Synopsis
The Easiest and Fastest Way to Learn Mandarin Chinese
Did you know that Mandarin Chinese is the world’s most widely spoken language with over one billion native speakers? Once you get the basics down, you’ll be surprised how quickly you’re able to begin speaking it. And even knowing a little bit of the language will make travel to China far easier, and much more fun. Whether your goal is to travel, communicate with friends or colleagues, reconnect with family, or just understand more of what’s going on in the world around you, learning to speak Mandarin Chinese will expand your horizons and immeasurably enrich your life.
The best part is that it doesn’t have to be difficult or take years to master. Thirty minutes a day is all it takes, and we get you speaking right from the first day. Pimsleur courses use a scientifically proven method that puts you in control of your learning. If you’ve tried other language learning methods but found they simply didn’t stick, then you owe it to yourself to give Pimsleur a try.
Why Pimsleur?
- Quick + Easy – Only 30 minutes a day.
- Portable + Flexible – Core lessons can be done anytime, anywhere, and easily fit into your busy life.
- Proven Method – Works when other methods fail.
- Self-Paced – Go fast or go slow – it’s up to you.
- Based in Science – Developed using proven research on memory and learning.
- Cost-effective – Less expensive than classes or immersion, and features all native speakers.
- Genius – Triggers your brain’s natural aptitude to learn.
- Works for everyone – Recommended for ages 13 and above.
What’s Included?
- 30, 30-minute audio lessons
- 60 minutes of pinyin reading practice
- In total, 17 hours of audio, all featuring native speakers
- a Reading Booklet
What You’ll Learn
Builds upon skills taught in Pimsleur’s Mandarin Chinese Levels 1, 2, and 3.
Mandarin 4 covers a variety of everyday topics. You'll be speaking and understanding Mandarin with near-fluency and with a broad range of conversational skills. In Level 4 the pace and conversation moves more rapidly, accelerating exposure to new vocabulary and structures, and approaching native speed and comprehension. You’ll learn to speak about your professional and personal life, needs, likes and dislikes, and to create complex sentences.
A few of the topics included in Level 4:
- Business: Ordering, shipping, and receiving bulk products for export, and discussing their costs and rates. Speaking with patients about their ailments and giving advice for treatment. Visiting warehouses and factories.
- Personal life: Discussing how you're feeling, marriage, relatives, Chinese zodiac signs, where you and your family are from and what they do, children, and pets.
- Activities: Getting a massage or acupuncture treatment, visiting car and horse racetracks, art museums, cultural sites, and ordering meals for yourself or a group in restaurants. Going for bike rides in the park, taking tours of historic sites, and discussing architecture and design.
- Food: Culinary differences between the North and South, sampling popular cuisine of restaurants and roadside vendors.
- Vacationing: Traveling and exploring with a tour guide; discussing the history of important and popular destination sites in China; visiting The Great Wall, gardens, and teahouses;
- Important Topics: Talking about allergies, likes and dislikes of food types and styles, animals, colors, temperatures, and cuisine.
- Understanding the Chinese: Learning cultural expressions and customs. Discussing Chinese social and economic policies. Exploring various pastimes of the young and old, such as Tai Chi, dancing on street corners, birdwalking in the park, bike riding, and more.
- Discussing the weather, the air quality and environmental concerns.
In Level 4, you'll continue to practice reading Hanyu Pinyin (pinyin for short) the official phonetic system for transcribing pronunciations of Chinese characters into a Latin alphabet. Twenty reading lessons are included and will build upon the pinyin reading skills acquired in Levels 1, 2, and 3. These lessons are designed to give you practice reading and to provide new vocabulary.
Learning the sound of each letter alone and in culturally distinct combinations allows your brain to process what you’re hearing in the audio lessons from a new and different perspective. It’s a powerful combination that makes Pimsleur different from every other method on the market.
The Pimsleur Method
We make no secret of what makes this powerful method work so well. Paul Pimsleur spent his career researching and perfecting the precise elements anyone can use to learn a language quickly and easily. Here are a few of his “secrets”:
The Principle of Anticipation
In the nanosecond between a cue and your response, your brain has to work to come up with the right word. Having to do this boosts retention, and cements the word in your mind.
Core Vocabulary
Words, phrases, and sentences are selected for their usefulness in everyday conversation. We don’t overwhelm you with too much, but steadily increase your ability with every lesson.
Graduated Interval Recall
Reminders of new words and structures come up at the exact interval for maximum retention and storage into your long-term memory.
Organic Learning
You work on multiple aspects of the language simultaneously. We integrate grammar, vocabulary, rhythm, melody, and intonation into every lesson, which allows you to experience the language as a living, expressive form of human culture.
Learning in Context
Research has shown that learning new words in context dramatically accelerates your ability to remember. Every scene in every Pimsleur lesson is set inside a conversation between two people. There are no drills, and no memorization necessary for success.
Active Participation
The Pimsleur Method + active learner participation = success. This method works with every language and every learner who follows it. You gain the power to recall and use what you know, and to add new words easily, exactly as you do in English.
The Mandarin Chinese Language
Over one billion people speak Chinese. The two most common dialects are Mandarin and Cantonese. They are not mutually intelligible. Mandarin is the official language in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore. The Mandarin dialect is used in most Chinese schools, and in most TV programs, movies, and radio stations throughout the country, even in Guangzhou (formerly Canton), where people speak Cantonese in their daily lives. Mandarin is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
Tech Talk
- CDs are formatted for playing in all CD players, including car players, and users can copy files for use in iTunes® or Windows Media Player®.
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