Feedback/Review

NX172Fri, 07 May 2010 22:14:07 -0500
Here's a few thoughts.

Many say to learn a language, you have to be there. In the country. Many like me don't have this privilege, nor the money for private lessons. However, an audio course and personal help + on forums seems like the next best thing, right? So how great is it?
The whole program is quite well put together and carefully crafted. The lessons instantaneously immerse you into the culture, as if you were there. More importantly, gradually introduce you to new concepts without confusing you altogether.

Some of my favourite features include the hiragana/katakana/english/romaji display, many teachers will say that over-using romaji will develop bad habits, and I agree. However, hiragana/katakana can be very frightening to the beginner student, having english+romaji certainly helps learners taking their first steps into the language until they are more proficient with the writing system - it is good that RocketJapanese spotted this need. It is also great to see that each lesson comes with lessons and exercises on writing.
The language & culture pages for each lesson are all very relevant and well explained. It is carefully crafted how seemingly confusing grammar concepts such as verb bases, ~ta/~te forms are made understandable to the user.

Of course, an audio course is much more advantageous as opposed to books. The voices are friendly and there is much repetition: giving you the opportunity to say it with them and hear it again.

I have yet to fully complete the course, but have skimmed through some of the pages. Although based on personal preferences, I would like to see more grammar covered (unless you guys have another product for more advanced japanese?). The megavocab game should have some way to revise a wordlist first, before quizzing. (currently am guessing each answer until I get the right one, trial and error is tedious, y'know?).
More kanji would be good, especially the commonly used ones. There are loads you can fit into each lesson and I think the product would stand out from others more if this could be done. (There aren't many resources on learning kanji..., I believe at least 5 per lesson will develop a reasonable reading level)

Personal story, I was interested in learning Japanese as 1) Anime & Manga 2) Want to go to japan 3) Love the culture. Decided to give RocketJapanese a try after trying the sample lessons. After only 3 months using RJ (my summer break), I had the confidence to take a Japanese course at my local university, completely skip year 1 and jump onto year 2 (sensei was suprised how I learnt so much Japanese in such short amount of time). The year is coming to an end and am doing quite well. About a week ago, whilst working at a restaurant, a Japanese family came to eat and I was able to converse with them, the other staff were surprised and impressed at the same time! (私が英国に住んで, だから滅多に 日本人を見ない ¬_¬.. それが好感だった!)
I owe many thanks to Rocket Japanese for giving me the good start.

Overall, RocketJapanese has been good value for money (especially with those bonus lessons) and is an invaluable study aid for beginners-intermediate learners attempting to learn the language. Clear explanations in a friendly atmosphere accompanied by beginner-friendly learning resources makes this a highly recommended program that is a joy to use.
Sayaka MatsuuraSun, 09 May 2010 21:21:59 -0500
Konnichiwa!

Thank you very much for your feedback. We are delighted to hear that you are finding our course helpful and will take your suggestions on board.

KANJI is introduced in the course under the Language and Culture lessons (writing tab). We go through all the numbers, and the days of week. In our second course - the Premium Plus level - we introduce more Kanji in each lesson (about 5 each).

If you have any other questions, please let me know!

-Sayaka
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Sayaka Matsuura
Rocket Japanese

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