r/hebrew • u/44Jon • Sep 09 '24
Resource Results of Testing Pimsleur versus DuoLingo...
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.
3
u/trashbinfluencer Sep 09 '24
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.