Michel Thomas / Pimsleur: Comparison (Revised)
Having completed all the Michel Thomas audio courses last year (8-disc introductory course, 'advanced' course, vocabulary course etc), now I am embarking on the Pimsleur audio course (level 1), which a work colleague has loaned me.
I gather the Pimsleur course is considerably more expensive (particularly since I managed to buy my first Michel Thomas course online for only £12, whereas Pimsleur costs several times this).
The Pimsleur course comes in a large presentation box containing 16 discs of which 15 give you two lessons each, i.e. a total of 30 lessons, while the 16th disc seems to comprise practice listening exercises. The size of the box makes it impractical for travel learning (I listen in my car on my drive to and from work), but I suppose you could remove the discs and transfer them to a handy-sized disc wallet. So far I have listened to the first two lessons only. Each lesson lasts about 30 minutes, therefore is a perfect length for my drive to/from work.
There are similarities in approach between Michel Thomas and Pimsleur, but also obviously significant differences. The first lesson felt very basic, but for the purpose of comparison I also listened to some of the last lesson, and I found the conversation exercise quite challenging (despite having already completed Michel Thomas, and this is only level 1 of Pimsleur, there being one or two further levels). I had to listen to it more than once to understand it.
The Michel Thomas course seems to make much faster progress (in a sense), thus by the end of the introductory course you've covered most of the grammar, including all main verb tenses and moods. By comparison, Pimsleur feels rather slow. However, I get the impression that Pimsleur places greater emphasis on pronunciation and sound patterns, using two native-speakers and having the student-listener listen and repeat again and again and again. The Michel Thomas introductory course has NO NATIVE-SPEAKERS, only Michel Thomas himself (who was a polyglot but not a native-Spanish speaker, therefore he has a distinctly foreign accent), and two native-English speakers (one British, the other N.American). That said, subsequent Michel Thomas courses do use natives.
I have to say I'm looking forward to completing the Pimsleur course, which I should be able to accomplish in three or four weeks, thus being able to understand the challenging conversation in the final lesson. It seems each lesson starts with a conversation, then the lesson focuses on various points in that conversation. Michel Thomas omits conversations entirely, which may make it weaker.
However, I cannot conceive of how Pimsleur could cover as much ground, in terms of grammar, as Michel Thomas, given its apparent slow rate of progress. However, even the first disc did cover one point that I don't think Michel Thomas ever mentions, namely verb-subject inversion to form a question (the example given is, '¿ Es usted norte americano ?'), which seems obvious now, but Michel Thomas omits it — in fact, he pretty much omits subject pronouns altogether as verb-adjuncts, simply adopting the Spanish default position of dropping them in most cases.
Therefore, I suspect what I may gain from Pimsleur is a better 'ear' for Spanish, and the opportunity to practise listening, while grammar shall be a much slower process with this method.
If people are interested, I can update on how I get on with this course.
12 Answers
Falda, I have taken the complete Pimsleur course. (Jrshenk, there's a fifth level now). I had a good understanding of conjugations having taken Latin and French in high school, and I learned a bit of Spanish on the fly in my scuba diving days..
I bought them on the internet as an mp3 download, which is much less expensive than the CDs, although still pricey.
It is definitely geared towards "speaking" Spanish. The only grammar teaching is in conjunction with some unusual versions of a word you will have learned before, but only a few such times. I would suspect a newbie would not have any handle on grammar with just the Pimsleur course - it's really a good way to get you speaking basic Spanish fairly quickly. Because of my language background, it was a great course for me
Your point about the native speakers is spot on. I have spoken with several native Spanish speakers, and a few, knowing I was very much a beginner, nonetheless said my accent was really very good.
I have not tried other CD/MP3/online courses, so I cannot speak to those. I do, however, love the Pimsleur course and method
Well, now I'm on lesson 20 of 30 & enjoying this course much more than I had thought I would. Actually, I'm already kind of worried about what to do once I complete Level 1, because Level 2 doesn't seem to be readily available in disc-format in the UK (all Ebay sets are USA imports, for example, therefore costly and slow to deliver with additional customs fees).
The coverage of numbers is superb, particularly for a numbers-goon like me. Michel Thomas doesn't really bother with numbers, yet Pimsleur has really been hammering them home over the last ten discs or so, and is now doing a lot with telling the time (MT gives over maybe about 10 or 15 minutes to telling the time, by comparison).
Lessons 19 and 20 have also focused heavily on the use of 'irse' in the sense of 'to leave' (although in typical Pimsleur style, the course still hasn't mentioned the infinitive form). In MT 'irse' is a footnote at best, preferring 'salir' (which Pimsleur hasn't mentioned at all yet).
The native speech rhythm is wonderful to the extent that today I found myself listening & understanding one of the conversations without even consciously realising I was listening to Spanish ¡! Of course, this works two ways, thus not only can I better understand the meaning of Spanish when all the words are rolled together, but moreover hopefully my pronunciation has likewise improved (before I'd have emulated MT's staccato style of 'treinta-ee-ocho', spoken at snail's pace, whereas now I can rattle out 'treintayocho' at authentic machine-gun speed... & it's definitely 'yocho' & not 'ee ocho')...
It simply depends on the "deal" that you get concerning the price of the Pimsleur approach. The purchase price for the beginning and the more advanced course was about $20 US dollars for one, and $10 for the other (I just looked up my receipt : - ) ...
While I can not compare it to the M. Thomas courses - it is reminiscent of the approach taken by Marcus Santamaria "Spanish communication coach." He markets courses under several names including, but not limited to: shortcuttospanish.com:; synergyspanish.com & marcus@how-to-speak.com. These courses use an auditory approach. Marcus touts this as "speaking to learn" rather than learning to speak in comparing it to other secondary school, and college courses that are more heavily grammar oriented.
Here is a link to the "short cut to Spanish" site which offers some freebies and various fairly low price offerings: " Shortcuts to make Spanish easy..."
Both Pimsleur and the Marcus S. courses are useful in building a confidence that helps a person take part more freely in "real" Spanish convesation.
One week in & I've already listened to 1/3 of the lessons. Lesson 10 ended on a real cliff-hanger with Carlos inviting Louisa to a restaurant for something to eat & drink, then telling her he would go to 'el baño' while she would have to 'pagar'. By the sounds of it, Louisa was incandescent with rage, although this incident has not yet been resolved in lesson 11 so far.
Still no major new vocab or grammar, although I did learn of the alternative word for 'or', e.g. 'siete u ocho'. At least Pimsleur does teach numbers (Michel Thomas overlooks numbers entirely) & even deals with irregulars, like 700. That said, grammar exposition is extremely thin in Pimsleur. For someone who claimed to dislike formal grammar teaching, Michel Thomas did manage to pack an awful lot of it into his introductory course.
The pace of diction in Pimsleur is speeding up too, so by the start of lesson 11 it already sounds quite fast, albeit manageable.
There is a very strong emphasis on Latin American Spanish. The only word for bathroom/toilet is 'el baño', which I imagine might cause confusion if I were to visit a restaurant in Span & tell the waiter that I wish a bath. And there's no mention of the alternative ceceo pronunciation of c/z (Michel Thomas explained the difference, & in the advanced course one of the native-speakers is from Spain).
The pronunciation of 'dólares' (which is used frequently) is interesting because it sounds almost identical to how one would say 'dolar-S' in English, whereas before hearing this I would have been inclined to stress the 'a', although I now note the 'o' is accented.
In any event, this is still proving an enjoyable & rewarding course.
Two more lessons down and again very little in terms of new vocab/grammar. However, the native pronunciation is certainly very helpful, particularly the exposition of how words elide, e.g. está + aquí = estáquí (the speakers usually include a slight hiatus or long 'a', but I get the impression this is only because they're speaking carefully, for occasionally it sounds like total elision), de + aquí = daquí, y + usted = yusted (sounds like yoosted).
By comparison, the non-native speakers on the Michel Thomas course (& even Michel Thomas himself) sound rather stilted, awkward and unnatural, constantly uttering each word separately, staccato-style. This reminds me a little of learning French whereby initially one says each word whole, and it takes a while to become accustomed to dropping vowels and rolling words together.
The Pimsleur speakers' pronunciation of 'll' is also interesting. I was already aware it could be pronounced like 'y' as in English 'yellow' or like 'zh' as in Zhivago (English 'treasure'), but one of the Pimsleur speakers actually pronounces it like 'j' as in English 'jug', which sounds slightly Italian to my ear.
Onwards & upwards...
I'm now one third of the way through level 4 of Pimsleur. Level 4 feels different from levels 1-3, and not just because there are new voices on it. The main Spanish-speaking man is the same, as is the English-speaking introducer, but the level 1-3 woman has gone, to be replaced by a faster, slightly less clear actress - oh boy, sometimes she rattles out her Spanish at a fair old pelt ¡! And the Spanish introducer is changed too. Actually, I found the level 1-3 Spanish introducer quite slurry, and although the new guy sounds gruff (in my mind's eye I'm imagining a Mexican Bob Hoskins), he actually has a rather warm, pleasant voice & is relatively easy to follow.
The new voices are definitely a good thing, even the less clear ones. In real life not everyone sounds the same, so it is important to habituate oneself to different voices.
I would be interested to know more of the methodology of Pimsleur. The level 4 approach seems slightly different. There seem to be fewer new set phrases (and those that are introduced are repeated more often, sometimes unnecessarily often), yet more new vocab, particularly nouns, & a little oddly, colours (I would've thought that if you don't know the colours of the rainbow by level 4, you shouldn't be doing level 4 ¡!).
As with the transition between levels 1-2 and 2-3, the pace feels a bit faster, like a gear change, with the learner being expected to come out with longer phrases in less time. I'm not sure whether this is a deliberate attempt to encourage the learner to speed up his Spanish, but for the first time I've wanted to use the pause button (which I actually don't have in my car, so this can be slightly irksome).
Some of the phrases seem slightly contrived. For example, is the Spanish for 'phone card' (two syllables in English) really as long-winded as 'tarjeta para hacer llamadas' (ten syllables in Spanish ¡!) ? That really is a mouthful.
Nonetheless, I am still immensely enjoying this course and (ojalá) deriving much benefit from it.
Here's a video of someone comparing the different methods with which I would agree: they complement each other well...
Level 2 Update
Well, I'm one third through Level 2 (acabo de terminar lección diez del segundo nivel), and still finding Pimsleur tremendously useful & enjoyable. I'm still not learning much more new grammar from it, but I have picked up a few phrases from it that I didn't from the Michel Thomas course, perhaps because Pimsleur has more of a LA (& I suspect, particularly, Mexican) slant. For example, Pimsleur introduces the word 'entrante' for 'next', which I had never heard before, and also 'así que' for 'so/therefore', which I had encountered but not used much till now. Somewhat oddly Michel Thomas doesn't use 'así que', which seems strange since it's such a useful little connector phrase.
I suppose one aspect of grammar that Pimsleur does 'teach' better than Michel Thomas is syntax, or word order, although I say 'teach' parenthetically because it doesn't so much explain it as allow the learner to absorb it subliminally through constant exposition, e.g. 'tengo mucho que hacer', whereas before I would have been inclined to say 'tengo que hacer mucho'.
I've also learned about the leísmo divergence through Pimsleur, although the course itself doesn't speak of this in such terms. Pimsleur uses lo/la for the direct object pronoun form of usted. I've decided to stick with le (which I'm pretty sure is what MT teaches) because for some reason it makes more sense to me (& is easier & used in Spain where I'm more likely to travel).
However, perhaps Pimsleur's greatest strength is its exposition of authentic-sounding pronunciation and speech rhythm. While the 'actors' are usually clear, nonetheless they don't seem to put themselves to great pains to be overly clear, which is good, in my opinion, because the slight 'slurriness' of some of the conversations is probably closer to real Spanish, thus forces the learner to pay attention and attune the ears. However, I think there are only three actors so far (excluding the English-speaking American), so a few more voices mightn't be bad.
So, now I've just finished 'lección veinticuatro' with only six more lessons to go till I conclude level 1. By this rate I anticipate I shall finish level 1 by the end of the week.
This continues to be a very rewarding course, & has raised (or re-raised) a few grammar points that I didn't encounter in Michel Thomas (or at least don't recall from that course, perhaps because the treatment was so slight). A few of these I have highlighted in other posts on Spanishcit, e.g.
Quién / Que / Qué / Cual... Confusion...
I need someone / Necesito (a) alguien...
Yet, one thing is clear: there's no way Pimsleur level 1 will be able, in these six remaining lessons, to cover the vast swathes of grammar still uncovered, which Michel Thomas did cover in the 8-disc introductory course (& in more detail in subsequent courses).
Accordingly, when I finish lesson 30 at the end of this week, I shall soon feel hungry for more Pimsleur. However, thanks to a very kindly good Samaritan (you know who you are & I look forward to getting you that glass of malt), I have been availed of the opportunity of continuing Pimsleur with further levels in early course.
There should be breathing space of a week or so. What I intend to do with this time is to revisit Michel Thomas (probably eschewing the introductory course & delving straight back into the advanced course, vocab course etc).
I was listening to some Michel Thomas at the weekend in my wife's car, because she's currently following it, & I was struck by the slowness and awkwardness of the pronunciation by comparison with Pimsleur. Nonetheless, Michel Thomas really does paint the entire grammar canvas from top to bottom, side to side, and corner to corner (whereas Pimsleur leaves you feeling adrift somewhat aimlessly).
As for my wife, I'm recommending that on completion of the Michel Thomas introductory course, she should switch to Pimsleur.
Each course has its own strengths (& I don't really wish to say weaknesses because they're both excellent in their own ways). Combined, they make a formidable learning package.
That said, I think the way I've done it, i.e. Michel Thomas first, Pimsleur second, has really worked for me because I already had a pretty sound idea of how a Romance language operates owing to my French (as much as Michel Thomas might purport to offer 'grammar-lite' it's nonetheless pretty techy). By comparison, for a newbie to languages, I would suggest Pimsleur first, Michel Thomas second.
Now I've completed lesson 14 & recently the course has focused on numbers & telling the time. I'm finding this very useful. Numbers are always problematic for me in any language, including English (I suspect I may have some mild kind of dyscalculia as I can't event remember my own mobile/cell number).
By comparison, Michel Thomas never teaches numbers & only mentions how to tell the time rather obliquely towards the end of the introductory course.
Again the constant exposure to native speech rhythm is also helpful, albeit obviously Pimsleur is making much slower progress in terms of grammar.
I would say Michel Thomas draws the complete outline of the grammar canvas in the introductory course, so you get a much better feel for the language as a whole. If I hadn't done Michel Thomas before Pimsleur, then I suspect I would feel quite lost, drifting slowly & aimlessly through it, which could be frustrating. However, the Michel Thomas course is so rapid, by comparison, that unfortunately much of it becomes unstuck equally rapidly in absence of constant further practice.
One small grammar/style point that I've picked up from Pimsleur, that's not in Michel Thomas, is the Spanish habit to placing 'no' after single words or simple expressions to signify the negative, e.g. 'ahora no' = 'not now'. This is new to me in Spanish (before I think I would have tended to say 'no ahora'), although it doesn't feel odd as I was already aware some other languages follow the same pattern.
I think the Rosetta Stone is a good alternative also... I learnt alot from listening to music so they may be an option to help you approach fluencey
I just completed lesson 12 of level 3, so I'm almost halfway through the entire set of 5 levels (there are 30 lessons per level = 5 x 30 = 150, of which I've done 72, leaving 78). I'm keen to complete the entire set before I go back to Spain in July, which more of less means I have the two months of May and June in which to undertake this.
I usually listen in my car on the way to the office, and I usually go to the office four days a week, which means I have about 34 listening days. I can do two lessons per listening day (one on the way to, and another on the way back), i.e. that gives me time for 68 lessons. Therefore, I'm going to have to find time to squeeze in the other 10 lessons if I want to finish by the end of June. I should be able to do this at weekends.
By level 3 the pace feels much faster. I think you get less time between prompt and expected answer in which to formulate your translation, and I also think the course introduces new expressions at a swifter rate.
Again, I'm still not learning much new grammar, but I would say I definitely am gaining a much better understanding of how to use it, e.g. when to use preterite as opposed to imperfect. Moreover, the constant repetition of grammatical constructions makes them feel more natural and intuitive.
I think my listening skill has improved, particularly for Latin American Spanish. I also started with a Spanish tutor last week (so I've only had two hours with her so far). She's Spanish, and speaks with a distinctively European Spanish accent. She says she's impressed with my proficiency in speaking Spanish given I only began late last summer, although she finds some of my vocabulary amusing because it's Latin American (e.g. 'manejar' for 'conducir' and 'plata' for 'dinero'). She also says I speak Spanish with a slight French accent (even occasionally dropping in French words without realising it when I get stuck; fortunately she also speaks French).
In using Pimsleur I've lost my 'ceceo' pronunciation of 'TH' for 'c' and 'z', but I don't seem to be able to shake my harsh 'KH' pronunciation for 'g' and 'j', which the Pimsleur actors don't use (they would say 'maneHar' whereas I say 'maneKHar'). I think this is ok, because the European Spanish pronunciation is more in line with my Scots pronunciation of words like 'loch', 'mechanic' and 'architect' ('loKH', 'meKHanic' and 'arKHitect'), although I suppose it might sound weird to pronounce a Latin American dialect word with a European intonation
When my tutor speaks, however, I'm finding her hard to understand, even when she uses words with which I'm already well acquainted in written form or Latin American spoken form. For example, when she said 'ciudades', she pronounced it 'THee-oo-DHah-DHeh-SS', which totally threw me at first.
I'm currently also shopping around for level 1 of Pimsleur's 'Castilian Spanish', which is what they call their European version. I might try the audio-download version, which seems to be less costly.
