Product Description

This Conversational program contains 8 hours of interactive audio-only instruction, effective language learning with real-life spoken practice sessions.

The Pimsleur Method provides the most effective language-learning program ever developed. The Pimsleur Method gives you quick command of Spanish structure without tedious drills. Learning to speak Spanish can actually be enjoyable and rewarding.

The key reason most people struggle with new languages is that they aren't given proper instruction, only bits and pieces of a language. Other language programs sell only these pieces -- dictionaries; grammar books and instructions; lists of hundreds or thousands words and definitions; audios containing useless drills. They leave it to you to assemble these pieces as you try to speak. Pimsleur enables you to spend your time learning to speak the language rather than just studying its parts.

When you were learning English, could you speak before you knew how to conjugate verbs? Of course you could. That learning process is what Pimsleur replicates. Pimsleur presents the whole language as one integrated piece so you can succeed.

With Pimsleur you get:

• Grammar and vocabulary taught together in everyday conversation,
• Interactive audio-only instruction that teaches spoken language organically,
• The flexibility to learn anytime, anywhere,
• 30-minute lessons designed to optimize the amount of language you can learn in one sitting.

Millions of people have used Pimsleur to gain real conversational skills in new languages quickly and easily, wherever and whenever -- without textbooks, written exercises, or drills.

Conversational Spanish includes the 10 lessons from Pimsleur's Basic Spanish plus an additional 6 lessons.

The 16 lessons in Conversational Spanish are the same first 16 lessons in the Pimsleur Comprehensive Spanish Level 1.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45609 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-03
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 8
• Binding: Audio CD

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743550451
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"Pimsleur programs provide plenty of positive reinforcement that will keep learners on track, and we found that Pimsleur gave us more proficiency and confidence in speaking the new language than any of the other language programs we reviewed."-- AudioFile Magazine

"EXTREMELY ACCESSIBLE...each section within the lessons is short enough to hold our attention, and there is enough repetition to teach even those who consider themselves slow learners...Pimsleur [programs] are extremely thorough and easy to use -- quite lively!"-- Boston Herald

"Learn French while commuting, German while jogging, Spanish (or Russian, Italian, and Japanese) while cooking all with NO WRITTEN MATERIALS!"-- New York Daily News

"Designed for the ear and not the eye...the lessons provide PERFECT 30-minute bites of work."-- St Louis Post-Dispatch

"Learn to habla español or parlez français before your next trip aboard. The interactive LESSONS CHALLENGE STUDENTS to use new words in conversation instead of memorize them."-- American Way (American Airlines inflight magazine)

"I tried other language programs with little success...This is the best by far!"-- Pamela A. Mitchell, Pilot, International Society of Women Airline Pilots

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

Best Teacher of Foreign Language Yet
I purchased the Pimsleur's Conversational Spanish CD set with 18 lessons (not sure if this is the same, but close). I am a military brat and stand true to the belief that learning another language should start at the early elementary age. I retained more Japanese in 3 years, 24 years ago, than 3 years of studying Spanish at the high school level. Being in the construction industry, the hispanic community and workers have flourished, and with that my need to communicate with them. I have bought and tried other types of audio Spanish teaching media, but the Pimsleur's method is truly the only one that actually teaches you to think for yourself, which is what is actually going to happen when your in a conversation. To start with a conversation, and not memorizing all the verbs and their tenses and numbers, etc has made this very enjoyable and wanting to buy the entire volume. (I called directly today to order.) It's like starting to play an instrument: you don't want to learn all the scales and how to read music, you just want to be able to play a song or two right away, and that's what this Conversational Spanish does.

Plodding and Practically Useless
I disagree with all the glowing reviews, and seriously doubt any of the reviewers started from square one and felt they were prepared to visit a Spanish-speaking country from it alone.

Pimsleur does have a great idea, inspired by the Foreign Service Institute's approach, but the thing is it takes TIME. What's good about the method is you're drilled and drilled and drilled... what you learn here will stay with you a long time.

The flipside (and it's a big one) is that with all that repetition, you learn almost nothing. You'll learn the numbers (up to a hundred), how to tell time, how to order a generic beer (almost every lesson spends considerable time on this), and how to ask where a hotel or restaurant is.

But if the hotel is not "right here" or "over there," (the only possible answers, apparently) you'll have no clue. Forget about "turn left at the intersection and continue for two-and-a-half blocks." You can order a beer, but forget about a salad, the daily special, what the waiter recommends, a steak, some chicken, or tea or a soft drink.

You can go shopping but unless you want to buy "things" you'll come back with nothing. Nada! "Cosas" [things] is the only thing covered! Forget shirts, dresses, pants, maps, guides, film, cameras, books, hats. Forget about buying a plane ticket, a train ticket, asking for help, asking what's playing, finding the beach, a nightclub, a doctor, a cop, or even checking into the hotel that was conveniently "over there." Forget it all. Forget Pimsleur.

To get any truly useful survival skills with this approach, these eight disks would need to be followed by at least a hundred others. And with three hundred disks practiced over two years, I have no doubt you'd even be able to converse on a variety of topics, which I believe was Pimsleur's intention. But Pimsleur's eight disks is so tragically short of qualifying for tourist survival Spanish, that it's comical, as long as you're not the one using it.

There are better ways to learn, but they will require more effort on your part, such as drilling yourself on phrases, learning vocabulary, and (gasp!) some grammar. I would recommend Easy Spanish Step-by-Step for grammar and essential vocabulary, and probably Teach Yourself Spanish (of TY Latin American Spanish) for audio, and adequate survival phrases. Don't neglect the multitude of other resources available to you on the Internet as well.

Much better than all the rest!
I got this item for my husband, who had the French version and loved it! He tried a couple of other versions of someone else's "Learn to Speak Spanish" program because Barnes and Noble was out of this, and he was very disappointed. I then ordered this and he is very pleased. It helps you to learn spanish in a conversational way that immerses you in the language rather than just repeating back unrelated words that they tell you. My husband has never had any language training before, but wanted this because he deals with a lot of spanish speaking people in his work. We highly recommend this one.