Most language courses rely on (flashcards: Apple = Pomme ). Pimsleur, created by linguist Dr. Paul Pimsleur, uses a different psychological principle called Graduated Interval Recall .
Dr. Pimsleur argued that memorizing vocabulary lists is useless because the brain stores those words in a "laboratory" section. Instead, he promoted organic learning —learning a word through the context of a conversation. You don't learn the verb "to eat"; you learn, "I would like to eat an apple." Pimsleur Language Learning