What do you think?
Rate this book
Pimsleur Japanese Level 1 MP3: Learn to Speak and Understand Japanese with Pimsleur Language Programs
Gold Edition of Pimsleur Approach, delivery is in 3 to 5 business days at your door, Each course consists of 16 cd disks, Black container box not included, disks are in original packaging
Audiobook
First published April 1, 2010
2 people are currently reading
2 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 9, 2019
I like their approach, not passive at all, but requires me to speak Japanese from the beginning with full understanding of what I’m saying. The instructor introduces a new concept and asks me to guess how to apply it, and then confirms whether I was right. I would have preferred a little more grammar (although not as much as WIkipedia uses in its articles about the Japanese language). I don’t think they even use the word “tense” when comparing how to say something happening in the present and something that happened in the past.
It still doesn’t replace having a live person to speak Japanese with. After several months of daily use I can pick out a few words watching anime, but not whole sentences. WIth a live person I can slow them down and ask them to repeat themselves. By design this course omits one of the most difficult aspects of Japanese, its writing system, so I think it’s best used as only one component of a Japanese learning program.
The most glaring concern that I feel nearly every day I listen to Pimsleur is the lack of a printed summary of what was learned in each lesson, or even just a list of vocabulary grouped by lesson number, for study and review. The course designers apparently think that the only study needed is to do another lesson (because of the spaced repetition built into the system) and the only review needed is to repeat a lesson, but there are times of the day when I can squeeze in a review of something written out but not an audio lesson.
My second concern is that the gaps between prompts are seldom long enough for me to recall to my mind how to say what i’ve been prompted, so unless I’m in a position to pause the audiobook, the answer comes too quickly and spoils my learning. Thus I can do lessons only when I’m driving and thus free to tap on the screen (without looking) to pause the Audible book, and not while I’m working around the house or yard.
Of course, this could be because I’m 50 years old and the pause is plenty long for a younger learner. On the other hand, I’m already fluent in two languages (one of which, like Japanese, relies on vowel length and gemination to distinguish words) and have studied two other languages in depth, and each additional language is supposed to be easier than the last.
The voice models sometimes seem to be saying words differently from other sources, e.g. the female model sounds as though she is saying shimoto instead of shimogo (“work”) every time, and the male model sounds as though he is saying shitori instead of hitori (“alone”) every time. Given the lack of a written review guide I can’t be sure that’s what I’m hearing, although I’ve run the recordings many times and it always sounds that way to me.
It’s kind of funny we learn the words for beer and rice wine very early, and don’t learn the word for water until much later, even though it’s a simple word (mizu).
It still doesn’t replace having a live person to speak Japanese with. After several months of daily use I can pick out a few words watching anime, but not whole sentences. WIth a live person I can slow them down and ask them to repeat themselves. By design this course omits one of the most difficult aspects of Japanese, its writing system, so I think it’s best used as only one component of a Japanese learning program.
The most glaring concern that I feel nearly every day I listen to Pimsleur is the lack of a printed summary of what was learned in each lesson, or even just a list of vocabulary grouped by lesson number, for study and review. The course designers apparently think that the only study needed is to do another lesson (because of the spaced repetition built into the system) and the only review needed is to repeat a lesson, but there are times of the day when I can squeeze in a review of something written out but not an audio lesson.
My second concern is that the gaps between prompts are seldom long enough for me to recall to my mind how to say what i’ve been prompted, so unless I’m in a position to pause the audiobook, the answer comes too quickly and spoils my learning. Thus I can do lessons only when I’m driving and thus free to tap on the screen (without looking) to pause the Audible book, and not while I’m working around the house or yard.
Of course, this could be because I’m 50 years old and the pause is plenty long for a younger learner. On the other hand, I’m already fluent in two languages (one of which, like Japanese, relies on vowel length and gemination to distinguish words) and have studied two other languages in depth, and each additional language is supposed to be easier than the last.
The voice models sometimes seem to be saying words differently from other sources, e.g. the female model sounds as though she is saying shimoto instead of shimogo (“work”) every time, and the male model sounds as though he is saying shitori instead of hitori (“alone”) every time. Given the lack of a written review guide I can’t be sure that’s what I’m hearing, although I’ve run the recordings many times and it always sounds that way to me.
It’s kind of funny we learn the words for beer and rice wine very early, and don’t learn the word for water until much later, even though it’s a simple word (mizu).
February 14, 2025
I finished the most recent 2021 version of this course and highly recommend it over the older versions. The Japanese they teach feels more modern and natural
December 10, 2015
Although I really loved this course because it makes you feel you can understand some Japanes, I´m not sure it really does. I understand close to nothing when I try to get some Anime in Japanese. I know level one is just not enough, but as I already did the Pimsleur Spanish course and I know the standards. In spanish, I can understand much of what I listen on Netflix, but japanese... - I understand that being fluent in Portuguese helps - I believe Japanese is a very difficult language, probably in the same level or worse than Mandarim, Korean or weird dialects, but it is hard to dedicate so much with that frustration. I can´t just listen for the 30 minutes class in 30 minutes; I need to pause, rewind, repeat, to understand fully a lesson. Very different from Spanish, wich I could do dog walking or driving. Maybe, when I have more free time, much more indeed, I may continue this course, but I don´t like the cost-benefit. Maybe I´m just not smart enough.
If there is a trick, someone please tell me, because I really like the Pimsleur method and I really would like to learn Japanese. But for now, it is not working for me.
If there is a trick, someone please tell me, because I really like the Pimsleur method and I really would like to learn Japanese. But for now, it is not working for me.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews