Your browser does not support HTML5 video.<\/video><\/p>\nDuolingo helped me with vocab and grammar, and I can certainly read, write and speak slowly. But Duolingo does nothing to help you understand a native speaker. And that makes sense, since Duolingo’s business model is training people translate written documents.<\/p>\n
My language teacher friends Curt and Bonnie told me about Pimsleur, which they said is the best audio-based language program they’ve seen. So when I finished Duolingo, I decided to try Pimsleur’s free lesson. I was hooked. The lesson begins with a short, full-speed native conversation, then spends a total of 30 minutes with the lesson. It is incredibly well done, using spaced repetition and recall to help you learn the language naturally.<\/p>\n
It’s also really expensive\u2014over $550 for all 5 levels, each with 30 lessons.<\/p>\n
After doing some research, I discovered that Audible.com has all 5 levels, and are available for 5 membership credits for each level. So I just needed 25 credits to buy the whole set. Typically, a membership provides 1 credit per month for $14.95 a month, which would take a little over 2 years for a total cost of $373.75. That’s a good start, but I was ready to get started and a little impatient. I’m already an Audible member, and had 1 credit in my account. I found I could upgrade to an annual Platinum membership, which gives you 24 credits all at once, for just $229.50. When I did that, I was able to download all 5 levels, paying a total of $244.45\u201455% off Pimsleur’s discounted price.<\/p>\n
Before I pulled the trigger, I did email Pimsleur directly and offer to pay $250 directly to them for the course, bypassing the middleman. But they declined, sending me the same coupon to buy it for $550. They did offer a “Flexi-Pay” option, which is basically free financing. I declined and bought it from Audible.com.<\/p>\n
I’ve been studying almost every day with Pimsleur, and it’s really helped. I set aside 30 minutes right after breakfast, before I start my work day, and push through it. I’m already understanding more after just a few weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On December 1, I finished Duolingo Spanish, getting all lessons to gold. I was expecting a bit more payoff from the “gamification” in the app, but when I finished that last lesson, all it did was add a trophy to the bottom of the lesson list. No “Congratulations!” or special announcement at the end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anadventuretogether.ctsmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anadventuretogether.ctsmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anadventuretogether.ctsmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anadventuretogether.ctsmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anadventuretogether.ctsmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/anadventuretogether.ctsmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299,"href":"https:\/\/anadventuretogether.ctsmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions\/299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anadventuretogether.ctsmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anadventuretogether.ctsmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anadventuretogether.ctsmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}