Customer Reviews

Pimsleur: Mandarin Chinese Instant Conversation (10 CDs, B&n Edition)

5 star:		(2)
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This will teach you how to speak Mandarin! It works, and it works very, very well. So buy it becasue it does what is says that it will do. They say this program should take 10 days, but this program took me almost month to complete and I am a pretty fast learner.

This is not a downside of the program, but please realize that learning to speak a language is not something that you do overnight. No matter what anyone says (company marketing) you cannot learn a language as complex as Chinese with a single resource e.g., I have a Mandarin tutor who lived in Taiwan and is fluent in Mandarin who still takes Mandarin lessons. You will really have to work with someone to make sure you correctly pronouncing the words and that you develop decent conversational skills. At a minimum, you will also have to buy a chinese to english / english to chinese dictionary to help you understand the words, the pronunceation and the correct grammatical usage.

Pimmsleur is an exellent start, but you are going to need other resources to make you truly proficient.

Appreciated the personal note of encouragement for learning Mandarin! Great vendor - will buy more...