Post: #1

I'm looking at buying the Michel Thomas course to learn Mandarin Chinese.

But it's not really clear on the website. If you get "Total," do you need "Start?" Or do you just skip over it?

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #2

Pretty sure total includes it.

Post: #3

Yeah "start" is the first two hours of the foundation course.

Post: #4

BB,
Before buying any course, head over to Frostwire or any torrent site and download Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3. Each level is comprised of 30 lessons of about 30 minutes each. If you were to buy it, it would cost you about 330/Level so about 1k total. But thanks to the internet, you can get it for free. Pimsleur has been the best language course at least for me. This is how I started Brazilian Portuguese about 8-9 years ago and gave me a very solid foundation before my first trip to Brazil back in 2005. I'm also using Pimsleur for Russian, Mandarin and Japanese. As a side note, 2 years ago, I enrolled in a Chinese and Japanese course at a local college here during the evenings. Long story short, I learned more Japanese using the Level 1 Pimsleur than a full semester at a college.

When are you going to China?

Post: #5

(12-21-2012 01:58 PM)Vacancier Permanent Wrote:  BB,
Before buying any course, head over to Frostwire or any torrent site and download Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3. Each level is comprised of 30 lessons of about 30 minutes each. If you were to buy it, it would cost you about 330/Level so about 1k total. But thanks to the internet, you can get it for free. Pimsleur has been the best language course at least for me. This is how I started Brazilian Portuguese about 8-9 years ago and gave me a very solid foundation before my first trip to Brazil back in 2005. I'm also using Pimsleur for Russian, Mandarin and Japanese. As a side note, 2 years ago, I enrolled in a Chinese and Japanese course at a local college here during the evenings. Long story short, I learned more Japanese using the Level 1 Pimsleur than a full semester at a college.

When are you going to China?

How easy did you find the chinese to pick up? I guess the biggest question I have is how well do they explain/help you correctly say the various tones?