The Name

The name 'Pimsleur' comes from the last name of the person who developed the courses - Paul Pimsleur.  It is pronounced píms-lerr.

The Courses

The Pimsleur courses are based in lessons or units.  All of the languages that Pimsleur teaches come in at least 10 lessons and at most 100.  The lessons are packaged in a way that introduces you to the language and the method of learning for a lower cost.  This is a great way to help people get a basic understanding of the language and have some abilities to speak.  These courses are the Compact, Basic, and Conversational.

If you want to dramatically increase in your abilities, you will want to go beyond the Compact, Basic, and Conversational courses and use the Comprehensive courses.  These, although more pricey (but highly discounted on our website), offer a lot more language learning. 

To illustrate the differences and similarities between the courses, please see below.

Compact Course - 10 Lessons Only - 5 Compact Discs - Pimsleur does not offer additional learning in these languages.  The compact courses are less-common languages.

Basic Course - Lessons 1 - 10 - 5 Compact Discs.  If a language has a Basic course, you know that there are at least 30 total lessons.

Conversational Course - Lessons 1 - 16 - 8 Compact Discs.  If a language has a Conversational course, you know that there are at least 30 total lessons.

Comprehensive Courses - Lessons 1 - 30; 31-60; or 61-90 - 16 Compact Discs per level.  Most languages have at least 1 Comprehensive course, but there are some languages that have 3 Comprehensive levels.  Each level has 30 lessons and 1 reading or cultural CD.  Each level generally has a reading CD that complements your all-audio learning, but for some languages (specifically the non-roman-alphabet languages) there is a cultural CD in lieu of a reading CD.

Plus courses - Lessons 91-100.  Available in Spanish and German only.

The Confusing Part 

Many people buy the Basic course (Lessons 1-10), like the course a lot, and then want to move on.  When this happens, there is no way to purchase lessons 9 through 30 only.  There is only the option to purchase lessons 1-16 or 1-30 and have the first 10 lessons be an exact repeat of what you purchased in the Basic course.  The same applies to the Conversational course (Lessons 1-16).  When you want to move on, you will need to purchase the entire Comprehensive course (Lessons 1-30) and the first 16 lessons will be an exact repeat. 

In Short

We welcome you to try the program with the smaller courses (Basic or Conversational) but if you think or know that you need to learn more than just the basics, we recommend going straight to the comprehensive levels.  The reason for this is because if you purchase a smaller course for $50.00 and decide to move on, you will simply need to purchase the comprehensive course and lose the $50.00 that you spent.  To help you to know what the courses are like, we have created a link on each page to hear the first 30-minute lesson for free. 

We also have put into place a buy-back program (wherein we purchase your used course(s) from you a give you a credit for purchasing your next level) that will assist you in continuing your study.  Please click here to learn more about the buy-back program.