Product Description

The 10-lesson (5 CDs) Basic Course gives customers the chance to test drive the incredibly effective and efficient, world-famous Pimsleur Comprehensive Program. A real try it before you buy it deal. Customers will love the experience of acquiring the essential grammar and vocabulary of Eastern Arabic, 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: #130785 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-03
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 5
• Binding: Audio CD

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743550741
• 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. 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

4 1/2 stars
This is a 10-lesson set on 5 CD's, 1/2 hour per lesson. The lessons have an English-speaking narrator with two native speakers, a man and a woman.

I bought this set because I had used Pimsleur to learn Russian several years ago, and I found the Russian set effective. Like the Russian lessons, these Arabic CD's are good too.

The Pimsleur philosophy involves repetition, and starts out with practical words to learn. Often when I encounter foreign-language educational media, the words being taught are not the most important to be learned first. Also, often I encounter rote memorization. But not with the Pimsleur CD's, everything is built around sentences and phrases and conversation. When you first come to a country, you want to know how to say, "excuse me" or "can you speak English," etc. I only wish the Pimsleur CD's included things like "How much does this cost" or numbers.

One thing which would also be nice is an accompanying booklet, just to see what the words look like in print. Arabic uses a different script as you may know, so this is difficult, since many Arabic consonants are not found in English, (making it difficult to write in Latin script) or there might be two different consonants which represent the same sound, only one is given more emphasis; for example there is "seen," soft "s" like "sit" and "Saud," a louder "S" like in "Snake." And then there is "ayn" and "ghayn" etc. which have no equivalent but sometimes show up in words in the Pimsleur CDs.

But it is part of the Pimsleur philosophy that you learn the language like the native speakers do: by speaking first. But I think it is a good idea to have some printed material as well, because the speakers are not always 100% clear. Plus I think they use vernacular: for example, they will say "kif ek" for "how are you" to a lady, but elsewhere I see "kif halak." Also "nayn" instead of "ithnayn" for "two."

At some points there is a steep learning curve; probably the first one you encounter is where you have to pronounce "good morning;" "sabaH al-khayr" which needs lots of work to get right, and I don't think enough time is spent in the lesson. Although there is plenty of repetition in the CD's, I recommend going through each lesson 4 or 5 times before proceeding to the next. Or, as I do, stagger the lessons so it doesn't become too boring; for example in the following order: 1,1,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,3,2,3,2,3, etc.

A small annoyance you might find with these CD's, if you're female, is that in some cases, the narrator asks for a response from you and then when the native speaker repeats the correct answer, it is given in masculine form only. So if you are a female, it is not the correct response. In many cases, the CD's will offer both responses, but not always.

One last small annoyance is that the package does not make clear what dialect of Arabic is taught on the CD's. It is the Syrian/Lebanese dialect. They should make this clear on the package.

But overall, I was pleased with this product.

Get what you pay for
This is a great find, inexpensive and easy to follow. You definitely get your money's worth out of this. Only thing that would make this better would be if it came with written instruction as well, but like I said, considering the price, I can see why it's not included.
Would definitely recommend this product to others learning how to pronounce commeon words and phrases.

Syrian/Lebanese version ... should be made clear
From the very first words that came out of the narrator's mouth ... "you are speaking to a woman from Syria..." I knew this was usless for me. Anyone who's into Arabic in the slightest degree first learns that the most common forms are Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Arabic. So to advertise a program as only 'Basic Arabic' is beyond deceptive. Also, as everyone knows with Pimsleur you don't have any written material. I don't understand why they won't incorporate that into the programs. Arabic is hard enough to mimick with all the glottal sounds without considering doing it with no written reference. Cheapskates I guess. Anyway its a good technique IF you want to learn SYRIAN arabic or have a glossary with you to search every word used which goes against the convenience of listening in the car.