I have been using Pimsleur recently to become more confident in my Italian oral capacities. I have found the program to be quite limited in vocabulary and grammatical explanations, but very good at helping you to perfect and retain what it does teach. I am currently only halfway through level 2 of Italian, but will post a final review after having completed all 5 levels of the Pimsleur Italian course offered. I truly believe in this method and find it to be helpful especially to those who have no prior exposure to the target language.

Pimsleur Italian 1

Pimsleur Italian Level 2

Let me explain what I like and dislike about the Pimsleur program. First for those who are unfamiliar it is entirely audio based. There are some reading lessons that are included with the 30 audio lessons, but they are not as in-depth. Each level provides 30 lessons around 30 minutes long, which is roughly 15 hours per level. Not all languages offer beyond 3 levels, but the more popular ones (French, Spanish, Italian) offer 5 levels. The main course begins with a dialogue and uses a call and response style to introduce vocabulary and phrases in gradual increments and has you recall them using this method that Dr. Paul Pimsleur perfected. By the end of each lesson you can listen back to the beginning conversation and understand it entirely. He developed this technique of gradual interval recall which essentially means that they expose you to a new word and then have you recall it moments later and then they gradually increase the time between when you’ve been exposed to the word and when you are put on the spot to recall it. The technique is quite effective and it definitely works.

While the course does work, the website claims that just 30 lessons will get you to an intermediate level and that is just simply an unreasonable, unrealistic statement. At best, the first level of the program (30 lessons in total, 30 minutes each) will provide you with enough of a basis in the language to feel confident speaking with the little you know and put you somewhere in the middle of an A1 level in the CEFR. While experts disagree on how many hours are necessary to obtain an A1 level of proficiency, it is generally agreed that it takes around 60 hours. The Pimsleur program simply does not expose you to enough grammar, vocabulary or hours of study to reach a B1 level (Intermediate) within 30 lessons. Perhaps after completing all five levels of the program offered for Italian, one might reach a solid A2 level or equal to around 75 hours total of study.

This review covers the specifics of Pimsleur Italian. Pimsleur is an audio language learning course organized by level and made up of 30 minute lessons. The levels are designed to be worked through once a day lesson by lesson. Pimsleur’s method is a well researched and organized approach to language learning that uses techniques based on actual linguist and psychological research. Pimsleur Italian Level 1 CD: Learn to Speak and Understand Italian with Pimsleur Language Programs (1) (Comprehensive) Audio CD – CD, March 1, 2002 by Paul Pimsleur (Author) 4.5 out of 5 stars 129 ratings. Dec 29, 2019 Amazon.com: Pimsleur Italian Level 1 CD: Learn to Speak and Understand Italian with Pimsleur Language Programs (1) (Comprehensive) (376). English for Italian Speakers is a completely audio-based English course from Pimsleur.

Here is what I like about the program, it is very easy to use and extremely flexible. It forces the learner to listen actively and respond actively in their studies. They provide you with a very short amount of time to respond and it really puts you on the spot. It is a great and effective way to increase one’s ability to respond to certain questions in certain scenarios. It is also a great and effective way to increase one’s listening comprehension as well as one’s ability to form grammatically correct sentences. Since I have not yet finished the entire program this review is incomplete. However, thus far what the program lacks is in-depth explanations of grammar as well as exposure to reading and writing. The program does have reading lessons, however they are not as effective as the main program. In fact I have found them to be quite useless, at least in terms of the ones for level one which are simply there for pronunciation purposes. The ones in level two are more useful providing you with exposure to common signs and idiomatic expressions. The program’s content is also limited and does not cover a wide variety of scenarios or vocabulary. Once I have completed the full Pimsleur course I will be more enabled to give a more comprehensive review on all of the levels and materials provided in the course. At this point in time however I have found the program to be very useful overall even though it is lacking. I would definitely recommend it for exposing yourself to this sounds of a new language and learning basics. I definitely plan to use Pimsleur for the other languages that I plan to study in the future. Just using Pimsleur I believe will allow one to obtain on an A2 level of a language. It will definitely allow you to reach a solid A1 level beginning into the A2 level if not a solid A2 level, which is really all that is required to comfortably navigate a country while traveling. However if one’s objective is to become completely proficient in a language to the level in which they could work in that language (C1/C2), then while I would recommend the course initially you would need several other programs or lessons in order to reach such a level to be proficient enough for conducting business in your target language.

Pimsleur Basic Italian

That said the course does give you a very strong foundational basis in speaking and exposes you to the sounds and phonetics of the language you are wishing to learn and I would recommend it to anyone to help give them the initial confidence required to navigate in a new language. You will surprise yourself with how much you learn. Keep in mind though, that the lessons can be considered boring for some. It is mentally exhausting. Try a free lesson on their website to determine if this is the style for you. They offer the first lesson for each level of any language free, so you lose nothing except 30 minutes of your time.