Sunday, August 18, 2013

Pimsleur again



Remember I wrote about the Pimsleur Basic Hindi course the other day. I had also bought the Pimsleur Conversational Hindi course and I feel a bit ripped off now. The site that I ordered them from didn't say that the Conversational Hindi is just the same as the Basic Hindi plus 6 more lessons. I thought it would be more like the beginner's course and the intermediate course but it's just recycling the same material in different sized packages. Apparently Pimsleur's Comprehensive Hindi is the same as the Conversational Hindi + 14 more lessons.  The good news is that they did get around to teaching the missing numbers and the feminine forms of the future tense words in the following lessons. The bad news is that the range of the conversations is really very limited. The same stuff repeats over and over again and there is very little new vocabulary.  But at least now I  know how to have endless arguments about the time when  I  ask someone for a dinner date (but I still don't know how to ask what his name is) and I have learned how to beg for money. (Mere paas kuch dollar nahin hai. Mujhe bees rupee chahiye. Kya aap mujhko kuch paisa dee sakte hain? Aapke paas bahut paisa hai. Mujhko kuch rupee dijiye.  Ji nahin, yeh kafi nahin hai, aapne mujhko pacches rupee denee hain ...)  

Just you wait,  I can make myself a real nuisance in Hindi soon! 

I think this course has been misleadingly labeled. The Conversational Hindi course is not conversational, it's still very much beginner's Basic Hindi even with the extra six lessons. I am not going to buy the  Comprehensive course because I would get only 14 new lessons for the price of 30 and if it proceeds at the same rate it's not going to be comprehensive, it's still going to be only basic beginners stuff. Also I think some of the grammar explanations are a bit iffy.

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