So you’ve invested a significant pile of cash in all three (or maybe even four) levels of Pimsleur language courses and you’ve slogged through them all in the recommended way, one lesson per day every day for the last 90 days at least and now you’re at a loose end – you’re wondering what to do after Pimsleur? You’re not alone as millions of other Pimsleur grads have faced the exact same issue before and there is life after Pimsleur!
Join a Language Exchange Community
By now you’ve acquired a certain amount of fluency in your language of choice, thanks to Pimsleur, but although it provides a great foundation you will still have much to learn, however you have already learned enough to converse and so that is what you must do. Find a language exchange partner, or several if you can and talk over skype or any other VOIP system or even use an actual real life non-internet telephone. It is easier than you may think to actually find language exchange partners these days due to the proliferation of online exchange communities. I wont recommend a specific platform in this article as there are so many around now which you can easily find with a quick google search so just jump in and try a few to see which suits your needs.
Increase Your Vocabulary
One common criticism of Pimsleur is that it just doesn’t include enough words which is a fair thing to say although it does tend to focus on the most commonly used words so they are more useful than those which are less likely to be needed in day to day conversation. However your vocabulary is still going to be somewhat limited so you will need to boost that as soon as possible to really get to near native fluency. You can pick up new words from context by reading, watching movies and of course chatting to people such as language exchange partners. But that’s a fairly slow way to pick up new words and there are great tools around to speed up the process such as AnkiSRS which is basically a computerised flashcard application which you can load up with freely available word lists in just about any language. Using AnkiSRS (which is free) can help you rapidly and almost effortlessly acquire hundreds of new words.
Go Forth and Immerse
Ultimately learning language is all about talking with people and more often than not the place you want to be doing that is the country where that language is king, where it is the native language. So naturally going to that country for a total immersion is the ideal thing to do to cement your new language skills and really start talking fluently. So go and book yourself a holiday and make sure when you get there that you do NOT hang around with people from back home! Make a point of going where the natives go, do what they do, play like they do, talk like they do.. emulate them in every way you can to fully immerse yourself. Before you know it you will be dreaming in that new language and forgetting your own!