Russian III

Rating:
Summary: Pimsleur le vouz Rooskie?
Review: A superb course. No doubt about it. I have a slight preference for the cassette-only, bar code-less and ISBN-less "Audio Forum" sets (hard corps drills, & every bit as pricey as Pimsleur), but Pimsleur delivers what it advertises-- "audio only".
My favorite feature? Is the lack of beeps, tones, sound effects (esPECially ringing telephones), music lead-ins, time-wasting and annoying self-congratulatory promo's, smarmy "study tips", "culture capsules", etc., etc. (ditto for Audio Forum, btw).

Rating:
Summary: Pimsleur le vouz Rooskie?
Review: A superb course. No doubt about it. I have a slight preference for the cassette-only, bar code-less and ISBN-less "Audio Forum" sets (hard corps drills, & every bit as pricey as Pimsleur), but Pimsleur delivers what it advertises-- "audio only".
My favorite feature? Is the lack of beeps, tones, sound effects (esPECially ringing telephones), music lead-ins, time-wasting and annoying self-congratulatory promo's, smarmy "study tips", "culture capsules", etc., etc. (ditto for Audio Forum, btw).

Rating:
Summary: Not for an advanced student.
Review: I have studied Russian for three years, but unfortunately, because I am graduating, I will be unable to take the advanced course that my college offers. For the past couple of months, I've been trying to find a good package so that I can learn Russian on my own. Out of all the ones I have explored, Pimsleur looked to be the most promising. While it did help me in that I am able to speak more clearly, I don't see it as being a replacement for an advanced Russian course. For one thing, the vocabulary is extremely limited. It will help you have casual conversations, but don't expect to be having any deep discussions about complex subjects. Two, because the reading supplement is so limited, many problems will arise when you have to write. Three, and most importantly, I feel that the speakers speak too slowly, at least compared to the people in the listening supplement of my textbook.

Rating:
Summary: Pimsleur is the best, bar none
Review: I've gone through French and Italian and am working on Russian. These are just simply the best way to get yourself quickly to a point where you can say things in an another language, accurately, quickly and easily. Unlike some other courses, it's not just rote learning of phrases, it actually teaches you grammar and sentence structure. Nothing else even comes close. It's worth every penny. I would give it ten stars if I could. These really work. Yes, to be really fluent you will need to study more, read more, get more books and dictionaries and learn more words, but this will give you a firm foundation in whatever language you are trying to learn, and enable you to travel to a country where they speak that language and communicate successfully and accurately. In response to another reviewer, I wouldn't recommend lugging the whole program in its box around with you. Just do like the teenagers do with their CDs, get a small portable CD carrier and decant Pimsleur CDs into the carrier. They are all numbered and it's easy enough to keep track of them.

Rating:
Summary: Professional
Review: Ok. Even Pimsleur III won't get you very far, is expensive as hell, and is somewhat cumbersome to work with. So the rest of this review will be about how in hell did I get to giving it five stars. There are several ways to go about when wanting to learn a language in an audio-only manner. You can get the "Learn in your car" from Penton Overseas. You can get the audio-only course from Living Language. Or you can take Pimsleur. From the lot, Pimsleur would be the ONLY decent answer for the utter beginner, and Pimsleur III will give the best stability with the language for beginner to intermediate level with the other options, you will find yourself replaying the tapes a couple of times. Does any language course that is a self learning course worth this kind of money? No. That's why we have the next paragraph.

Money. First of all, by all means get it used. It is an audio course that I recommend going through only once. So if you're lucky enough to find a CD version used, it will be exactly the same (of course - assuming that the seller is decent enough to sell unscratched CD-s). As for used audio cassettes, well, as much as we want to hear the correct pronounciation, we have to remember - this is not Mozart, it is only recorded speech. However even if you don't find it used, you can buy it, and after completing the course, sell it as used. As this is suitable for first time learning, and is too much for review purposes (perhaps the other audio-only courses will be better for review).

One last thing. Usability. I'll talk technology, but it's essential here. When I bought the heavy package, the first thing I've done was to move it to MP3. So then I had the entire audio collection on a single CD. In such a way you take a single disc to your car, play it with a mobile MP3 player, and stock the valuable course in your closet for backup. In that way, when you finish with the course, the originals stay in a good enough state to be sold as used. However, if you won't convert to MP3, the need to each time take another cassette/CD to your car would be a serious drawback, since storing the entire course in your car doesn't sound as a sensible alternative to me.

To wrap it up, buy it, MP3 it, learn it, sell it.

Rating:
Summary: Expensive and limited
Review: The reader from Tel Aviv got it exactly right. This course is good, but it is extremely expensive and offers only a limited amount of vocabulary and grammatical structures. The result is that you will be able to say a certain amount of things clearly and with good pronounciation, but you will be broke and will have trouble understanding (let alone expressing) even moderately complex thoughts.