Well, come this April I would have been learning for an entire year! Using just Pimsleur too. I do about 30 minutes a day, and tend to go through the same lesson about 5-6 times, Its taken me about a year to get to lesson 12 on the second course, how people have done through it all in 3 months and taken it all in? I have no idea. I can have conversations with Russian inside what the program teaches, I need to be corrected sometimes but overall I've been told I am doing well. Learning a language is a seriously long term thing. I expected it to take about 2-3 years before I could have a 5 minute conversation with someone. One thing that has really helped.. is that my girlfriend and her family is Russian, so I end up speaking more Russian than most people learning I guess.