Pimsleur Spanish Level 1 Lessons 16-20

Learn to Speak, Understand, and Read Spanish with Pimsleur Language Programs

By: Pimsleur

Narrated by: Pimsleur

Surprise your friends! Astonish your family! With Pimsleur, you’ll be speaking and understanding Spanish like a native in no time. Thirty minutes a day is all it takes!

Pimsleur makes learning easy.

• Thirty-minute core lessons you can take anywhere or do at home with Alexa
• Sync progress across devices
• Stream lessons or download to use in offline mode
• Individual progress tracking for one main account holder and up to three additional household members
• Car mode for easy driving and learning
• Compatible with Amazon Echo devices for working through lessons at home

Why Pimsleur?

• Quick and easy - Only 30 minutes a day.
• Portable and flexible - Core lessons can be done anytime, anywhere, and easily fit into your busy life.
• Proven method - Works when other methods fail.
• Self-paced - Go fast or go slow - it’s up to you.
• Based in science - Developed using proven research on memory and learning.
• Cost-effective - Less expensive than classes or immersion and features all native speakers.
• Genius - Triggers your brain’s natural aptitude to learn.
• Works for everyone - Recommended for ages 13 and above.

What you’ll learn:

This course includes lessons 16-20 from the Spanish Level One program featuring 2.5 hours of language instruction. Each lesson provides 30 minutes of spoken language practice, with an introductory conversation and new vocabulary and structures. Detailed instructions enable you to understand and participate in the conversation. Practice for vocabulary introduced in previous lessons is included in each lesson. The emphasis is on pronunciation and comprehension and on learning to speak Spanish.

The Spanish language

Spanish is the official language of 19 Latin American nations, as well as Spain, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. Further, it’s one of the six official languages recognized by the United Nations. Pimsleur's Spanish programs teach an educated Latin American Spanish, featuring speakers from Colombia and Mexico. Students can expect to understand the lessons clearly and to be understood by Spanish speakers everywhere.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2002, 2010 Pimsleur (P)2002 Simon & Schuster

Best in Class

I've tried them all but this is the only one that makes the new language roll off my tongue. Love it!

1-15 was very smooth and instructive. However.

Lesson 16 was very upsetting to me and I do not know that I will go farther. the first 15 lessons flowed logically and smoothly and, with one exception, every word was introduced (albeit, not explained sometimes), but lesson 16 introduced FIVE words that were glossed over, no introduction - just out of the blue. it made it difficult to grasp the words and difficult to keep up while getting upset. no explanation of the words used or why the phrasing was as it was. I lost all of the logic and felt like the author was just in a hurry to throw words and phrases at me. I'm very irritated because I was impressed earlier but no longer. instead I find myself wondering where else I can go.

Great system, terrible production.

Let me begin by saying that if, like me, you need an audio-only Spanish learning system, Pimsleur is for you. The late Dr. Pimsleur was a genius, plain and simple. He was onto something truly revolutionary, perhaps the greatest language-learning system in the history of mankind.

Thank God, he died not knowing how these people were going to butcher his life's work.

The main, English-speaking actor does a perfectly acceptable job. He has a good voice, and delivers his lines well. Sadly, the Spanish speakers are on the ragged edge of abysmal. They CANNOT be professionals. No way, no how. These are somebody's girlfriend, gym buddy, janitor, or maybe a homeless guy they found sleeping behind some dumpster in El Paso and bribed him out with cigarettes and cheap tequila. They start out okay, for the first few lessons ... but then it sounds like they get tired of the job, and just want to finish up quickly and go home.

The female actor reverts to speaking in whatever accent they use in her hometown, in whatever country she's from. She completely drops the "s" sound from many of her words. For instance, the word "mas" becomes "mah". Instead of "con" she says "cong". And on, and on. She mispronounces words in ways that a beginner like me should NOT be able to pick up on. It's like trying to learn English from some illiterate farmer's wife in deep-south Georgia.

The male actor definitely starts drinking on the job. He mumbles, he slurs, he drops the last syllable in many words ("mucho", for instance, becomes "mooch"). He sounds like a bad ventriloquist, trying to speak without moving his lips. "Enunciation" is not a word he is familiar with.

And don't get me started on the second, and maybe third? - "instructor" who, without warning or introduction, gets added into the class like some sort of deranged teacher's aide. He interrupts the flow by saying things (in Spanish) like "say!" or "ask!" or "answer!" and so forth. He always pipes up right when it's your turn to answer, shattering your concentration, and sending your train of thought right off the rails, over the cliff, and into a blazing fireball of death and carnage in the valley below. He speaks in a creepy hoarse half-whisper, like some pervert who calls you at 3AM and tells you to take off your panties.

Today, I finished lesson 30, and began Spanish level 2, hoping things were going to change. They did not. Or rather, they DID change ... for the worse. Creepy pervert-guy is back with a VENGEANCE. They've turned his mic up, and apparently he now smokes five packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day because his voice is even worse than it was. Or maybe that guy died of throat cancer and this is a different guy. Some other bum, from behind some other dumpster, in some other border town.

Look, I could go on ... but I think I've made my point. I'm not telling you not to buy into the Pimsleur system. It DOES work, and works very well, hence the two stars I gave it. But it's going to frustrate you beyond words now and then. Pimsleur desperately, desperately needs to rip up this course and start over. FIRE THE PRODUCER. Hire actual voice actors, instead of random strangers who claim to speak Spanish. Get rid of the creepy, hoarse-voiced pervert guy, and eliminate the annoying and disruptive "second instructor" altogether. Put just a little effort into it this time, and the results could be absolutely spectacular.