Pimsleur Language Programs Reviews

I inadvertently signed up for a 7 day trial but never used it ever. I then noticed months later they had been charging me £18.75 every month. When I emailed and explained I still have never used it, they refused to give me a refund, despite seeing it has never been used. I have had this happen before and all other companies have refunded me, but NOT Pimsleur, so I would be very careful having a 7 day trial as they don’t let you out of it easily?! I feel it is extortion!

I checked out the Pimsleur site to see if it was something I could recommend to my students. I did not sign up, either for the 7-day trial nor for the year’s subscription. Nevertheless, Pimsleur drafted my bank account for the annual fee and responded to my complaint that they had no way of refunding the money. They did not, however, question the fact that I had not subscribed. As a result, I had to block my card and submit a fraud alert to my bank.

Appalling customer service. Did the 7 day free trial but forgot to cancel due to a family emergency (serious illness). Tried to cancel after being charged then to receive generic email then ghosted - all my subsequent emails not replied to. Pimsleur did not respond to why I could not cancel or why service was not subject to 14 day cooling off period (a statutory right in UK / EU law). No response to these valid questions. To me this is basically a scam. I would say first and foremost, listen to the reviews about the appalling / non-existent customer service. It's true. Second, the product really isn't all that. There are much better language learning products out there. Third, this company will not refund you if you don't cancel before the end of the 7 day trial seemingly for ANY reason. Beware and look elsewhere.

I really enjoy some aspects of the Pimsleur app, and have bought content on Audible previous to my subscription. The ability to choose different languages is brilliant and I’m getting much more used to the Pimsleur method now. I would definitely recommend it.

Pimsleur customer service is unhelpful, they try to trap you into subscriptions by cancelling your subscription effective immediately, and they put unexpected charges on my card. Suggest you find something else to avoid wasting time with your credit card provider and pimsleur customer service.

The program is sluggish over a fast internet connection. It doesn't understand what I say 15% of the time. In that regard it's far worse than say, google translate. Their is zero support. No way to provide feedback. I've been using it for two months hoping it might improve.

Enorme galère pour se dé-abonner, honteux.

I tried the Romanian course just to get some basics and did think it was overpriced. The first maybe 4 lessons were fine but as it went on the conversations you hear in Romanian are far to fast to understand and some words in them not explained. It seemed rushed and would be better experience if slowed down. I'll try another provider at 1/3 the cost next.

Good lessons but when you try to cancel subscription it has been a nightmare. They charged me twice (2 months) after date of cancellation. I have had to go to my bank to dispute charges and hope for refund. A real shame as hoped to use their lessons in the future.

Language lessons are average and 30 Day Money Back Guarantee has not been honoured. I have tried it out and am not happy with the approach of the lessons. They offer a hassle free 30 day money back guarantee. Well ... this is frankly a lie. I initially received some limited response to my request for a refund but they have stopped communicating with me.

Read good things about Dr Pimsleur's approach. Wanted to try it so signed up for free trial which promised access to all levels. In practice only the first most introductory lesson was unlocked- no use at all as I'm well beyond saying 'excuse me miss', so it gave no real sense of what the approach is like. Tried to contact via the chat, but the Pimsleur bot is beyond useless - rather worrying for a communication company you'd have thought! - and am still waiting for a reply to an email I sent 6 days ago. The only number is in the US. Really disappointing- and a sale lost as I was a genuine and motivated customer but they drove me away.

I contacted customer service to confirm the price prior to purchasing, they assured me of one price but they charged my card a completely different price. It was over $100 more. Since January I've tried contacting them several times, they write back twice, different 'customer representatives' and then they do not respond after that. They will not give you a refund so don't trust what they have said on their website. AVOID this company!

The Italian dialogs are spoken too quickly and with inadequate articulation and audio quality. It is frequently difficult to make out exactly what the words spoken are. This makes using the lessons quite tedious. This problem could be mitigated by providing transcripts, but they refuse to do this. It is too bad, because the course would otherwise be excellent were these problems corrected.

The subscription service is affordable, offering access to many languages. Pimsleur is great at getting you up and running in a language,so suited to beginners. After 20-30 hours your confidence increases, which is motivating Post A1 level it's too slow and the overly formal archaic vocabulary of little use. The first 3 levels are fine, but 4&5 a waste of time. The lack of explanations is irritating after 4 months. I've completed levels 1-5 in French & Spanish, 1-4 in German, 1&2 in Italian. I could never have a conversation in any language.

It is ESSENTIAL to know that Pimsleur.com is the REAL course, available for decades, and very highly respected. Unfortunately a copycat site - like Pimseurapproach - is know to be a ripoff. Sadly, it seems that most if not all of the one star reviews are actually for the copycat. Don't be misled. The original - by the famous Dr. Pimsleur - is one of the oldest, successful and effective learn-by-speaking course that exists.

very good for learning to speak but, the lessons are too long than it should be, and the experience might be boring in some sense. I don't know since when they did any upgrade to their approach ... it needs a deep refresh! we are not in 2005 anymore ....

I haven't bought the product but I reviewed the paid version of the Ukrainian course, which Pimsleur kindly made available to all. It is a good resource. The only thing is that there are certain sounds I can't pronounce as they are not found in my native languages or the languages I know, so that was difficult as there is no bridging section for that. Nonetheless, the recordings were helpful. The speakers spoke clearly and slowly enough for me to catch on (except the sounds I couldn't pronounce). I would recommend Pimsleur for those who want to focus on speaking and listening, which are the oldest and most widely used parts of languages and communication.

BEWARE: Platform and customer service are not worth the quality of the product which is not that great but met my goals... Product never work after the free trial... from setting up the account to day one after my paying. Customer service is nice but clueless. I wasted three days.

The Pimsleur organisation appears to be suffering with the employment of substandard amateurs. The audio is terrible, in that it's very woolly, with the treble content diminished - like listening to the sound through a thick blanket. Consequently, it lacks clarity. Having checked a number of different language options, this appears to be the case for all the Pimsleur courses. I acquired and proceeded with the Castilian Spanish course, but found the male 'native speaker' to be diabolical, in that he constantly speaks too fast and slurs words together, while the woman, on some occasions, just pronounces so quickly that phrases can become unintelligible. Furthermore, many words and phrases are wrong, ie. they don't quite match what the English-speaking narrator says. However, it's possible that this could be due to a mediocre audio engineer indulging in a bit of incompetent copy-and-pasting. Unfortunately, I also find the 'native speakers' occasionally pronouncing words in Latin American Spanish rather than Castilian Spanish. To make things worse, there is not even a booklet supplied with a lesson-by-lesson list of words and translations which would, at least, help to figure out what the badly pronounced words and phrases are supposed to be! I sent an email through the Pimsleur website reporting all these issues but have not received a single response, which says much about this travesty of a company (a part of Simon & Shuster), all of which is a pity because the structure of the course is rather good. I have had to spend many hours loading the files into audio editing software to improve the sound and correct as many of the glitches that I can find, before saving to mp3 files that can be played repeatedly in the car and next to my bed as I sleep, which is at least allowing me to steadily but slowly absorb the language. Incidentally, the Pimsleur courses are primarily aimed at North Americans, which is why they assume the student to be from there - hence the constant referring to 'dollars' and "I am American". To people not emanating from there, these sections are obviously somewhat useless.

This course has helped me understand German but isn't great for conversations or pronunciation. What I find the most frustrating is that you can't search for a specific topic such as booking a hotel or purchasing a ticket. While the lessons do cover these areas and many more, it's impossible to find it again as there is no search feature - 5 units of 30 lessons labelled numerically is what you get. The downloadable booklet doesn't relate to the lessons, sometimes there is no English translation, or the material is so bizarre it's useless. Grammar isn't explained anywhere. I'm having a much better learning experience with Busuu.