This is very convenient but there is another reason for it: Pimsleur has theory that if you look at written Mandarin (or any language) too early then you will have trouble acquiring a native accent, because you will pronounce the written Mandarin with an American accent (supposing you are American…). This may be exactly right, if Mandarin is only your second language. If you have already learned several languages with reasonably correct accents then maybe you will have less tendency to make that mistake.

The problem with immersion-only Mandarin for me is that this is an intimidating language for Americans. The musical tone of each vowel changes the meaning of a word and the tones are hard for me to learn.

So I am going to cheat on Pimsleur by also using Chinesepod downloads (mp3) and their written supplements. Sometimes I really can’t be sure if a syllable on the Pimsleur CD begins with b or d. I can’t always tell if a tone is rising or falling (although the narrator often steps in to help with that). So I will look it up. If Mandarin is your first foreign language maybe you should start with straight Pimsleur for just the reasons they give. Mandarin, even more than most European languages, is useless if you do not have a good accent.

The other course I tried was Living Language Ultimate Mandarin. That course is not only conversation. It comes with a very nice textbook. And it requires that you spend considerable time working with the book in front of you, and so not driving or otherwise “on the go.” They said their course was the equivalent of 2 years of college courses and that may be true. It aims at all around mastery of spoken and written Mandarin including the simplified character writing used on the Mainland and exposure to the traditional characters used on Taiwan and in Hong Kong. I do not expect to ever reach that level, and anyway I would probably start with Pimsleur and Chinesepod.

Pimsleur courses are reliably very good.