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Languages:
Albanian, Arabic (Eastern), Arabic (Egyptian), Chinese (Cantonese), Chinese (Mandarin) I+II+III, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French I+II+III, German I+II+III+Plus, Greek, Hebrew, Irish, Italian I+II+III, Japanese I+II+III, Korean, Polish, Portugese (Brazilian) I+II+III, Portuguese (Continental), Russian I+II+III, Spanish I+II+III, Thai, Twi, Vietnamese
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Description:
Use the Pimsleur Approach to speak a new language in only 10 days! Pimsleur courses took over 40 years to develop and perfect.
Just sit back and listen while the audio does the work for you.
Each CD has been scientifically sequenced to rapidly lock language material into your brain after just one listen.
You'll absorb your new language effortlessly without any reading, writing or computer use.
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Review:
What makes one language learning method better or more effective than another? Is the high price of a Pimsleur Comprehensive language course justified by its effectiveness or quality? In a word - yes. Pimsleurs language learning method was painstakingly developed to be an easy and effective learning system, and its unique approach puts it way ahead of the competition. I feel that the Pimsleur Comprehensive course is the single best language learning product available, but the brilliant method designed for Pimsleur Comprehensive courses does not work as well for the shorter courses that Simon and Schuster releases under the Pimsleur name. The Quick and Simple, Instant Conversation and Compact courses are good because they use the same method devised by Dr. Pimsleur, but they may not be ideal for everyone or may require additional complementary materials, depending on your learning goals. I'll go over the finer points of those courses and I'll show you why I think Pimsleur Comprehensive is the best language learning product available, but first let's take a quick look at the Pimsleur method.
Pimsleur produces all-audio language learning courses on cassette and cd. The lessons are one half-hour long, one lesson per day. Each lesson begins with a conversation between two native speakers of the target language and then an instructor begins to prompt the listener to learn and repeat the words and phrases you just heard. You then participate in the scripted conversation you heard at the beginning, playing each role in a variety of situations. Later in the course, the first minutes of each lesson are for review and then new material is introduced and worked with.
What makes Pimsleur so good is that it is so engaging. From the first minutes of lesson 1 you are involved in a conversation with native speakers. It may be a guided conversation and initially you are simply repeating the phrases and words as you heard them, but before long you will be prompted to say something in a new way, a way you haven't used or even heard yet. This is Pimsleurs Principle of Anticipation. You are unconsciously learning the rules of the new language - grammar, word order, verb conjugation etc. -and you are expected to try to infer the rule in your response. This creative use of the language is necessary to not only learn it, but become proficient at it. Rather than learn vocabulary and phrases by rote, you use them in context, creatively, the way we use our native language every day.
The beauty of Pimsleurs method is in its simplicity. We learn the new language just as we all learned our native language - by hearing it and imitating what we have heard. Pimsleur shows us how obvious it is that the focus should be on hearing and speaking the language, rather than learning boring grammar rules and verb conjugations, at least at first. Pimsleur shows us how learning a new language in a natural way is not only faster and easier, but the language stays with us for much longer. It is also a more fun and enjoyable experience.
Dr. Pimsleur developed a technique he called Graduated Interval Recall. It's a brilliant idea that makes the listener use a new word or phrase at increasingly longer intervals - 10 seconds later, 30 seconds later, 1 minute later, 10 minutes, 1 day, 1 week etc. This more effectively moves the newly learned information from short term memory into long term memory, particularly when its being used in context with material you already know. I remember learning a similar technique in a high school study skills class.
Another technique Pimsleur products employ is simply to focus on the most important function words in the language. Verbs like to be, to do, to have, to go, and words like but, and, for and also are among the most common words we use on a daily basis, and this holds true for many other languages as well as for English. Pimsleur makes sure that you are familiar with these function words and can use them in a variety of situations. Many language methods waste time and space teaching you how to say 'raspberry', but that's not a very useful word for most people when you're learning a new language. Pimsleur seems to feel, and rightly so in my opinion, that you are better served by learning how the language actually works so you can go and look up that word in a dictionary when you want or need to know it, and by then you'll know what to do with it in the new language.
By combining the techniques of the principle of anticipation, graduated interval recall, creative use of the language, focus on function words and phrases and putting them in an easy and enjoyable format, it creates a very simple but remarkably effective system for learning a language.
