicus]

** deleted - posted up in "grammar and sentences" **

[Kazeki]

I finally have the Original notes for Pimsleur Japanese I-III. If anyone wants it, I will post it.

[hayashi]

That would be great Kazeki.

[Ben W Bell]

I have the notes for Japanese 1. 2 and 3 would be great.

[Vinylhoer]

where did you get the notes from dude..?
Late reply I know, but I found it with Emule.

[Vinylhoer]

I have the notes for Japanese 1. 2 and 3 would be great.
I think some overenthousiastic person made those notes on CD 1. If you want 2 and 3 you're gonna have to do it yourself :D

[hayashi]

I have the notes for set 1 that look like they were made by someone else. I've never seen notes for sets 2 and 3 though.

[Kazeki]

The files are too big, so I will be posting it bit by bit, but not back to back. I do not want to seem like I am spamming.

[scottrat1963]

the whole purpose of pimsleur is to listen and repeat,,,to learn the language the same way you learned your native language... i think it is a good method but,,,,i noticed some editing mistakes very early in the series and stopped using it....the best way is to have a teacher....a lot of textbooks have errors or don't use the exact sentence pattern for all of the sentences in an excercise...so you won't know if you are making a mistake...if you try to be sef-taught,you can run into a lot of mistakes...

[Bramicus]

I was very disappointed to learn they don't use all native speakers, but I still find it very valuable, especially since I live in a location where native teachers are just not available if one works during the day and cannot take classes during normal weekday college class hours.

[flipper]

Just stumbled onto this site. Kazeki thatks for the posted pdf. I am on lesson 14 and these are an excellent review and clarification of some of the terminology. I eagerly look forward to pressing on with the lessons.

flipper

[thebestknockout1]

The files are too big, so I will be posting it bit by bit, but not back to back. I do not want to seem like I am spamming.

Bit by bit, huh? So, when is the second bit coming out?

[Ben W Bell]

Bit by bit, huh? So, when is the second bit coming out?

When he said bit by bit, he literally meant one computer bit at a time. We should have part two by 2017 :wave:

[jadepearl]

Hope I am not too late in joining in....

I too am using Pimsleur Japanese and I am currently doing lesson 3 / PJ I. Hopefully by lesson 30, I will be able to understand a little japanese without reading the sub-titles.

How are you all doing?

[Bucko]

Japanese and I am currently doing lesson 3 / PJ I. Hopefully by lesson 30, I will be able to understand a little japanese without reading the sub-titles.

How are you all doing?

Lesson 3? Ah, those were the days (only about four months ago in fact). I'm up to lesson 17 of volume II. I can say a lot now, but still there is so much more to know, as Pimsleur moves quite slowly and is very repetitive (which is why I like it). I actually moved to Japan 3 weeks ago and have found what I've learnt from Pimsleur to be invaluable when requesting things at a shop/internet cafe etc. For example, asking if they have something in store, asking if we have to pay now or later, what time they're open until, asking someone on the street where something is, asking someone about their family - how many children they have, how old they are etc., asking people what they do, where they work etc. etc. One problem that I've noticed is that my listening is terrible. I turn on the TV and can't understand anything except for a few random words here and there. This is probably because Pimsleur's doesn't train you to listen, only to speak. I haven't done anything yet to improve my listening, I'm waiting until I get to the end of volume III before I take the next step in my Japanese study - probably improve my knowledge of grammatical forms as well as more kanji as I need to know 300 of them for the JLPT test I'm taking in December.

Now that I'm in Japan and have a fair bit of time over the next month, my aim is to do between 2-4 lessons a day, which means I'll have the whole thing completed in about 3 weeks. It's hard sometimes though as some lessons are much tougher than others. Lesson 17 in volume II, for example, I am finding quite tough as it has introduced a lot of new vocab and new sentences (i.e. the "doko no" form which I can't understand - it's ok, was only introduced to it today! As well as the plain "~ing" form, i.e. ~te iru, ).

I guess it has taken me quite a while to get up to the point I'm at. Apart from not having much spare time before coming to Japan, this is probably becuase I like to spend a lot of time studying the grammar when a new grammatical form is introduced. For example, I'm still trying to come to terms as to why "ookiku naramashita" means "became big" when for so long I thought that replacing the last "i" on an adjective with a "ku" turned it negative. After researching I have found that this is not the case with the verb naru (or narimashita), meaning "to become", as changing the "i" to "ku" can also illustrate that a process over time has taken place (i.e. to "become" big). I think this is right?? If someone wants to correct me then please. Anyway, I'm rambling...

How about we try and get this thread moving again. Who else is using Pimsleur and how are you finding it? What are you up to, and if anyone has completed up to the end of volume III how do you consider yourself now? As for me, I'd really like to know what other (more complex?) gramatical forms you learn in volume III.

Cheers,

Bucko (which, as a Japanese person pointed out, sounds like "baka") :blush:

[theknife]

Hey everyone, this is my first pop here. Anyway, I have received the Pimsleur 1 Notes (Original Work) that seems to be one of the hot topics around here and have posted it to my website. http://mp3japan.flywebs.com/

I am on lesson 24 of unit one and I plan on making an attempt at rendering notes in a fashion similar to that of the previous unknown author for unit 2. I, by all means, expect to fail because it will be unlikely that I can understand what they say well enough to spell it. Nonetheless, if anyone has started and given up on the project, or just has a list of words that they use in unit two, I would appreciate the documentation that has already been rendered.

-theknife

[chocolate]

I am now starting with lesson 31, however, I found it quite difficult to remember the contents since I dont have a level 2 notes. I am kinda used to 'read' something while I am listening. Do u guys have the same problem?

[Bucko]

Do u guys have the same problem?

No, I don't have that problem at all. When I listen I have Jim Breen's Japanese/English dictionary website open, so when I hear a new word I type it in and read the full definition. If I don't type it in correctly I use other possible pronounciations until I find the correct one (although if you don't know how hiragana/romaji works then this'll be tough, see below). By the stage you're at it's also an idea to study up grammar, particularly occasions when you would use 'wo' ('o') instead of 'ga', and occasions when they say 'n' rather than 'ga', or when the 'wo' is sort of hidden, like in 'shigoto wo shimasu' (it sounds like a long "shigotooo shimasu" but isn't at all, and it's important to know that it isn't). Also, it's an idea to learn hiragana so you can spell out words correctly in English. For example, in hiragana the word for "today" is spelt "kyou", but in English, or romaji rather, you can spell it "kyoo". If you don't know the correct spelling then you won't be able to use a dictionary properly. Hiragana is really easy, it took me a few hours to learn them all. You don't even really need to learn them all too, just how they work. For example, the word for "is closed" sounds like "shima-te" but when you type in hiragana you need to know that there's a double-t in there to spell it correctly, making it shimatte, or, しまって and not しまて (shimate).

On the subject of Jim Breen's Japanese dictionary (URL: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html), I highly recommend that you learn how to use it properly, spend a few hours just fiddling around, it makes life so much easier. And write down the vocab and phrases too, it helps big time for me.

If you've been listening by ear the whole time it's likely that you're mishearing many words (I do when I don't have a dictionary on hand), so I think it's really important that you can visually see the word being spoken.

That's all for now. I'm up to unit 24 of volume II, can't wait to finally get to volume III. I'm going through it pretty quickly at the moment, hopefully will finish vol II by Friday!

Gambatte yo!

[chocolate]

thanks Bucko!
I might have to jot note while I am listening! I actually know all the hiragara, and I can guess most of the meanings of kanji (I am Chinsese). The most difficult part for me is to know the grammar and figure out the correct spellings of the words which I heard from the CD. I will start looking up the grammar book! Thank you for your advice!! :)
gambatteru!

[xxalex]

The files are too big, so I will be posting it bit by bit, but not back to back. I do not want to seem like I am spamming.

Could you please post the other 2 pdfs - the first one is fantastic. I really wish Pimsluer would publish transcripts - I want to learn how to write and talk - and it's annoying learning different words in the audio course and the written course.

[chocolate]

Could you please post the other 2 pdfs - the first one is fantastic. I really wish Pimsluer would publish transcripts - I want to learn how to write and talk - and it's annoying learning different words in the audio course and the written course.

Agree.. Pleaseeeeeeeeeeee.............

[cliff320]

i am doing well on pimsleur and should be on pimsleur II by the end of the month. if anybody has the transcripts for the 2nd and 3rd sets of pimsleur, i would greatly appreciate if you could post it here or send me a copy. thanks!

[yukio_michael]

There is only one transcript for pimsleur japanese, and it is for PJ I, it's fan-written, I believe... so...

Here is the problem with pimsleur, the explanations of gramar are pretty weak, its strong point is that it atempts to teach you listening comprehension, however, it leaves so much out that unless you have a better knowledge of Japanese, you'll simply not learn certain things, like you should.

There are however a lot of free audio podcasts out there, which provide transcripts (hello pimsleur--- reading makes us learn what we've heard even moreso)... It was simply laziness on pimsleur's behalf--- Not only this, the podcast sites realise that it helps when someone slows down, yukuri, yukuri... you'll hear this when you teach English to a friend, slowly, you can use this to ask someone to say something slower--- it's rediculous that every dialogue in pimsleur is so fast that you have to listen to it 10 times in a row to be sure that you've caught the language correctly--- and there is no way to verify you did, because you don't have transcripts... poor... quite poor.

It teaches words and phrases that are quite frankly, useless... instead of teaching you the word for 'dolar', it should teach you how to shop for food at a store and get back realistic ammounts of yen, not 11-13-15 yen...

Last, I have a feeling that the audio was created ages ago for some sort of Consular education program, would it kill them to get a native Japanese speaker to explain the Japanese, instead of, as is normal for the more grating audio lessons, an obviously white american male?

You'll learn quite a lot of un-natural Japanese in many different texts, but pimsleur seems to make it it's center piece.

Gambatte yo!You should use ganbaru, instead of ganbatte, ganbatte is said mainly by women. ;)

[cliff320]

any podcast recommendations?

[yukio_michael]

http://www.japanesepod101.com/

...also, this list is pretty extensive for study material (including audio & podcasts): http://www.manythings.org/japanese/links/

[ichigosweet]

Hey there everybody! I was lucky enough to stumble across this great forum through google and signed up immediately!

At the moment, I am on lesson 8 of Pimsleur Japanese II and can read all my kana and some kanji.

I'm curious if any of you have the transcripts for pimsleur japanese II and III? And if so, could you please send them to me somehow? I'd appreciate it. <3

[leonmarino]

JapanesePod101 is hilarious! I just listened to some lesson on "speed dating"

Man - Hello my name is tokunaga
Woman - Hello my name is fujisawa. How much is you yearly income
Man - About 5 million yen
Woman - It is higher than the previous man, but I want at least 10 million yen

Haha.. Then she goes on that he is too short for her by two centimetres.. Hilarious stuff..

[yukio_michael]

JapanesePod101 is hilarious! I just listened to some lesson on "speed dating"
Man - Hello my name is tokunaga
Woman - Hello my name is fujisawa. How much is you yearly income
Man - About 5 million yen
Woman - It is higher than the previous man, but I want at least 10 million yen
Haha.. Then she goes on that he is too short for her by two centimetres.. Hilarious stuff..It's pretty funny and informal, comparitively to a lot of Japanese audio lessons which tend to be washed out in quality, stiff, and very un-natural... but I see now, they've started to charge for their lesson notes... I guess there's nothing free in this world.

I think it's a good resource though.

[mteric]

こんにちは皆さん。

I was browsing the web today and stumbled on this thread. I, also, am using the Pimsleur's Japanese program. It works very well for me.

I have a question regarding Japanese II, Unit 4. In the beginning dialog, and later on in the lesson, they say the name of a Japanese coffee shop. It's something like でいえん or でんえん. Does anybody know the correct spelling?

ありがとう！

[johnmarco]

does anyone have the notes of pimsleur japanese I,II,II? I would appreciate it?

[mizambal]

johnmarco, just read this topic ;)

[suz135]

I posted some study notes, transcript for Pimsleur Japanese II.
http://theotherpathx.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html