Pimsleur Approach – Thoughts?

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  • September 19, 2011 at 11:03 pm
    missceegee
    Participant

    My kids are taking a Spanish class at co-op and I’m looking for something to go with with more listening practice. Just wondering if anyone has experience with this? I like that it’s audio based and not reading/writing based. 

    Thanks,

    Christie

    September 19, 2011 at 11:48 pm
    suzukimom
    Participant

    How old are your kids again?

    I like Pimsleur, although it is a little “old” for my kids (7 and younger).  However we started listening to it during our drive to violin lessons…. more for me than for them.  And it is what got my kids saying a few phrases…  

    (we do German, not Spanish, but I’m sure it would be about the same….)

    September 20, 2011 at 12:03 am
    Shannon
    Participant

    I have the first two sets and I loved them. I’ve used Rosetta Stone also (have all levels) but returned it bc I didn’t find it helped at all. I can’t speak to younger ages using it as only I did it, it has been a few years and I’ve now given them to my father and 14 yo nephew to use them. But it is the only commercial product I’ve thought was worth buying of all I’ve used (I’ve also borrowed many from our library).

    shannon in NC

    September 20, 2011 at 12:19 am
    missceegee
    Participant

    My kids are 10, 7, 4 and 1, but it would be for my 10 and 7 year olds. 

    I bought ALL levels on Rosetta Stone Latin American Spanish a few years ago when my oldest was 7. Even on the lowest setting, we couldn’t satisfy the pronunciation so we asked my Mexican brother-in-law to try. He couldn’t make it happy either. I recently sold it. I liked the premise of it, but it simply frustrated us. 

    Thanks,

    Christie

    September 20, 2011 at 12:54 am
    missceegee
    Participant

    I just tried the free lesson and I LOVED it! By trying the free lesson, they emailed me a 25% off coupon and by choosing the downloadable version of comprehensive i, I got it for $89.96. The cd version is $345. Quite a savings! 

    September 20, 2011 at 2:35 am
    momtomany
    Participant

    I’ve read quite a bit about foreign language acquisition, and the polyglots I’ve read about often advise Pimsleur.  $345, ouch! $89 sounds much more affordable 😉

    I LOVE Barry Farber’s book, “How to Learn Any Language”… and he has a website by the same title too with a huge forum.  The book just makes you want to get started learning other languages, because he really shows you how doable it is.  It’s an easy read too.

    http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html (website)

    Best wishes… I think you’re on the right track with Pimsleur.

    September 20, 2011 at 7:59 pm
    QuirkyMama
    Participant

    I recently moved to Germany to live for a few years so am using the Pimsleur German for myself.  One thing I have done is cut the lessons in half (so 60 15-minute lessons for Level 1) because 30 minutes was just too much for me to retain and find time for.  But since I cut the lessons in half, I am allowed a bit of time to supplement with a grammar book and vocab app (Babbel for iPhone–it’s great, free, and even my kids are learning vocab with it.)  The combination of the three are working great for me, but I am an adult, and a grammar book probably won’t do much for a young child other than make a nice addition to a pretend library (as for my kids). Oh, and I tried a bit of Rosetta Stone but it just annoyed me for some reason.

    One interesting thing I noticed about the Pimsleur that some might not like for using with younger kids is that, in the German version at least, I learned to ask for a beer or wine before water.  I remember that by lesson six I could invite someone over to my house for a drink but coultn’t ask where the restroom was.  But I can’t think of anything else really odd like that in the 24 lessons I have done so far. 

    So in 24 lessons, I still can’t hold much of a conversation with my non-English speaking landlord, but we try to get by in the few phrases we know of each other’s languages.  So I can’t speak for how well Pimsleur teaches one to speak and understand the language when used in it’s entirety, but maybe I will get there!  It does seem to be a fairly simple yet effective way to get going in the conversational side of a language.

    Not sure if that helped at all since you were asking more about kids.  Either way, hope you find what will work the best for you!

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