My Experience Learning Spanish With Pimsleur Language Course

My entire life I’ve only spoken one language and it made me feel like an idiot, so I wanted to change that. When I was looking into buying Rosetta Stone, a friend of mine recommended Pimsleur products to me, and I’m very thankful he did.

For two years (off and on), I’ve been learning Spanish using a program called Pimsleur. They offer their program in more than 50 languages for English speakers. And, if you’re looking to improve your English, they offer English programs in 14 different languages.

If shopping through their website, the program is a pricy $1,190. But you can buy the same CD set on eBay for under $150. A pretty good price, in my opinion - especially considering you can resell it and get your money back when you’re done.

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How does it work?

Pimsleur has Spanish Levels 1-5 with 30 lessons on each level, for a total of 150 lessons. They also offer their courses in MP3, but I have it on CD.

Each lesson is 30 minutes long, and they tell you not to do more than one lesson per day. However, you’re allowed to do the same lesson multiple times in one day. Therefore, the fastest you can get through all five levels is 150 days or five months.

In order to finish in five months, you’ll have to be very disciplined, and you may have to do some of the more difficult lessons three or four times in a single day.

What it has done for me

They have an excellent product for speaking the language, but they don’t teach you how to read or write it. Although they don’t teach reading, as I’ve learned progressed through the lessons, it has become easier to read in Spanish. If you know how the word sounds, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how to spell it. However, every time I’m trying to read Spanish, I see some words and say “Oh! That’s how that word is spelled!” I’m frequently surprised.

I’m near the beginning of Spanish 4 right now, and I know enough words and phrases that I could move to a Spanish-speaking country and get by. But it’d be a struggle.

Although my vocabulary is growing, I still have a lot of trouble understanding native Spanish speakers. Native Spanish speakers generally talk very quickly, and a lot of their words are slurred together...Or, at least that’s how it sounds to me. After asking them to talk more slowly, I can usually understand them.

My struggles

I’ve been using this course off and on for nearly two years, so it should’ve been completed long ago. I’d do it consistently for a month, then forget for two weeks. Then I’d use it again for two weeks, and then forget for two months. Every time I stopped using it, it’d set me way back. Because of this, I had to repeat lessons over and over and over again.

How to be consistent

Learning a language with Pimsleur is all about consistency. If you are extremely disciplined about doing the lessons every single day, you’ll learn your new language very quickly. I thought I was going to have this discipline, but it only lasted for a couple months.

It wasn’t until my girlfriend @sharingeverybite started learning with me that I became consistent. Because we hold each other accountable and talk about what we’ve learned, we’ve been very good about sticking with our courses.

In order for you to be consistent, you’ll have to figure out what works for yourself. Maybe you’ll have enough motivation on your own, or perhaps you can learn with your partner. I find that these lessons are great to do during a commute. If you have a somewhat long drive to work that you make almost every day, that might be the perfect way to ensure you’re doing your lessons on a consistent basis

Final thoughts

Learning a second language feels very rewarding to me. It gives me more options in regards to where I can live and comfortably travel. Additionally, I believe I'm more empathic towards other cultures after understanding their language. Even though learning a second language isn't THAT much work, I also feel much more accomplished.

After I’m close to being fluent in Spanish, I’ll start learning another language. I haven’t decided whether the second will be Mandarin or something similar to Spanish (like Italian or Portuguese), but I’ll definitely use Pimsleur again!

Follow me @shenanigator