Japanese II - 1st Ed. [Audiobook] (Audio CD)

Unfortunately, this "native" speaker is the female voice for Pimsleur Japanese II and III. So much for truth in advertising.

While she is absolutely grating to the ears, I still find Pimsleur Japanese useful. Luckily, I received Japanese II and III as gifts. I would feel cheated if I had paid.

That aside, you should know up front that the speakers in the Japanese 2 series, from which you will be modeling your speaking, are **not native speakers**. Ok, that may be a little harsh; the male speaker may **possibly** be a native speaker, but his accent is definitely non-standard -- and by standard, I mean the accepted Kanto dialect, which you will hear on NHK news broadcasts and just about any Japanese language audio program. My main criticism is with the female speaker (who according to the credits in the program book is one of the course's writers); her accent screams out at you as being not only non-standard, but non-native! I'm surprised at 1) Pimsleur's (i.e. Simon and Schuster) carelessness in not reviewing the quality of its speakers -- if the consumer is shelling out big bucks for this course, the very least Pimsleur should do is ensure that it uses standard accents to model; 2) the gall of the female speaker to pass herself off as a model speaker on a mass-distributed language program, especially one as popular as the Pimsleur program -- who the heck does she think she's fooling?! (Well, obviously she must have fooled the folks at Pimsleur!)

Here's an analogy: as fluent in the English language as Henry Kissinger is, would you recommend him as a model speaker on an English language learning audio program? Or put another way, as a learner of English, would you want to model your accent after Dr. Kissinger? How about learning English by modeling Arnold Schwarzenegger's accent? How would you like to shell out over $300 for the privilege, not knowing what you were getting? Many people unsuspectingly have...

Notes:
1)Just to show I'm not alone in these views, I played the CDs to 5 native speakers of Japanese; every listener singled out the female speaker on the CDs as glaringly non-native in her accent/intonation; very fluent perhaps, but definitely not a native speaker. The fact that the credits list her as having a Japanese maiden name only adds to the mystery.
2)The version I reviewed was copyrighted in 1996 and 1998. I have not yet reviewed courses 1 nor 3, but if they contain the same speakers -- BUYER BEWARE!

All you do is listen to the lessons, concentrate on them, and repeat it if you have trouble with something (Can't remember a word, grammar pattern, etc.). Yup, it's as simple as it sounds.

I (As many others seem to) study other material in addition to Japanese II. I don't know if one could survive in Japan solely on Pimsleur lessons, but the quality of Pimsleur Lessons is still unsurpassed. I would highly recommend that you do other studies in addition to the Pimsleur Lessons, if time allows.

Pimsleur is THE BEST audio language learning course out there, period. And with Pimsleur Japanese II, you get what you pay for, simple as that.