Customer Reviews

German Plus

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Perhaps this information will help someone who is wondering where to start with the Pimsleur German courses. I selected this Pimsleur "German Plus" course with the intent to recapture my old school German, from the very beginning of study. While this course seems excellent, it is not the course with which to start. Phoning Pimsleur, I learned that this "German Plus" course contains their lessons 91 through 100, which should follow their German Level III Comprehensive course. Each of the three Comprehensive Levels contains 30 lessons, all together numbered 1-30, 31-60, and 61-90. Additionally, note that the several less expensive Pimsleur offerings each contain lessons that are in the Level I Comprehensive course. If you start with one of the shorter courses, and then you wish to go further, you will have to obtain Level I, which will contain all the lessons that you already have studied. The gist of the story is: pay the bigger bucks to start with Level I Comprehensive, following up, if you wish, with Level II, Level III, and "German Plus". All this might be obvious to someone more clever than I; yet, I have not seen this information in print.

I've been very happy with Pimsleur products for learning French, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese, and Portuguese. This was the first time I've listened to the "Plus" level and and also the first time that I felt that listening to my Pimsleur lessons was a waste of time. The very little new vocabulary offered in these ten lessons is mostly specific to the publishing industry, and I found this set noticeably more repetitive than the comprehensive sets.

I would skip this set and move on to a grammar book or a vocabulary product (I like Vocabulearn, which after Pimsleur will kick you in den Ars**)

This is supposed to be an extension of the comprehensive Pimsleur German courses. German "Plus" is an afterthought and a waste of time. German 1-3 are excellent, but do yourself a favor and take the cash you'd have spent on this and get Schaum's Outlines German Grammar instead, along with a set of the Vis-ed German vocabulary cards.

Pinsleur has done it again! I am 61 years old, had some German in high school, and then let it lapse until a few years ago when I wanted to cultivate my renewed interest in the language. After having completed all three of the German Comprehensive levels, I was ecstatic when I discovered that I could advance even further with this product, German Plus. It contains ten lessons. In using it, I found that it employs the same learning techniques as the first three levels:
1) There is continuity between the lesson dialogues so the vocabulary is reviewed often; therefore, each lesson builds upon the one(s) prior to it (I found this technique to be particularly prevalent in German Plus, in which the scenarios represented in the dialogues actually unfold as a story).
2) The pauses are a good length, enabling the learner to have sufficient time to say in German what the Pinsleur instructor asks him/her to say, yet the pauses are not so long as to cause the learner to become bored. What I'm saying here is that the pace is just right.
3) The Pimsleur instructor "disects" many of the newly-introduced words and asks the learner to say only the last syllable and then adds the other syllables to build the entire word.
4) There are no boring drills! It's true conversation from the very beginning!
5) No book is necessary (or even included), making it suitable for use in the car.

I have been complimented by native German speakers as to my precise articulation and the fact that I speak with "no accent". I credit the Pimsleur method for this. I highly recommend German Plus as well as the 3 Comprehensive levels to anyone who has had some background (doesn't have to be a lot) in the German language. I recently learned that Pimsleur is planning to produce a second round of Spanish Plus and am hopeful that the second round of German Plus is just over the horizon. When that time arrives, I will be first in line!

I will probably repeat a lot of what others have said, but here goes. I think the real strength of these courses is that they get you to converse. You practice conversation. You talk, you listen. Will you learn lots of vocabulary? No. Will you learn all the grammar rules? No. Can you learn a language with only these courses? Of course not. You will need other materials, courses, books, whatever. But they are another tool in your toolbox to help you achieve your goal. What they give you is practice at speaking real conversations. And you will pick up some vocabulary and grammar along the way, what you need to succeed in these lessons.

I've been through all 4 levels and found them all great. Including level 4 (German Plus). This one has a bad rap, I think mostly because it's shorter than the rest. And certainly some of the new vocabulary is quite focused on one topic. But I found it added a lot of new conversational situations, and a lot of new grammar. Do you learn words that the average tourist doesn't need? Sure, but if you were just the average tourist, would you be buying these? We are only talking about a dozen or so words, it's not like your being forced to learn hundreds of words you'll never use. These are real world conversations, thats what matters most.

Are they perfect? No, there are inconsistencies, there are silly little things here and there that I would call "editing" mistakes. And I really wish they'd give up the pretension that you only need to do each lesson once. I had to do each one at least 3 times before I could move on. But they are great for what they are. If you want to practice conversations, this is for you.

Pimsleur is absolutely the best way for a beginner to learn to speak and understand a target language. Within its German offerings, this course represents lessons 91-100 and is quite well done. It is unfortunate that it is only 10 lessons, but these lessons are jam-packed with vocabulary. It seems as though this course was an attempt by Pimsleur to create a "mini-course" with vocabulary targeting a specific set of technical or professional words, which in this case involves the publishing industry. It's not clear if the intent was to create other mini-courses with other targeted vocabulary, but at least words used in publishing are things you would probably want to know anyway. Words and phrases such as "in translation", "to publish", and "editor" would probably be useful if, for instance, you were in a bookstore in Germany looking for a specific book in English.

The actors involved are the same as in the excellent Pimsleur German II course. Each lesson actually goes over the 30-minute mark. This course will be a welcome challenge for anyone who has completed the other three courses. Savor them, because unfortunately they haven't yet gone beyond 100 lessons!