Rocket French Reviews

I am only using the free trial period (for now) and I am very impressed with the content, that as soon as I'm able to I am purchasing the full French course. Thank for for a superb website that offers more than you'd expect to get for free.

Hi there,

Course seems like pretty good but when it comes to customer service. Its very poor.

In the past I have sent couple of queries but no One ever responded not I can not be able to access my premium French language course.

Could you please resolve the issue as soon as possible .

Thank you

Regards,

LAXMI

Good for those who like to control the content of their learning rather than going in an order dictated to them. I like the email reminders to encourage return to learning. Clicking on phrases to hear the pronunciation is also very helpful, as is playing the games to test knowledge.

On the plus side:
• I like the way grammatical rules are discussed in understandable, laymans’ terms
• It’s easy to learn/revise words and phrases
• It’s easy to develop your listening skills to understand what people are saying and its easy to develop skills in identifying what to say

But there is room for improvement:
• Speech recognition needs improvement
o Gives some poor pronunciation 100%, but doesn’t recognise closer attempts
o When sentences are long it often cuts you off
o Often (every session) crashes for no reason and you have to log in again
• Its easy to put all your effort into reading and writing – rather than developing listening and speaking skills

I thought all the lessons would be audio such that you could listen in your car or with headphones while working out or walking but some require you to read and hear. I think even alphabet, numbers and grammar can all be made in an audio version. Also, I do not like the fact that you can’t stop and review an audio lesson. At least on an iPhone you can’t just stop a lesson and go back to the beginning. You have to let it play out until the end to start over.

The microphone speaking part of the browser is terrible. I have 3 headsets (all expensive) and also used the microphone on the laptop. For simple words like Nom, Bonjour (I am getting zero or sorry I didnt catch that). I know I am not fluent yet, but i've got those words down, but the software occasionally wont get what i say. Very annoying...

I like the lessons and the reinforcement activities as I really feel that I will recall the various words and phrases in my longer term memory. The emphasise on pronunciation is good but even at an easy setting sometimes the words don't register correctly - however it is good on improving my speech.
There are a few annoyances - the lesson is 20 minutes, not sure why we need the opening and closing music. Paul does seem to speak English with a strange accent which is distracting. Given the price of the course I would assume that this is aimed at adults so we don't need the forced cheerfulness and "jokes" that are included. I would rather the lesson had more actual learning content and less slang words.
I purchased the course as it has grammar lessons - these are OK but I generally have a lot of questions on minor points which are not covered - a reference as to whether these will be covered later in the course would be useful.
I would also like to know how the 3 levels equate to external standards. For the UK for instance if you do the 3 levels is this equivalent to a GCSE qualification or would it be more A level standard as I would like to take my French further.

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Pros:

The reinforcement of the Hear it, Say It, Write it and Know it activities.
The flash cards - and the ability to customize your flashcards.
Learning phrases as opposed to just vocabulary
The point, progress and streak information.
The Rocket Fuel emails are very helpful.

Cons:
I could locate only one pronunciation lesson. It would be help to have more. (Note: that lessons indicates that there is further help included in lesson 3.6, but that doesn't appear to be a pronunciation lesson.)
Some of the audio, done by the native speaker, is unclear. Either the first portion of the audio is cut short, or there is lack of clarity in the audio.

Because of the clarity issues of the audio, I become quickly frustrated. I've verified that the issue is with the audio itself by trying a headset and bluetooth speakers, comparing them with other audios. Unfortunatly, this single issue is my reason for cancellation. :(

I've only done the trial version but I decided not to buy it not because of the content; the material is quite good actually and, considering it's for life, the price is fair as well. But the activities cannot be done through mobile or app properly, the recording won't recognize what's said, the written activities never goes on to the next, the platform only works properly on desktop PC and the whole purpose is that you can learn anywhere, whenever. If I can't use my mobile and be alone when recording my pronunciation or I can't answer the cards on my free time then the "anywhere/whenever" thing is null

When I realized not every module had a audio portion I was kinda disappointed. I primarily wanted this as a audio course, and although there are many audio modules its not every lesson. I am only 3 days in but it seems like a decent course though. Each module seems to throw vocab at you, but also some example sentences so its nice.