Main Menu
Korean Language Learning - Learn to Speak Audio CD
The House of Oojah Learn to Speak Korean Audio Books
  • How humans build language skills
    Audio recordings of language programs—streaming—have an advantage over print or academic classes because hearing is how humans learn to speak. That is how we learned our native tongues, and how we effectively learn second languages. As babies, we listened to our parents speaking. In our hard-wired desire to communicate, we learned our native language by imitating them. According to linguists, babies begin by distinguishing basic syllables, and around 3 months, start to babble, making simple sounds (“ba-ba-ba” or “ma-ma-ma”). They also imitate the tonal changes of their parents’ language. By sixmonths, they can distinguish the sounds of their native language fromthose of foreign languages and begin to practice its sounds, intonations, and rhythms.Most children by the age of 1 year can say a few simple words, even if they aren’t clear on theirmeanings. At 18months, most children have a speaking vocabulary of eight to ten words. By 2, they begin forming simple sentences. And then language fluency begins to soar. In the early 1900s, European linguists proposed that language learning would be better if it were conducted in the target language. In this approach—called the Direct Method (or Natural Method)—all directions, explanations, and definitions are given in the language being taught. In a French class, French and only French is spoken or read. All grammar is learned inductively. While this method most closely imitates the way we learn our first language, it is difficult to teach and can be frustrating and discouraging to learners. Most audio-based language learning programs combine both native and target languages into talking phrasebooks.
  • Dr Paul Pimsleur
    Paul Pimsleur (1928 – 1972) was an authority in the field of applied linguistics. He taught French phonetics and phonemics at the University of California, Los Angeles after obtaining his Ph.D. in French and a master's degree in psychological statistics from Columbia University. After leaving UCLA, Pimsleur went on to faculty positions at Ohio State University, where he taught French and foreign language education. At the time, the foreign language education program at OSU was the major doctoral program in that field in the US. While at Ohio State he created and directed the Listening Center, one of the largest language laboratories in the United States. Pimsleur was later a Professor of Education and Romance Languages at The State University of New York at Albany, where he held dual professorships in Education and French. He was also a Fulbright lecturer at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, and a founding member of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. He did research on the psychology of language learning and in 1969 was Section Head of Psychology of Second Languages Learning at the International Congress of Applied Linguistics. His research focused on understanding the language acquisition process, especially the organic learning of children who speak a language without knowing its formal structure. For this, he studied the learning process of groups made of children, adults, and multilingual adults. The result of this research was the Pimsleur language learning system. His many books and articles had an impact on theories of language learning and teaching. In the period from 1958 to 1966, Pimsleur reviewed previously published studies regarding linguistic and psychological factors involved in language learning. He also conducted several studies himself. This led to the publication in 1963 of a coauthored monograph, Underachievement in Foreign Language Learning, which was published by the Modern Language Association of America. Through this research, he identified three factors that could be measured to calculate language aptitude: verbal intelligence, auditory ability and motivation. Pimsleur and his associates developed the Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB) based on these three factors to assess language aptitude. He was one of the first foreign language educators to show an interest in students who have difficulty in learning a foreign language, while doing well in other subjects. Today, the PLAB is used to determine the language learning aptitude or even a language learning disability among secondary school students. Dr. Pimsleur died unexpectedly of pneumonia during a visit to France in 1972.