Dr. Paul Pimsleur
Some people seem born to make a difference,
and Dr. Pimsleur was one.
He graduated from Columbia University with a Ph.D. in French and a Masters in Psychology. These two subjects made him perfectly suited to discovering an easier way for people to acquire new languages.
Specializing in the field of applied linguistics, he devoted most of his life to learning languages and understanding the psychology whereby people gain new languages.
Rather than look at this from a purely academic perspective, he focused on how we acquire language naturally and informally, often using his students as subjects. In 1963, he published a manuscript, Underachievement in Foreign Language Learning.
This important paper featured his two key principles - "Principle of Anticipation" and "Graduated Interval Recall". They are the foundation for the Pimsleur rapid learning method that helps you acquire your new language.
He went on to teach at universities across America including UCLA, Ohio University and the University of Heidelberg, the oldest German university.
He was active in language education societies like the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF), American Educational Research Association (AERA), Modern Language Association (MLA), and a founding member of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).
But his lasting achievement was to help so many hundreds of thousands of people who, like you, want to gain the benefits of a new language as near painlessly as possible.