Product Description

Spanish Plus, the next level in the Pimsleur Language Program. These 10-lessons provide an additional, sophisticated level of language that build upon the language skills acquired in Levels I, II, & III. Upon completion of the Plus program, you will be able to:

• move into a more interpersonal exchange of language at a higher level,

• converse in a clearly participatory fashion,

• use diverse language strategies.

For everyone who has completed the Spanish Level I, II, & III -- and can't wait to continue. Spanish Plus includes real-life situations and complex conversations with expanded vocabulary. This program greatly increases your ability to discuss everyday topics in only 10 days.

Note: In order for the Pimsleur Method to work correctly, you must first complete the Level I, II, & III language programs before proceeding to the "Plus" Level language program.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #560562 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-01
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 5
• Binding: Audio CD

About the Author
Dr. Pimsleur devoted his life to language teaching and was one of the world's leading experts in applied linguistics. After obtaining his Ph.D. in French from Columbia University, he taught French Phonetics and Phonemics, and supervised the language laboratory at UCLA. He went on to become Professor of Romance Languages and Language Education, and Director of The Listening Center at Ohio State University; Professor of Education and Romance Languages at the State University of New York at Albany; and a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Heidelberg. Dr. Pimsleur was a member of the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF), American Educational Research Association (AERA), Modern Language Association (MLA), and a founding member of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). His many books and articles revolutionized theories of language learning and teaching. After years of experience and research, Dr. Pimsleur developed a new method that is based on two key principles: the Principle of Anticipation and a scientific principle of memory that he called Graduated Interval Recall. This program incorporates both of these principles to provide you with the most simple and effective learning method possible.

Customer Reviews

Good, some room for improvement
This course is intended to be used after the Pimsleur Spanish III comprehensive course. It consists of 10 audio only lessons, each around 30 minutes. There are no reading lessons. In general, the lessons seemed to be slightly less challenging than the lessons in the earlier courses

The lessons pick up approximately where Spanish III left off, introducing new vocabulary and phrases and reviewing the material covered in the earlier lessons and courses. However, it seems that much of the material presented towards the end of Spanish III is never really reviewed.

An additional complaint I have is that a fair amount of the new vocabulary is pretty specific to the publishing industry, such as "publishing house", "book fair", "author's rights", and so on. It seems there are a lot of other words and phrases that would be much more useful to most people.

Something which is different than the earlier courses is that there are two different sets of spanish speakers. The female speaker in lessons 1-5 seems to have a different, or perhaps stronger, accent than the other spanish speakers. I found her speech somewhat more difficult to follow. But on the other hand, it provided good practice in understanding slightly different pronunciation.

All in all, I found the Pimsleur method to be an extremely effective and painless way of building and retaining a strong and practical foundation in Spanish. I think this Spanish Plus course is a bit less useful than the other courses in this series, but is still worthwhile, and will provide some additional knowledge and practice beyond Spanish III.

for Pimsleur addicts
I confess, I am a Pimsleur addict, so I don't regret buying these in CD format. However, I must warn that these lessons were obviously developed for in-house publishing employees. The content is completely centered on the world of publishing, and will add very little new and useful vocabulary for others. Except that you will learn to discuss the novel you are reading with others. It does give you more experience with putting together the grammar you know, and adds a few new general phrases. But, it is not really providing much new material past level three. I wish Pimsleur would develop a true level IV with more grammer and content, or even "vocabulary supplemental" with the past grammar and tenses, but with lots broader conversational content.

for pimlseur addicts
first - see the review for the cassette version of this product for additional info. Now, I am a big Pimsleur fan, own several of their products, think it's the best system to teach spoken language. But, it is obvious to me that Spanish Plus was developed as an in-house product - all of the new vocuabulary and situations are related to publishing. I don't mind that they made an in-house focused product available for sale - I'm enough of a Pimsleur addict to want it. But, they charge the same for it as for the heavy duty courses that really teach you - I, II, III - in Amazon prices about [dollar amount] per CD. I would have felt better paying less - say [dollar amount] per disc since it's obvious that the normal consumer is not its focus. This is nowhere near as educational for the majority of people as the main program. It's fine to run through some new combinations of the words and grammar that you know, but the new content vocabulary is all publishing. What I REALLY want from Pimsleur is a review of the verbs and vocab of I,II,III together with new vocabulary related to broader content. And with a little less repitition of simple things that are already well learned.