{"id":223904,"date":"2016-03-25T06:06:47","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T20:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=223904"},"modified":"2016-03-25T06:06:47","modified_gmt":"2016-03-24T20:06:47","slug":"an-ear-for-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/an-ear-for-language\/","title":{"rendered":"An ear for language"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a typical day on Saipan you can hear a half-dozen languages spoken. It’s not surprising, then, that many Saipan Tribune<\/em> readers are familiar with the audio-based language courses from a brand called Pimsleur, a name widely recognized among the international set. Pimsleur has been expanding its inventory of courses lately. I contacted the New York headquarters so I could get an update on their activity. <\/p>\n

I’ll start with this item: On March 8, Pimsleur released a new “level” of its Mandarin Chinese course, Level 5. I know a few people who have been waiting for the release, so, well, it’s finally here. I’ll take a closer look at it in a future column.<\/p>\n

As for the broader picture, Pimleur’s basic structure remains unchanged. Each Pimsleur level is built around a core of 30 audio lessons. Each lesson is about 30 minutes long. The levels also include various supplemental learning materials. <\/p>\n

Pimsleur has offerings in over 50 languages, but only their five most popular languages have been developed into five levels. <\/p>\n

Which languages are the most popular with Pimsleur customers? Spanish gets top status. It’s followed by French, Italian, German, and Mandarin. So, despite Asia’s long-running economic boom, there’s only one Asian language, Mandarin, on the top-five list, and it’s running behind four others. In this sense, we can say that East and West remain far apart.<\/p>\n

I asked Pimsleur to describe the demographic of its Mandarin course customers. “Our demographic for Mandarin is similar to that for our other languages,” I was told, “which ranges from business and pleasure travelers to those learning for career development, to high school and college students, and of course, heritage learners.” <\/p>\n

Hey, they didn’t mention lazy guys in beach chairs. Maybe they lost my file or something.<\/p>\n

In addition to individual customers, the company advises me that the Pimsleur method has been used by U.S. government agencies, diplomats, and corporations; the roster includes the military, Department of State, IBM, and Alcoa.<\/p>\n

As for the Pimselur method, it is the brainchild of Paul Pimsleur, Ph.D., a linguist who pioneered a technique of using audio lessons to teach foreign languages. Among his professional credits was a stint teaching at UCLA. <\/p>\n

The Pimsleur courses are now under the aegis of publishing powerhouse Simon & Schuster, which also is behind the website Pimsleur.com. <\/p>\n

Back in the day I used to buy Pimsleur CDs from a few sources, usually book stores. Once I found that I could download courses directly from Pimsleur.com, though, I had all the zeal of a convert. The downloads are in MP3 (for audio) and PDF (for documents) formats. Downloading the courses is far cheaper than ordering the CDs, and, of course, there’s no concern about shipping. <\/p>\n

Speaking of expenses, I’ll mention some costs for the downloaded courses. As of this writing, the typical price for a level is $119.95. Levels that are bundled together shave the per-level price down a little bit; for example, the price for Level 1 through Level 5 in Mandarin is $550. For those who just want to test the waters first, Pimsleur also offers courses in small, bite-sized chunks of five lessons, which are typically priced at $21.95 for the bunch. <\/p>\n

There are also free sample lessons available on the website for downloading. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I’ll note that Pimsleur has been adding a computer-based, multi-media dimension to some of its courses. Pimsleur calls this enhanced offering the “Unlimited” line. It’s essentially an add-on to the legacy audio lessons, providing flash cards, quizzes, and written material that meshes with some of the audio fare as students follow along and interact.<\/p>\n

Pimsleur says that the Unlimited line currently has offerings in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Brazilian Portuguese, and Russian. It’s also under development for Japanese. The software is sold via a DVD. I don’t have any experience with the Unlimited line, but I’d welcome any insights from anyone who has tried it.<\/p>\n

Well, as you can see, those Pimsleur wizards in New York have been mighty busy lately. Me, I haven’t done much of anything lately, so I’m glad they’re taking up the slack. <\/p>\n

So I’ll just slouch down in my beach chair, spark up a Mandarin lesson on my MP3 player, and ease back into the Pacific flow of things. <\/p>\n

***
\nNote:<\/strong> This article was updated to correct an error in a product name.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a typical day on Saipan you can hear a half-dozen languages spoken. It’s not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10538,313,4709,3124],"class_list":["post-223904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-ibm","tag-new-york","tag-pdf","tag-ucla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}