Tips with the Program?

Hi there,

I have been using Rocket Japanese for 2 hours every week for about 6 months now. I am still in Module 1. Is this usual with the program? Should I be doing something differently in order to learn at a faster pace? What are some good ways to use the program in order to learn more effectively?

Thanks.

What module you're in doesn't directly correlate to how much you've learned.  You could go through the whole thing just rating everything "easy" and finish in one day but still know nothing, or you could thoroughly do and redo the module until you know everything in it down pat.  If you want a rough guide though, it took me roughly 2 hours per audio lesson, 15-45 minutes per culture lesson, and 5-15 minutes for the writing lessons, and I'd say I fully learned about 60-80% of the material.

That being said, Rocket Languages teaches so that you'll (theoretically) be able to talk to people in situations that would be likely to come up as a tourist.  If you want to really know the language,  it teaches a lot of stuff out of order and is really, really light on grammar, and is always apologizing for teaching you any at all, among other problems, so it works best to use other learning methods alongside it.  http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/    , mostly a grammar guide, has been very helpful for me, as has  http://tangorin.com/    , which is a Japanese dictionary.