With this program you start from zero, learning first survival phrases and vocabulary, and eventually progress to a high-intermediate level of speaking and understanding. By Level 5 the pace and conversation move quite rapidly, accelerating exposure to new vocabulary and structures, approaching native speed and comprehension. You'll learn to speak more in-depth about your personal life and emotional state, and be able to create complex sentences using a mix of tenses and moods. The emphasis is on pronunciation and comprehension, and on learning to speak.

The difference between Castilian Spanish as spoken in Spain and Spanish as spoken in the Americas (now called Latin American Spanish) is due to the diminishing contact between Spain and the Americas over the centuries and to the influence of local languages in the Americas. These two main variants of Spanish are mutually intelligible; the difference between them is comparable to that between British English and American English. Pimsleur's Castilian Spanish teaches the official dialect as spoken by the majority of Spanish-speakers in Spain. Spanish is the official language of twenty-one countries and is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Spanish is the first language of more than 350 million people, more than any other language except Mandarin Chinese. Additionally, Spanish is a common second language ‐ the most studied after English, and the third most commonly used on the Internet after English and Mandarin.