Haitian Creole, Basic: Learn to Speak and Understand Haitian Creole with Pimsleur Language Programs

Haitian Creole, Basic includes ten, 30-minute audio-only lessons of spoken Haitian Creole language instruction (the first 10 lessons of the Haitian Creole Comprehensive Program). In this course you’ll learn the basics: greetings, eating out, telling time, counting, asking for or giving directions, information, preferences, and much more. You’ll be able to handle minimum courtesy requirements and be understood at a beginning level, but with near-native pronunciation skills.

About Haitian Creole

• Haitian Creole, kreyòl ayisyen, is one of the official languages of Haiti, along with French.
• It is a French-based creole language heavily influenced by West African languages and is classified as part of the Romance group of languages in the Indo-European language family.
• This course teaches the standard dialect spoken in the central district and the capital, Port-au-Prince.
• Haitian Creole vocabulary is largely drawn from French (some estimates are as high as 90%); the grammar of Haitian Creole, however, has been strongly influenced by West African languages.
• Written Haitian is phonetic. In 1979 a spelling system was approved by the Haiti government based on the one sound - one symbol IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) system.
• There are over 8.5 million Creole speakers in Haiti and another 3.5 million dispersed in Canada, the United States, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, the Bahamas, and French Caribbean islands.
• Presently, 95% of Haitians speak Haitian Creole as their first language. It is estimated that 5% of Haitians speak standard French fluently, 5% speak both French and Haitian Creole fluently, and 90-95% speak only Haitian Creole.

The Pimsleur® Method teaches speaking and understanding right from the start

For almost 50 years, in over 50 languages, the Pimsleur® Method has been recognized by experts worldwide as one of the fastest and most effective ways to learn to speak another language. With Pimsleur you will learn Haitian Creole in much the same way you learned your first language as a child, acquiring the vocabulary of the new language, along with the melody, rhythm, and intonation of Haitian Creole as used in everyday conversation.

The Science of Memory

Dr. Paul Pimsleur's research on memory was one of his most significant achievements: he discovered that if reminded of new words and information at gradually increasing intervals of time, the learners would remember the words or information for increasingly longer periods. Dr. Pimsleur documented that the acquisitions would actually move from short-term into long-term, or permanent, memory.