After a considerable amount of research and limited success with other methods I decided to try speaking Spanish with Pimsleur. I brought three Spanish books with me to Ecuador from the states and they will now compliment Pimsleur, but Pimsleur leads the way for me for speaking Spanish. I tried Duolingo several times but it just wasn’t for me. I have no interest in sitting in a classroom either.
When I tried the free Pimsleur lesson I knew within the first five minutes that Pimsleur was going to be my ticket to speaking Spanish fluently and I committed to speaking Spanish with Pimsleur. The lessons consist of listening to one 30 minute audio lesson a day and that’s it. There is no studying, no memorizing, and there are no tests involved.
Pimsleur Spanish has five levels with thirty each 30 minute audio lessons in each level. I completed the first level of 30 lessons yesterday and begin the second level today. I’m going to do all five levels and at 30 lessons per level I’m one month in on a five month journey to fluency in Spanish. It’s actually a lot of fun and I enjoy every lesson, the 30 minutes just fly by. I use my laptop but it’s completely portable and can be played on just about any devise.
My two biggest concerns before I found Pimsleur were pronunciation and retention and I was getting nowhere fast with both of them. Now they’re no longer an issue. Pimsleur emphasizes correct pronunciation throughout the lessons. Retention is by “Graduated Interval Recall — a scientifically sequenced and proven schedule which moves the items you learn from short term to long term memory”. Every single day I can actually feel my Spanish improving from the day before and I couldn’t be happier with my progress.
If you’d like to try speaking Spanish with Pimsleur for a free 30 minute lesson.