Pimsleur | Language Learning

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 always wanted to learn a second language, but for some reason, I always thought that I didn’t have the intelligence to do it. well, I certainly learned that intelligence can be very subjective, because I have learned so much in such a small window of time and the more you keep going, The more fun you start having with it. i’ve decided that I want to learn how to speak Finnish, the national language of Finland. Something else that really took me by surprise was the fact that as you start learning words, you start making those neuronal pathways between where the original word in your mother tongue language is stored in the word that you learn through your second language, and once that connection is made it stays there, and in the beginning, you’ll start to hear the words, and then the English version of the word Will pop into your head as the definition. And then, as time goes on even more, and you’re learning more and more advanced words, you literally start to think in the new language. all I can say, is I recommend this program to anybody who wants to be able to start speaking a new language right away within the first lesson because it is true. You do learn how to speak some bear essential words in the first lesson.

I’m learning Tagalog, now into my tenth lesson of the first course. Having doubled down with this app and a few other language training apps, I can tell you that you WILL learn with Pimsleur. The training seems rooted in conversations that are both relevant and easy enough to follow along. My one main gripe—and what keeps me from giving Pimsleur a full five stars—is that there is no text to accompany the feature spoken dialogue of each lesson. Supplementary text-based training modules follow the feature spoken dialogue, and it is only by then that I sometimes learn I was speaking incorrectly throughout the whole lesson. For instance, in today’s lesson—in which I learned some words for telling the time of day—I repeated the word “balang” several times. Later, in the text-based training that followed it, I learned that I SHOULD have been saying “pa lang”. “Balang” and “pa lang” sound similar enough to be confused with each other by a new learner like myself, but these are entirely different words. Text to accompany the feature dialogue training would handily prevent such confusion from happening. And, it would obviate the need to have Google translate or some similar app handy to attempt word discovery while training. Pimsleur, add text to accompany the dialogue, and I’ll give you five stars. Everyone else, if you’re seeking to learn a new language, Pimsleur should be among your top picks. Just keep my caveats in mind.