It forces you to react fast and speak fluently So I still had some minor tweaks to make, but nonetheless I was speaking with fairly accurate pronunciation from day 1.Ģ. My English speaking ears simply heard the b as an English b and the v as an English v and the d as an English d. I started with Pimsleur Spanish from absolute 0, so no knowledge of Spanish phonetics, such as the lack of a b/v distinction, or the /ð/ sound for the letter d. I first used Pimsleur to learn Spanish, in which I am now working towards C2, and while I’d be lying if I said I could be confused for a native speaker, I have been told numerous times by Mexicans (I live in Mexico) that they have never heard another foreigner with such accurate pronunciation and such imperceivable native accent bleed-over.Ĭaveat: this does, to some extent, depend on your ear. This helps learners master 1 syllable at a time instead of getting tongue tied, with the added benefit of fine-tuning the ear to the phonetics of the language on a micro scale. Here it is in IPA annotation: /ˌʌnb ɪ ˈliːvəbəl/ A pretty difficult word for many English learners. What is backchaining and how does it work?Imagine the word “unbelievable”. How does Pimsleur achieve this? Well, apart from the obvious (listening to natives and repeating), it uses backchaining. It stands to reason that you will be able to understand any word that you are able to pronounce correctly, so learning to pronounce correctly should be a priority from the very beginning. So many language learners overlook pronunciation until very late in the game, and this affects their ability not only to be understood, but also to understand.
You speak with good pronunciation from day 1. But overall, as a language teacher and enthusiast, I think it’s a crucial tool in your language-learning journey. Now, Pimsleur is not without its critics, and rightly so because we humans should always question and criticise. That’s 15-75 hours of glorious speaking and listening practice. Each level has 30 lessons of 30 minutes each, with 1-5 levels available for each language. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff when you put it that way, but it’s a method that far, far too many language learners overlook with detrimental long term results. The essence of the program is that you listen to native speakers of your target language and then repeat what they say.
Presently, around 50 languages are offered. Then it graduated to CDs, MP3s and now has finally entered the 21st century with mobile apps. It’s been around since 1963 and the program was originally offered on cassette tapes. It seems pretty cool to knock Pimsleur these days, so I'm here to give it a little love.įor those of you who are already familiar with Pimsleur, you can skip the next 2 paragraphs.įor those of you who don’t know what the hell a Pimsleur is, it’s an old-school language learning program based more or less on the audiolinguistic approach.