The French language is one of only two languages (the other being English) that is a national language on five continents. French is the official working language for dozens of international organizations including Interpol and Amnesty International. Add in the beauty and romantic nature of the language and it makes sense that French is the second most-widely taught language in the world. As you would expect there are no shortage of options with which to learn the language of love. One of them is the Pimsleur software program.

 

Pimsleur offers a variety of products that will attempt to teach you French. Four courses to be exact: French conversational, French Quick & Easy, French Basic, and the French Comprehensive series consisting of three levels sold separately. This article will be a review of the Pimsleur French Comprehensive series.

 

Course Components:  

Pimsleur French is a program developed by Dr. Paul Pimsleur. Dr Pimsleur was a New Yorker with a PHD in French from Columbia University and was considered a leading authority in the field of applied linguistics until his death in 1976. His method involves the student listening to a phrase spoken by a native French speaker and then the same phrase in English. At varying intervals the student is instructed to repeat the phrase in French. A new word or phrase is then introduced. After repeating the new word or phrase a couple times the student is asked to repeat an old phrase while incorporating vocabulary from the new one. Throughout the course you are instructed at random to recite old vocabulary words and phrases. The random recall is designed to associate words with meanings. Subsequent research has found Pimsleur’s method to be very effective and that memory retention of vocabulary requires some repetition over spaced intervals.

 

The Pimsleur system is now marketed by Simon & Schuster. It is an all-audio course that comes on either cassettes or CDs. On the CD sets you receive 30 half-hour audio lessons. I found the audio lessons to be engaging. You are immersed in the French language and learning useful phrases from the first minutes of the tutorial. The Pimsleur program is designed for quick gains in your ability to converse. To that end it focuses on only the most used words and phrases. This is actually the way that you learned your first language. It feels very organic and doesn’t become tedious like programs that incorporate a ton of drills. If you want to learn how to speak French quickly then this could be the program for you.

 

The major downside of this course is that it is a one-trick pony. Pimsleur doesn’t teach you how to read or write French. Consequently it is tough to advance beyond a certain point in your understanding of the language. Also there is nothing offered outside of the audio CDs. Nothing is downloadable and there are no videos lessons offered. The only interactive part is you repeating what the recording tells you too. Anyone who is more of a visual than auditory learner will not like this program. Another major con to this program is the price. To purchase all three levels of the Pimsleur system it will cost you about $650. That is very steep for a program with this limited amount of content.            

 

Bottom Line:

The Pimsleur system will have you speaking French faster than almost any other product on the market. So if you are looking for a quick fix, like you are going on a vacation to a French speaking country next month, then Pimsleur might be the program for you. However it is quite one-dimensional and I would not recommend it for anyone serious about truly learning and understanding the French language. The price is also a huge drawback. It will cost you over $600 to purchase this product. When you contrast that with Rocket French, a course that costs $99 and has literally hundreds more hours of content, as well as interactive computer games to add some variety, there is truly no comparison in terms of bang for the buck. That is why Rocket French is my top pick for a French language-learning course.