I asked my friends at the time, but the most I could get out of them (and you have to understand their English wasn't very advanced, and neither's my Japanese!) was: 'it's strange; it's not natural; Japanese people don't speak like that'
Any of these comments could merely mean that Pimsleur teaches a correct and very formal Japanese, but that wouldn't explain all the laughter I don't think. This could, though, be due to the fact that foreign language learning audio material quite often sounds forced or unnatural, depending on the voice actors (or 'performers') used. I myself have often played audio for learning English to students, and not been able to stop laughing. I've even had students themselves laughing at English audio, the voices were so silly!
I've just had a quick flick through level 1, and it doesn't sound that unnatural to me. The only thing is that they don't omit the subject, that does stand out.
Now I would like a second opinion on this, and I don't have any Japanese friends here in England right now. So I hope someone who's pretty near fluent or a native speaker has heard Pimsleur and can comment.
(If it helps I guess I could rip a small bit of the audio and email it to you)
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