Pimsleur is the best-selling audio language course. Why? Because the Pimsleur Method is the easiest way to begin learning a foreign language. The feedback from our customers is overwhelmingly positive. We sell the entire line of 30-lesson "Comprehensive" Pimsleur courses at significantly below retail price. The Eastern Arabic  Pimsleur comes in three levels each with 30 half hour lessons. It is an entirely audio based method and great for beginners and people wanting to improve their conversation skills.

Includes 30 lessons and reading instruction on 16 CDs, plus a reading booklet

Egyptian Arabic is mainly spoken in urban Egypt. Egyptian Arabic has also gained a high degree of acceptance throughout the Arabic-speaking world because of its use in films. Pimsleur's Egyptian Arabic teaches the Careen dialect, the dialect of the Egyptian capital.

Comprehensive Arabic (Egyptian) includes 30 lessons of essential grammar and vocabulary -- 16 hours of real-life spoken practice sessions -- plus an introduction to reading. Upon completion of this program, you will have functional spoken proficiency with the most-frequently-used vocabulary and grammatical structures. 

• In the first 10 lessons, you’ll cover the basics: saying hello, asking for or giving information, scheduling a meal or a meeting, asking for or giving basic directions, and much more.  You’ll be able to handle minimum courtesy requirements, understand much of what you hear, and be understood at a beginning level, but with near-native pronunciation skills.
• In the next 10 lessons, you’ll build on what you’ve learned. Expand your menu, increase your scheduling abilities from general to specific, start to deal with currency and exchanging money, refine your conversations and add over a hundred new vocabulary items.  You’ll understand more of what you hear, and be able to participate with speech that is smoother and more confident.
• In the final 10 lessons, you’ll be speaking and understanding at an intermediate level. More directions are given in the target language, which moves your learning to a whole new plane.  Lessons include shopping, visiting friends, going to a restaurant, plans for the evening, car trips, and talking about family.  

Each level has 30 lessons on 16 cd's or 32 cd's for full package.

Paul Pimsleur developed his system using four principles he regarded as important to forming memory associations and language recall:

1. Anticipation

   Language courses commonly require a student to repeat after an instructor, which Pimsleur argued was not an aggressive way of learning. Pimsleur developed a "challenge and response" technique, where a student was prompted to translate a phrase into the target language. This technique is intended to be a more active way of learning, requiring the student to think before responding. Pimsleur held that the principle of anticipation reflected real-life conversations in which a speaker must recall a phrase quickly.
   

2. Graduated-interval recall

   Is a method of reviewing learned vocabulary at increasingly longer intervals. It is a version of retention through  spaced repetition. For example, if a student is introduced to the word deux (French for two), then deux is tested every few seconds, then every few minutes, then every few hours, and then every few days. The goal of this spaced recall is to help the student move vocabulary into long-term memory.

   Pimsleur's 1967 memory schedule was as follows: 5 seconds, 25 seconds, 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 hour, 5 hours, 1 day, 5 days, 25 days, 4 months, 2 years.
   

3. Core vocabulary

   The Pimsleur method focuses on teaching commonly-used words in order to build up a "core vocabulary". Word-frequency text analyses indicate that a relatively small core vocabulary accounts for the majority of words spoken in a particular language. For example, in English, a specific set of 2000 words composes about 80% of the total printed words. Pimsleur courses average 500 words per level (30-lessons). Some languages have up to 4 levels, while some languages only have one level.

   The Pimsleur method never teaches grammar explicitly. Instead, grammar is presented as common patterns and phrases that are repeated at intervals throughout the course. Pimsleur claimed this is how native speakers learn grammar as children.

4. Organic learning

   The program is strictly auditory. Pimsleur suggested auditory skill, learned through hearing and speech, is different from reading and writing skill. He referred to his auditory system as "organic learning," which entails studying grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation simultaneously. Pimsleur asserted that learning by listening also enjoins the proper accent.