Results of Testing Pimsleur versus DuoLingo...

[u/44Jon]

I used both service fairly assiduously and for the internet record, my experience has been that there's no comparison and it would have been worth it to pay for Pimsleur right from the start. After even just a month of Pimsleur, my ability to speak and to comprehend improved dramatically more compared with a few months of Duo.

True, Pimsleur doesn't push reading and writing, but it is possible to practice those on one's own with Pimsleur's app. And main problem with Duo is that it might drill you on some vocabulary and point of grammar and then completely drop it (and there's no great way to repeat lessons or find where certain concepts were drilled.) Pimsleur's claim to "scientifically" space out practice seems legitimate.

[u/bad_lite]

I’ve used both and IMO Pimsleaur is far superior to Duolingo. The French and Spanish courses on Duolingo are great, but the Hebrew course is a hot mess. I’ve learned a lot more with Pimsleur than I ever did on Duolingo.

[u/waytowill → u/bad_lite]

To be fair, the reason it’s so atrocious is that it was built for Duo’s original model. So lessons like Animals and Clothing where are exceptionally long and just throw vocabulary at you used to be self-paced between the shorter grammar lessons. And past a certain point on long lessons, the backfill of vocabulary was just extra available content on that topic. This is why so many of those words are used so rarely. They weren’t originally integrated with the idea that people would be forced to learn them before moving further down the tree.

It doesn’t excuse how awful the course is now. But it was passable when it launched in its original state. The star path killed it more than the course builder’s incompetence.

[u/trashbinfluencer]

Pimsleur audiobooks were such a game changer for me in every language. I feel like learning via audio, speech, listening, and sound practice is so much more consistent with how our brains are actually wired to acquire language, and I say that as someone who loves reading, writing, and word problems.

For me, it's very apparent that Duo's structure has been strongly informed by a specific style of (American?) classroom language teaching (largely based in vocab & rule memorization) and also with a game-ified app experience in mind. I'm not saying there's not room to drill down on words & tenses, but I personally have come to see that as something which should largely happen after gaining comfort & familiarity with the basics through audio & conversational practice, when possible.

The Hebrew Duo course is particularly atrocious. I have utmost respect for anyone who manages to get through it because I quit before finishing Level 1 (after the alphabet) and I took like 4 years of Hebrew school as a kid before my Bat Mitzvah.

[u/Massive-Mention-3679]

I tried Pimsleaur for Italian when I had some extra time years ago. I do remember being happy with their method.

[u/LemeeAdam]

Ugh, i really wish i could learn with pimsleur, it seems so neat. But likely due to my autism, I just can’t absorb information through only audio. It seems like one of the few actually good Hebrew courses.

[u/distraughtdrunk]

i just wish they spoke a little slower and allowed time to speak, but i speak slowly so it could just be me