Learning a New Language with Pimsleur
The Pimsleur Language System isn’t the most popular audio language learning program because its the most comprehensive course out there. And it isn’t the most popular language learning course because its the least expensive. Pimsleur’s popularity stems from two sources.
First the idea that the optimal method for learning a language for most people is to replicate the manner in which children learn a language - audibly. The second is that the Pimsleur method recognizes the limitations as well as the goals of most individuals.
Most people don’t have time to learn extensive grammar or sentence structures. Most people are looking to learn a language at a level sufficient to communicate in most basic and intermediate settings either in travel, social, or basic business settings.
There is also another reason, technical perhaps, but nevertheless important. The Pimsleur Method achieves this by using its principle of anticipation. In short, rather than having information beaten into us through constant repetition and simple memorization, anticipation gets the student to interact in the learning process. Once a student anticipates the answer from their memory, the answer is confirmed in the upcoming lesson. The student receives information and then recalls from memory.
