Best Audio Language Course: Michel Thomas vs Paul Noble vs Pimsleur

Best Audio Language Course: Michel Thomas vs Paul Noble vs Pimsleur

If you are thinking of starting a new language you might find this post useful.

I have now tried 6 or 7 different language courses, including classroom teaching, and in my opinion while each have their strengths and weaknesses, Michel Thomas, Paul Noble and Pimsleur audio courses stand way ahead of the rest when it comes to starting learning a language.  I have used each of these for several different languages.

I have not reviewed any of the YouTube style courses available because I want to learn on the move, so audio only courses are the only ones that suit me.  However, I do supplement my learning with them.





Below I have compared these 3 methods by

• Approach
• Teaching of Language structure / Grammar
• How much vocabulary you learn,
• Teaching of pronunciation,
• How well it enables you to comprehend native speakers,
• Rentention
• How good it is for revision
• How well it builds your confidence
• The pace of the course and use of pauses
• Range of languages and how advanced the available courses extend to
• Available media and price

1. Approaches

Pimsleur’s approach is based on the idea that children do not need explanations to learn the language and just pick it up by repeated exposure in different contexts.  A very structured frequency of repetition, scientifically proven to be optimal, is used to help you memorise words and phrases effortlessly.

In contrast, both Michel Thomas and Paul Noble teach you to properly understand the structure of the language.  For those who found language learning at school a chore this might sound daunting, but it is in fact done in a very informal way, starting with simple patterns and interatively building up the complexity as the course progresses.  They help your learning by associating similar sounding English words or phrases with the new vocabulary, and with the Latin and Germanic languages they accelerate your learning by pointing out common vocabulary with simple conversion rules from English to give you an instant vocabulary of thousands of words in minutes..  For example nearly all English words ending in “tion” has an equivalent word in Spanish meaning the same and pronounced “see-on” …

2. Language Structure / Grammar

All methods downplay learning grammar rules, teaching you the language iteratively, and hiding all the complex stuff for later practices.  For example concentrating on “I” and “You”,  a subset of  simple regular verbs and limited vocabulary.

Pimsleur relies almost exclusively on you learning how the language works by giving increasingly complex examples and providing virtually no explanation (how children learn), while Michel Thomas and Paul Noble start with explaining simple patterns followed by examples.  Whilst it is true that children do not need instruction to learn their own language, on the whole the students here will not be children.  I find that with Pimsleur I am frequently left puzzling over some perceived inconsistency which irritates me, and I much prefer the Thomas/Noble approach in this respect.  As an adult it helps me to know why I am saying something not just how to say it.

Michel Thomas classes are recordings of actual lessons with 2 students.  I find the answers given in response to questions from the students and unprompted corrections to students mispronunciations to be very instructive.

3. Vocabulary

Michel Thomas and Paul Noble both use a very restricted vocabulary in the course.  For the Latin and Germanic Languages both try to make up for this to some extent by pointing out the huge common vocabulary with English.  Paul Noble also centres the lessons around a few scenarios … mainly hotel arrival/departure and asking directions, but the Michel Thomas vocabulary is a little bit arbitrary at times.  In both cases you are expected to supplement the course with your own independent study of vocabulary.  Luckily there are numerous vocabulary resources available to you … I,e. traditional phrase books, Youtube videos, Google translate, online dictionaries, flash card apps such as Byki and online learning apps such as Duolingo many of which are free.

Pimsleur has more vocabulary built into the lessons so you will effortlessly absorb more useful words and phrases to allow you to get by as a tourist.  However, you will still need to look elsewhere if you are serious about learning the language.

You also need to be a little circumspect about relying on the accuracy of the vocabulary in the courses.  For example, in the Pimsleur Mandarin course the word used for restaurant is now more commonly used for Hotel in China (according to Michel Thomas and Google translate).  In addition Michel Thomas, Paul Noble and to a lesser extent Pimsleur are all guilty of “not complicating things” by giving you one way of expressing yourself when several other phrases/words might also be in common use.  Good enough for talking at someone but not really ideal for comprehension.

4. Pronunciation

Both Pimsleur and Paul Noble have an English speaking instructor and a native speaker to ensure correct pronunciation.  Michel Thomas courses are a mixture.
For the languages that Michel Thomas was proficient in (French, German, Spanish & Italian) Michel Thomas himself is the only instructor.  Apparently his accent for Spanish and Italian is appalling, but I found that he was actually better than the others in focusing on the correct stresses needed to be properly understood in these languages.  Your accent will be terrible and exaggerated, and the native speakers will almost certainly be amused at your pronunciation, but you’ll be able to make yourself understood.  Similarly some languages such as Japanese do not have a native speaker and I can’t comment on how good their accent is.

For some languages such as Russian, the instructor is the native language speaker, and for others such as Mandarin and Arabic there is an English speaking instructor and a native speaker for pronunciation.

So with Michel Thomas it can be a bit hit and miss.  However, for most students the main aim is effective communication so I would not reject using the Michel Thomas courses just because of this.

5. Comprehension

I am a fan of Michel Thomas and Paul Noble, but they both really fail to develop your ability to understand others speaking the language.  If you rely on these courses you will find it very difficult to understand longer sentences spoken at normal speed by a native speaker.  Neither method stresses listening to ordinary conversation and you need to accept that you will need to start every conversation with “Please speak (very) slowly”

However, there are many free resources and cheap and cheerful language courses out there that can help you get your ear in, even if they wouldn’t rate highly as a stand alone learning tool.

6. Retention

In my experience Pimsleur is far better at getting you to retain the language that you have learned.  I learn languages as a hobby not just prior to visiting a country, so I don't get to practice the language immediately after I have learned it. I find that with both Michel Thomas and Paul Noble I have forgotten most of what I have learnt after a couple of months, although after a bit of revision it comes back easily.  Pimsleur by contrast does seem to ingrain the language in your memory.

7. Revision

Pimsleur’s pace is very slow, so you would not necessarily want to repeat the whole course again.  However, because of the structured repetitive methodology you should be able to find lessons that cover all the ground covered by several earlier lessons and hence be suitable for revision.  You’ll have to make your own decision on  which ones are appropriate because no lessons are flagged specifically as revision.

Paul Noble has a specific revision lesson, which is good, but I have found them to be annoyingly incomplete.

Because of Michel Thomas’s use of real students, as you repeat/revise the lessons your frustration at having to sit through the same mistakes, hesitations and questions will increase.  It can become VERY irritating.  What a relief it would be if they added revision lessons without the students.  You might consider creating your own edit for revision … but I haven’t got around to it yet.

However once you get to a certain level, the vocabulary lessons can be used as a very nice revision tool, but some things might be missing.

8. Confidence

Michel Thomas and Paul Noble both have a way of making you believe that learning your target language will be much easier and more fun than you thought possible.  This is my experience and it is a common view reflected in reviews and comments of others.  For example, My daughter had been learning Portuguese and was happy with her progress, but when I introduced her to the Michel Thomas Portuguese course she told me that she had not realised that learning Portuguese could be so very easy.

I suspect that Pimsleur is not as good in this respect but I cannot be certain because I came to Pimsleur much later than Michel Thomas and Paul Noble.

9. Pace & pausing

Which course is best for you will depend on your personal preference.  Michel Thomas has a relatively rapid pace which is great for making you feel you are making good progress.  However, I have found that I do need to repeat the course several times before it all sticks.

Both Paul Noble and Pimsleur progress at a slower pace, with pauses that in theory allow you thinking time without you having to press the pause button.  Some people may find this preferable if listening to the course when driving, but I find that I still have to use the pause button, which means that the long pauses just waste time.

Pimsleur is the slowest due to the structured repetition in its methodology and its long pauses.  However, as might be expected I find that I am far more likely to remember everything that I have learnt without having to repeat the course many times

10. Range of languages & levels

Paul Noble is the most limited in terms of  languages (German, French, Spanish, Italian) and also in terms of levels, essentially limiting itself to beginners level, but you could start with Paul Noble for the beginners course and then move over to Michel Thomas for the more advanced lessons.  Pimsleur covers the most languages and courses take you to a more advanced level.

Michel Thomas offers a “Foundation” course, a “Total” course (E.g. Total Mandarin), a “Perfect” course (E.g. Perfect Mandarin).  The titles are ambiguous, confusing and misleading.  Forget the foundation course … These are the first couple of lessons from the “Total” course, so if you go on to purchase the Total course you will be paying twice for the same thing.  The “Total” course is actually the beginner’s course!.  The “Perfect” course is an lower-intermediate course.   Don’t expect to be speaking the language perfectly after it!  There are also a set of “Vocabulary” lessons which are sometimes included with the Total course, but more usually with the Perfect course.

Pimsleur has between 1 and 5 levels.  How many levels, i.e. how advanced the level to which you can progress depends on the language.  As you would expect the more popular languages and the more traditionally studied European languages tend to have more levels.  But you can assume that the level offered will be higher than Paul Noble and usually higher than Michel Thomas … at a cost of course.

11. Price & Media

Paul Noble is very good value, and by far the best way to start learning a language on a budget.
Pimsleur is the most expensive, but offers better progress in comprehension and vocabulary and higher language levels than Michel Thomas and Paul Noble.

All three offer the courses as CD sets, or online broken down into smaller downloadable lessons via Amason's Audible service and App.  Pimsleur also sell downloads direct and have their own App.

All Paul Noble lessons, The Michel Thomas beginner (“Total”) lessons and Pimsleur levels 1-3 are available on Audible. 

Buying the course in the CD format can be the most economical way because you can copy the courses onto your laptops etc, e.g. import into i-tunes, which then allows you to resell the CD set on ebay and recoup most of the cost.

However I have been caught out when I mislaid the files when transferring to a new laptop and had to re-purchase.  With Audible I can download the lessons again whenever I want, so I never have to worry about having to re-purchase.  I presume that Pimsleur is the same but I have not yet used their download service or App.

Purchasing Michel Thomas via Audible is expensive unless you order in bulk.  Pimsleur downloads via Audibke are about the same as long as you buy them in 5 lesson packs rather than individually, but as with Michel Thomas will work out much cheaper if you buy in bulk

If you want to share  the love  with friends and family, making copies of CD’s is straight forward, but because of the DRM restrictions on Michel Thomas downloads you can only burn these to CD once.  The same applies when converting the Audible format lessons to another format such as MP3 using a program such as Audials. The converted/backed up audio files will not be restricted, and so can be copied elsewhere as many times as you like, but if you mislay the file you won’t be able to convert from the same downloaded file again.  With Audible you can get around this by re-downloading the lesson, but it is a fiddly job deleting the old files, so get your computer savvy children to help out.

11. My recommendation

If you were only going to pay for one course then its probably best to select Pimsleur as the one most likely to get you furthest.

If cost and time is not an issue, I’d recommend starting with Michel Thomas to get a good understanding of the language and quickly become confident in your ability to master it, followed by Pimsleur, accompanied with free online resources and vocabulary flash cards.

As an example I think I would have been very confused at times during the Pimsleur Spanish course if I had not already done the Michel Thomas course where the significance of specific syllable stresses in changing tense had been explained.

Starting with Paul Noble and following with Pimsleur is also a good option, and which choice is better will be down to your personal style preferences.  I recommend trying out the free taster downloads for these two to see which you prefer.

If you are on a very tight budget I’d recommend starting with Paul Nobel, language permitting, and then seeking out cheap/free resources and cheap courses to build up your comprehension.

12. But what I’d really like is …

Pimsleur learning structure, but with additional instruction like Michel Thomas and Paul Noble courses, and visual stuff to optionally watch at the same time as listening, and interactive resources to accompany each lesson (See Duolingo).  Chop chop!

13. Bad apples

I generally prefer Michel Thomas over Paul Noble, but I make an exception with Italian. My complaints with this are:

a. Poor explanations. Normally he explains things very clearly and unambiguously but on this course I kept finding myself unsure of certain aspects having to guess and confirm them over time. All became clear in the end but it is unnecessarily confusing.

b. Sloppy production. The editing of this course is unforgivably sloppy. At one point he even started teaching a whole new tense without any warning or explanation ... just launched into examples. Michel Thomas would not do this so it is down to very sloppy production.

c. Idiot students. A common complaint of Michel Thomas courses is that the stumblings of the participating students can be irritating. I personally find that students’ mistakes are a valuable teaching tool. However the students for the Italian course take it to a new level with long periods of silence (why were these not edited out?) while they plucked up courage to speak, and panicky random blurtings.