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I highly recommend trying the app. The user interface is beautiful and the approach seems effective. I could actually see this being used in a German language s

I highly recommend trying the app. The user interface is beautiful and the approach seems effective. I could actually see this being used in a German language school to supplement the curriculum, unlike pretty much every language app I've seen so far. I find Pimsleur to be a highly effective spoken language acquisition tool, but the writing/reading aspect is abysmal and quite demotivating. Chatterbug seems to be doing spaced repetition, and does it much better than Pimsleur audiobooks because I can zoom through the things I remember and get as much time as I need to repeat questions and think about the answer.

chillacy 9y ago
I can also vouch for the effectiveness of Pimsleur, especially when used in combination with Duolingo to take care of reading/writing and vocab. I had a much easier time when I landed in France because of all the time I put in listening/speaking along the recordings, which is frankly amazing because it's just a fixed set of 30 minute audio lessons, not customized at all!
ThinkingGuy 9y ago
Another vote for Pimsleur, at least for quickly acquiring a basic set of phrases and words for travel purposes. I've used 5 different Pimsleur courses (Turkish, Italian, Greek, Russian, and Dutch) in preparation for various international trips. I've found going through just the first 8 or 10 lessons is enough to get the necessary survival phrases firmly embedded in my memory. Pimseur also offers lessons intermediate and advanced courses that can take you to greater fluency, but I've never pursued any courses that far. If I really wanted to work toward fluency in a language, I'd probably start out with a different method. As others have pointed out, Pimsleur is oriented strictly to the spoken language, so if you need to be able to read the language, it would make sense to supplement it with separate written course materials, especially if the orthography of the target language is particularly different than your own (e.g., Greek and Mandarin). On a side note, I also find doing a 30-minute Pimsleur course to be a great mental exercise. Recalling the phraes and responding to the prompts, I literally feel like rarely-used parts of my brain are getting a workout.
- andai 9y ago
  Repetition is the key to mastery! Repetition is the key to mastery! Repetition is the key to mastery!

chillacy 9y ago

I can also vouch for the effectiveness of Pimsleur, especially when used in combination with Duolingo to take care of reading/writing and vocab. I had a much easier time when I landed in France because of all the time I put in listening/speaking along the recordings, which is frankly amazing because it's just a fixed set of 30 minute audio lessons, not customized at all!

ThinkingGuy 9y ago

Another vote for Pimsleur, at least for quickly acquiring a basic set of phrases and words for travel purposes. I've used 5 different Pimsleur courses (Turkish, Italian, Greek, Russian, and Dutch) in preparation for various international trips. I've found going through just the first 8 or 10 lessons is enough to get the necessary survival phrases firmly embedded in my memory. Pimseur also offers lessons intermediate and advanced courses that can take you to greater fluency, but I've never pursued any courses that far. If I really wanted to work toward fluency in a language, I'd probably start out with a different method. As others have pointed out, Pimsleur is oriented strictly to the spoken language, so if you need to be able to read the language, it would make sense to supplement it with separate written course materials, especially if the orthography of the target language is particularly different than your own (e.g., Greek and Mandarin). On a side note, I also find doing a 30-minute Pimsleur course to be a great mental exercise. Recalling the phraes and responding to the prompts, I literally feel like rarely-used parts of my brain are getting a workout.

andai 9y ago
Repetition is the key to mastery! Repetition is the key to mastery! Repetition is the key to mastery!