Pimsleur | Language Learning

Tried maybe 10 years ago to do pimsleur but fell off and felt frustrated by lack of explanations and outside practice. Recently 6 months out from a Japan trip I decided to give the ap a try and WOW! The extras have transformed this from a way to learn travelers to how to become conversant! The flash cards speaking practice and reviews are such incredible addons that really make it complete. Caveat-I recommend pairing this program with a grammar book for Japanese esp so you can first learn the alphabets and then do grammar and addtl vocab as you go -but with that basic grounding of the apphabets ( this is the hiragana katakana and that only takes a few weeks to learn. Postscript I went to Japan in November & I was by no means fluent after six months of study, but I was able to understand basic sentences, communicate basic needs, and at one point I even made a reservation by phone entirely in Japanese. Being able to speak just a little bit of Japanese really ingratiated me to everyone native that I met who really appreciated it and I had many people say to me how great they thought it was that I taken the time to study their language . Initially, my plan was to study Japanese until I went on this trip but I’ve discovered such a love for the language I’m continuing on. I do spend far more than one day on each lesson so in six months, I had only gotten to the second set of lessons about halfway through and I’ve decided to finish because I feel that I’m well on my way to learning and I believe that I can get to fluency.

I use this app everyday. I think it’s great for conversational French. It uses a lot of correct phrasing and idioms that are actually spoken. Buuuuut… I would love if each lesson had a tiny description on what is covered. I am in France for the first time and happen to be a slew on lessons talking about cars, mechanics, etc. Not very a very useful refresher for while I’m here. However, not too far back there were lessons on new verb tenses that would be perfect for right now, but it’s difficult to find. Also I don’t feel the reading aligns with the lesson. It would be nice to see how what I’m learning is spelled. Reading seems a bit random, but certainly still helpful! This app is perfect to do on the go, while commuting or walking. I feel this app helps me think better in French, as opposed to always translating in my head. Would highly recommend. A disclaimer… I took French for four years in high school so I had a good initial understanding of spelling, alphabet, numbers, grammar, etc. This was a perfect building block. Not sure how it would resonate with a brand new speaker. Perhaps it would be more helpful! As a visual learner, because the French don’t pronounce the words how they are spelled made it very confusing in school. I appreciate just speaking. But some things might have a bit more of a learning curve if you have no familiarity with the language! Merci Pimsleur!

I’ve been trying to learn Spanish in one form or another for the past year and tried a variety of different apps and methods. Duo lingo was fun and somewhat helpful to learn the words, same with Lingo Deer - but I never could actually carry a conversation based on those methods (plus I learned that DuoLingo actually sells your translations, but that’s a different story). This year I decided to make a serious effort and purchased Rosetta Stone. It’s a big improvement over those other apps, but again, I found myself seriously struggling to make Spanish conversational - the lessons at the end which prompt you to respond to Spanish really left me struggling. It’s then I realized that unless I’m actually participating in a conversation, knowing a thousand words was NOT going to help me naturally speak the language. That’s where Pimsleur comes in. After about a month of using it, I’ve gained significant confidence in speaking short phrases naturally The method is proven and works! Albeit the method can be a bit tasking since the app isn’t all shiny and sparkly like DuoLingo- but it actually works! The app itself works very well and allows me to do my lessons without actually holding my phone in my hand. The interface is easy and up to date. There’s no way I’m conversational yet and likely won’t be without a ton more work, but I feel this method and app will be a key to my eventual success. Hands down, if you want to learn to speak a language - I’d say this is the best way to do it