What satisfied customers say about Pimsleur Audios:
A painless start to learning a new
language.
There are three things that everybody who has
taken a Pimsleur course says about it: 1) It's expensive 2) It
works, and 3) I wish there was more. If it didn't work, the
other two wouldn't matter (and if you are not sure it will work
for you try an 8 lesson Basic set). But since for most it does
work, it is worth considering the other two items. You will
probably want to continue through Spanish II, possibly Spanish
III. This costs real money. And even after the full three
volume set you are not going to be able to follow the soaps.
But it is amazing how quickly you go from saying "Do you speak
English?" to being able to understand and express complex ideas
in Spanish within a small, but well chosen,
vocabulary.
Great product
This is a fantastic product, and one of the best
ways to really get an early handle on grammar, and an
outstanding way to practice speaking and pronounciation at any
level. However, please do not do not get disapointed when you
don't speak perfect French in 8 hours. This will give you basic
tools to build on, but then you need to spend some time in a
French country, or take several years of university
classes.
When considering the investment in a foriegn language,
consider that it may take 1000 hours (for an extremely easy
language like French) to feel very comfortable in the language.
That's one hour of serious study each day for three years. Or
you can go sit in a Parisian cafe and talk to people who are
willing to tutor you (extremely hard to find without some
pretty good skills to start with) and you might get there in a
few months.
I like this product because it's the very best available for
naturally teaching you the grammar basics and for helping you
to build the core vocabulary (stuff like and, but, or, many,
few, the, a, an, whowhatwhenwherewhy), the core language
structure (negation, word order), and it's outstanding for it's
ability to teach language sounds...
A side note...be willing to sleep between lesson times.
Something happens when you sleep, and you'll be better at it by
the next lesson. That's why it's important to do this every
single day, so that you have the maximum number of study-sleep
cycles. -- Daniel G. Cockrell, Phoenix, AZ,
USA