Product Description

The 16-lesson (8 CDs) Conversational Course gives customers the first half of the incredibly effective and efficient, world-famous Pimsleur Comprehensive Program. Customers will love the experience of acquiring the essential grammar and vocabulary of Greek during the spoken practice sessions. It is this ease of language acquisition that makes the full Comprehensive Pimsleur Program so popular and successful for adult language learners.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #318209 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-26
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 8
• Binding: Audio CD

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. Paul Pimsleur devoted his life to language teaching and testing and was one of the world's leading experts in applied linguistics. After years of experience and research, Dr. Pimsleur developed The Pimsleur Method based on two key principles:  the Principle of Anticipation and a scientific principle of memory training that he called ?Graduated Interval Recall.?  This Method has been applied to the many levels and languages of the Pimsleur Programs.

Customer Reviews

Great start to learn to speak Greek!
These CDs are a great start to learning modern Greek. I thought I was hopeless! This is really helpful if you are planning to travel to Greece, but you will definitely need other books/tapes if you are trying to learn more than just how to ask directions, ask for something to drink, etc. One negative that a native speaker pointed out to me is that you only learn the "formal" version of a lot of things (I'm only half-way through though, so maybe they teach informal tenses later). Overall a great experience as long as you make sure to do it frequently and repeat lessons to make sure you know everything before you move on. Definitely worth the price and you can rip them onto your mp3 player so it's more convenient!

A Good Foundation
I spent about three months listening to the CDs in my car during the commute home from work. I was impressed at how the course would subtly teach Greek grammar. When I demonstrated what I had learned to Greek speakers, they were very impressed by my pronunciation. I found some of the conversations to be rather humorous too.

My only gripe is that sometimes I could not differentiate between some sounds such as "ven" as "then" and 'm' and 'n' sounds. A small book with phonetic spellings of all the words would be a welcome addition to the product.

By the way, investing in an English-Greek dictionary would not be a bad idea since the course does not cover that many nouns. The course does not focus on throwing as many words at you as possible - instead it only teaches what you are likely to retain in half an hour and focuses on repetition.

I went to Greece after completing the course and I found that I could pick out bits and pieces of what people were saying. I was able to tell a Greek woman what the time was after she asked me the time in Greek and was able to ask for the bill and understood the waitress when she told me "11 euros". I stayed with a Greek family and they seemed to like it when I would throw in a Greek word or two. Prior to listening to the CDs, I had absolutely no exposure to the Greek language.

After doing 16 lessons you probably will not be proficient in Greek but it is a very good foundation to build upon.

Best way to start
This course, as with all Pimsleurs courses, is the best way to start your study of Greek. After doing the 16 lessons you can jump into one of the other "learn yourself" type courses with a good head start. It also prevents you from creating bad habits sometimes formed by the wrong use of some transliterations or pronunciation explanations given in books. Go through it BEFORE you start any book and you will already have learned some of the basic structures. Very little vocabulary however. You may continue with Pimsleur's complete course afterwards. Highly recommemded.