Yeah, it can be rather expensive!!
I have the “Conversational Japanese”, which is about 1/6 of the whole program. So far it’s been great!! I actually grew up speaking both English and French, and I’ve always been very frustrated with the traditional classroom approach. I feel like it’s much more natural to learn a language speaking in phrases and then figuring out for yourself what the grammatical patterns are. It means you’ll say things more how a native speaker would and when you want to say something you won’t think of the foreign language in terms of English but rather in terms of what it actually means (i.e. the foreign phrase is attached to an idea or concept rather than the English translation, [if that makes any sense]). It’s the difference between having to translate before you say something and being able to think naturally in that language. This sort of learning does often cause more mistakes when trying to say complex things you haven’t explicitly learned, but they are often similar to the type of mistakes that a native speaker would make and are more forgiving.
Pimsleur does this sort of learning really well and I was able to remember things I had learned over 2 years ago without any practice or review (I took a break in the middle). It’s also very good for developing an accent and understanding when people speak fast.
Basically, I like it, some people don’t (still haven’t figured out why), and it may just be that I learn languages best that way :)
I hope this made sense and helped you…. sorry it’s kind of long…. >_>