After Pimsleur...what?

[Qbe]

Yesterday I completed lesson 90 of Pimsleur Japanese. I don't remember all of the vocabulary and will probably go back and do some spot-checking, but I do consider myself finished with the course.

I'd like to continue with another Japanese audio course. Pimsleur has really livened up my daily walk, and I'd like to continue using that time for more Japanese. Any suggestions for a good audio course to use next?

[Spaztick]

Burn me a copy and send me those. :p

Gee, I can't help you there. I've actually been looking to improve my vocal and listening skills, and I hear that Pimsleur is the best around. How's your reading and such?

[Qbe]

Reading, as you know, is not covered in the Pimsleur course. I've been supplementing Pimsleur with a number of books: for kanji, Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji" and for grammar, "Japanese for Everyone" in conjunction with private lessons. I still have a long way to go.

However, for practicing vocalization and listening, Pimsleur's a good way to go. Although you'll be fairly limited by vocabulary and very limited in range of expression (Pimsleur doesn't give you a lot of different grammatical constructions), what you do learn, you learn well.

I'm in the process of writing a review of the course for my own site. If it's ok with clay, I'll post the link when I'm finished.

[clay]

Qbe wrote:

I'm in the process of writing a review of the course for my own site. If it's ok with clay, I'll post the link when I'm finished.

By all means, please do post your link. And if you want to paste your findings in this thread, please do that too.

I think Pimleur is a great way to go for getting pronunciation and basic conversation, but needs to be supplimented for grammar and reading. I look forward to hearing how people use it with other resources.

Clay

[zengargoyle]

Qbe wrote:
I'm in the process of writing a review of the course for my own site. If it's ok with clay, I'll post the link when I'm finished.

will your review have a rough outline of the courses? i'm on my second round through the introductory course (18 lessons). the first time around i started spacing out around lesson 10 or so where it seems that all the lessons do is play "let's count our money again, and again, and yet again." it seemed like the last 8 lessons were nothing but counting...

[Qbe]

zengargoyle wrote:

Qbe wrote:
I'm in the process of writing a review of the course for my own site. If it's ok with clay, I'll post the link when I'm finished.

will your review have a rough outline of the courses?

Not really. I didn't keep notes, and there really isn't that much to outline. I'm just planning to give some general, subjective impressions.

However, I do remember the counting lessons, and I do remember wondering if I was going to learn anything other than counting. They did seem to last a while, but they don't last that long--if I remember correctly, they were finished by lesson 18 or 20 or so. And they do serve a useful purpose, of course: you'll be proficient in handling numbers by the time you hit lesson 20 or so. Keep going: it gets a lot better after you clear the numbers hump.