Pimsleur Review, Learning Romanian from Scratch has been transcribed from Steve’s YouTube channel. You can download the audio and study the transcript as a lesson at LingQ.

 

My Pimsleur Review: The Good and the Bad

I decided to give Pimsleur a solid try while learning Romanian. Pimsleur is quite popular with many learners. I myself have Pimsleur courses for Portuguese and Russian. However, in both cases, I already had an intermediate level in the language and found the courses too boring. With Romanian, I have the chance to review Pimsleur as a true beginner. In this post, I’ll share with you my thoughts on Pimsleur and its value as a language learning resource. 

Pimsleur: A Strong First Impression

The material is extremely well made. The quality of the recordings is excellent. The voices are clear. I like that the material is not too demanding, and it’s full of repetition. Pimsleur introduces you to simple words and phrases. You’re given the meaning in English and asked to use the new material in various hypothetical situations. 

Each Pimsleur lesson consists of 30 minutes of audio. I’ve listened through 10 lessons. I mostly listen to the Pimsleur lessons while driving, exercising or doing the dishes. I like the flexibility. Every lesson starts with a short dialogue, and you spend the next half hour repeating and dissecting it in different contexts. 

For example, the narrator will prompt you to ask and respond to a series of questions in Romanian.

Do you want to have lunch? Do you want to have lunch now? Do you want to have lunch later? Do you want to have a drink? Do you want to have a drink at my place? Do you want to have a drink at your place? I want to have a drink.

It just goes on and on like this for the entirety of the lesson. 

Pimsleur Does Not Cover Enough Vocabulary

One of Pimsleur’s shortcomings is that it covers very little. There’s simply not a lot of vocabulary or variety across the lessons. The first lesson, which cost me $27, mostly covered the following phrases:

  • Do you understand Romanian?
  • Do you understand English
  • Yes
  • No
  • Do you want to have a drink?
  • Do you want to have dinner with my at my apartment or in a restaurant?
  • Where is Bulevardul Unirii?
  • Where is Lipscani Street?

Personally, I don’t consider Pimsleur a sufficiently rich resource for vocabulary. These phrases are arguably important, but I’d prefer to enrich my exposure to the language. Repetition is good, but such strict repetition quickly becomes dull and limiting.

Reading through a single lesson of Teach Yourself on LingQ, I’m already covering more vocabulary than what’s given in the entire Pimsleur course. LingQ’s mini-stories in Romanian contain nearly 2,000 different words. Pimsleur does not provide the learner with ample exposure to the language.

Pimsleur Lacks Reading Material

Why is there no transcript? I can’t understand why Pimsleur wouldn’t provide a transcript. Often, I’d hear a phrase and wouldn’t quite catch it. I don’t instantly grasp the sounds because I’m not used to listening to Romanian. If I could read it, I’d see how Romanian spelling works and have a better shot at remembering (and pronouncing) the word correctly. It’s a bit frustrating that Pimsleur overlooks the value of written material. 

In fact, it’s a missed opportunity to not emphasize reading in Romanian. I downloaded some Romanian newspaper articles into LingQ. Looking up vocabulary as I go, I’m interacting with a much larger volume of the language and developing a better feel for how the language is structured. Also, I have to admit that the newspaper articles are much more interesting than the actual content on Pimsleur. The hypothetical conversations are not interesting. 

Tip: While Pimsleur prioritizes listening over reading, LingQ ensures that learners can read and listen simultaneously. Many of LingQ’s resources come with audio. If there is no audio to begin with, you can automatically generate one.

Pimsleur is Akin to Memorizing a Vocabulary List

Pimsleur is based on the idea that you’ll learn the language through spaced repetition. So far, I’m not finding that to be the case. When I’m prompted to say something, I’m not able to say it. I’m not able to recall material from first lesson quickly enough. I don’t have any meaningful connections or associations with these random phrases. 

My experience with Pimsleur leaves me wanting denser content. I just want to read and listen to the target language, but with more authentic material.  Instead of spaced repetition, random repetition through ample reading and listening still exposes you to the most common words and phrases. The key differences are the greater contextual variety and higher level of personal interest.

Spaced repetition is for studying vocabulary lists. To me, Pimsleur just feels like memorizing a vocabulary list. 

Pimsleur is Comfortable

There’s a large amount of English in each Pimsleur lesson. I’m sure that many users find this comforting, especially to those who are nervous about completely diving into the target language. However, if you’re in a hurry to learn the language, I don’t think Pimsleur is the way to go. Perhaps it works as an icebreaker, but the pace is too slow and the immersion is insufficient. 

Now, despite the slow place, do I have a decent amount of go-to phrases in Romanian? Sure. There’s an advantage to repetitive listening. I’ve been able to pick up a lot of phrases successfully from Pimsleur. However, to quote Manfred Spitzer, there’s a balance to be had between repetition and novelty. The brain requires repetition, but it also needs novelty. Pimsleur offers no novelty.

Final Thoughts: Do I recommend Pimsleur?

In short, I do not recommend Pimsleur. I may get criticized for being too harsh, and I’m sure that there are lots of people whose learning style makes Pimsleur ideal for them. For me, it’s been beneficial. Ultimately, nearly anything you do to spend time with the target language is beneficial. However, would I buy more Pimsleur CDs to progress further in the language? No, I wouldn’t. 

As an absolute beginner, I might give Pimsleur another try for another language. Maybe Hungarian. But the lack of novelty makes this a short-term resource. I’ll get bored with it very quickly. At best, I would buy one Pimsleur course to break the ice, but quickly move on to reading and listening on my own with LingQ. 

Thank you for reading. Happy learning, and bye for now!

Don’t forget, LingQ is also available for both Android and iOS.