Rating: 
Summary: An Effective Mandarin Learning Program but...
Review: Please note: This review if for the MANDARIN version. For some reason, Amazon.com has placed my review with the wrong book.Although I've yet to find the 'best' mandarin learning program, this product is one of the better learning programs on the market right now. The pimsleur method has proven itself again. It guides you through slowly and effectively while working at your own pace. It builds a solid foundation from which you can advance to higher levels. However, compare to other pimsleur language programs i've bought (French and Japanese), this one does seem to be a little bit too slow and too repetitive. At the end of the 30 lessons, one can only speak very basic travel phrases. Considering the fact that one could spend more time on one tape before moving on to the next tape, it is very disappointing that they didn't pack more materials in the program. Taken this into consideration the price does not 100% justify the result unlike other pimsleur language programs. Also I really wish they have a second and a third box set to follow this one. 30 lessons are just not enough. (My French and Japanese Pimsleur programs have 90 lessons each!)However, like I mentioned earlier, this program teaches a lot more effectively than any other program, so if you are considering to learn the language properly, i would still recommend this set to you.
Rating: 
Summary: Best introduction to Cantonese for the money
Review: When learning a language in which a word's meaning can change based on its intonation - these tapes are invaluable. I started listening to the Cantonese tapes two years ago... only playing them through three or four times (the entire set) but the 'memorization by repitition' Pimsleur method is in full effect. Ngo dong yati gwong-dong-hua! Two years later I remember 90% of what I learned on these tapes and almost nothing of the Living Language course I bought to follow up! This is especailly amazing to me as I haven't had cause to use the language for at least a year and a half! This collection is not even close to a complete course... In fact, it is best used as the introductory step to a book course of some sort. Pimsleur will have you understanding the basic sentence constructs and, more importantly, the proper way to sing the language in no time! Afterward, a book based course will be much easier to digest.
Rating:
Summary: Best introduction to Cantonese for the money
Review: When learning a language in which a word's meaning can change based on its intonation - these tapes are invaluable. I started listening to the Cantonese tapes two years ago... only playing them through three or four times (the entire set) but the 'memorization by repitition' Pimsleur method is in full effect. Ngo dong yati gwong-dong-hua! Two years later I remember 90% of what I learned on these tapes and almost nothing of the Living Language course I bought to follow up! This is especailly amazing to me as I haven't had cause to use the language for at least a year and a half! This collection is not even close to a complete course... In fact, it is best used as the introductory step to a book course of some sort. Pimsleur will have you understanding the basic sentence constructs and, more importantly, the proper way to sing the language in no time! Afterward, a book based course will be much easier to digest.
Rating:
Summary: Get it straight
Review: This is not a review, but a suggestion. You have the same reviews for the Compact Mandarin, the Mandarin Level 1, as well as the Compact Cantonese. Mandarin and Cantonese are two distinct langauges!
Rating: 
Summary: Very helpful
Review: This program is comprehensive and very thorough and will give you a good working vocabulary as well as drills on the basics such as counting, months and days of the week. The accompanying pamphlet is not too useful. I bought a small phrase book and double checked many of the spellings with that, since Mandarin is not always spelled the way it is pronounced. The tapes have an irritating habit of asking you to say information you have not been introduced to yet. However this set of tapes is still an excellent place to start and the Pimsleur method is very effective in creating recall of words.
Rating:
Summary: It works for me.
Review: I must beg to differ with the other reviewers here. I have tried several times to study Chinese on my own. This is the first course from which I have found I can retain the tone contours of the Chinese words and phrases and reproduce them in conversation. Yes, the tapes proceed at slow pace, but it appears to be a pace designed to achieve the kind of overlearning required for attaining conversational fluency in a very unfamiliar language. Even at the slow pace of the course, I find I need to go through each lesson about 3 times before I'm comfortable proceeding to the next. (One shortcoming: without a printed script to refer to, or at least a vocabulary list for each chapter, I find I occasionally need to look up in another coursebook just what it is I am hearing in certain phrases, for visual reinforcement -- e.g., "was that '-sheng' or '-xia' in that weak syllable?" On the other hand, having to do that research helps me retain the answer better once I have found it.) What I find the Pimsleur courses are good for is instilling a comfort level with oral skills in a language that I may know from book studies but might otherwise not have the confidence to speak in conversation.
Rating: 
Summary: Pimsleur is an ineffective approach to language learning
Review: The Pimsleur tapes make a common yet unnecessary mistake of using the rote learning approach to memorization as opposed to the much more effective method of using the language in an every day usage approach. It has been said that to think without learning is ineffective,but to learn without thinking is dangerous. The Pimsleur tapes are indeed dangerous to your language learning process
Rating:
Summary: too slow for the price charged
Review: this series is too slow and drawn out. My patience ran out toward the second cassette. I don't recommend for the language-adept inclined students.
Rating:
Summary: We Learn Language through the EAR, not the EYE.
Review: PIMSLEUR : CHINESE MANDARIN - I. 2nd Edition. (30 Lessons on Audio Cassettes). Simon & Schuster Audio, 2000. ISBN 0671045849 Every country in the world is agreed that a knowledge of foreign languages is important. Every year the world devotes an enormous amount of time, energy, and money to trying to teach its young people to understand and speak some foreign language or other. In the West, millions of high school and college students are busy desperately trying to learn French, German, and Spanish; in China and Japan they are undergoing the torture of English courses. But despite the intense effort and enormous resources that are devoted to these studies, the results, as everyone knows, are pitiful. After years of study, students might be able to read simple passages in a foreign language, but usually won't be able to say much beyond such things as - "Good morning. How are you?" - and they will be completely baffled when hearing foreigners speak. I've often wondered why no-one ever seems to ask why the teaching of foreign languages is such a catastrophic failure. Why does it produce so few who become fluent? I've wondered because the answer is painfully obvious, and can be stated very simply : WE LEARN LANGUAGE THROUGH THE EAR, NOT THE EYE; LANGUAGE CANNOT BE LEARNED THROUGH THE EYE. No child ever learned its own language by studying a book and working out exercises. We learn our own language through the ear, first by listening to others and then by participating. That's why we learn it so effortlessly and so well. Reading is a secondary skill that comes much later. It has never been the case that the ability to speak a language required that one be able to read it, and traditionally the Chinese writing system was mastered by very few. If PIMSLEUR is an anagram for SIMPLER U it makes sense, because not only is the PIMSLEUR method SIMPLER for YOU, its also the ONLY method that has any hope of real success. Language is primarly an AURAL-ORAL phenomenon, a matter of listening and speaking. Using these tapes gives you lots of practise in both. Repeated use will bring a basic fluency that will give you the confidence to start interacting with native speakers of Chinese or French or whatever language you are studying. And if you have enough opportunities for that you'll soon be on your way to real fluency. These tapes require application but they do work, and it's not only work but fun. But what a wonderful idea the PIMSLEUR method is! I wonder why no one ever seems to have thought of it before? After all, if you do think about it, it's the only method that makes sense.
Rating:
Summary: A Great language taster but this pack is not a real course.
Review: A lot of language courses over the past few years have laboured a gimmick of "learn so-and-so language the way you learnt English as a child". Well I for one wouldn't want to spend the first year of learning a new language making gurgling sounds. In fact, those methods were just really more of the same. However, I believe that this is really ground-breaking! I bought this pack to see what all the fuss was about witht he Pimsleur method and I can honestly say that I have been impressed with the teaching style. This course in particular pays a lot of attention to the production of correct Chinese tones and the tapes are very clear in most cases. I found that I was able to assimilarte language in a way I hadn't before. It felt more natural that any other method I have used. I am a language teacher and hobby linguist, by the way. The method builds up sentences in your mind in a way that teaches you the structure but leaves you with a feeling that you have actually done the figuring out yourself. Having said that, I did find that still having to repeat the same phrases in lesson three that were used in lesson one a little boring. Also, this pack is a very reasonable price, but the amount you will learn is severly limited. If you consider that the method is based upon repitition of words and phrases to a great extent you will see just how little 8 tapes can really offer you. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you think you will even learn a useful amount from it, then think again! As a way to break the ice with a language, it is fine! I heartily recommend the technique. If you really want to learn Chinese with Pimsleur, then you should realuy go for the longer 30 tape courses. There are three levels in all. I would if I had the money, but sadly they are so expensive only people with money to throw around would be able to afford them. Finally, I think that this system would be great to use in conjunction with a regular language course. It could help to take the part of the live conversation element that so many people feel they cannot learn without (I disagree, actually!). Psycologically, this speaking style method can really help to prepare you for confident conversation, even though you may never have spoken to Chinese people in their native tongue before. On the whole, excellent, but content extremely limited. (BUT, this has a $50 certificate off a regular course inside it - only applies to USA, though, so it's probably worth it anyway!).
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