Pimsleur Mandarin

First of all, this is not an advert for Pimsleur language courses - no seriously it isn't!

But, having tried lots of language courses in the past, I got the chance to try out the "Pimsleur Approach", which is essentially an audio-based way of learning languages - no sentences to follow, no grammar to read, to word lits to memorise - just plug in your iPod on the way to work and listen! I was a bit skeptical, but I have to say I'm very impressed.

Having used Pimsleur's Mandarin Level 1 for a few weeks now, I've got to lesson 11 and picked up a huge amount of core vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar points without even realising it - it's that simple. You just sit back and listen. It's easy to remember the phrases and the course makes you really eager to get to the next lesson. Check out the link about for more info about Pimsleur's courses.

As I said, this isn't an ad for Pimsleur (unless they're paying me) :) no, the reason I mention the course here is because the approach has one major drawback - no written material. If you're like me, I like to actually sometimes follow the text as it is being pronounced on the CD as it helps me to be sure of the pronounciation, especially Mandarin's tones. However, the Pimsleur course does not come printed with any of this, so I've decided to write it here myself.

In this blog, you'll find the core vocabulary for each lesson, along with the main conversation covered in each lesson. With the help of a very special friend :) I will ensure that the characters and pinyin are correct. So let's get started with unit 1...