Rocket Japanese Reviews
Find out what actual users have to say about our courses through their Rocket Japanese reviews.
Hello, I am an English teacher but can speak 4 other foreign languages and started learning Japanese a few years ago. I studied it with Teach yourself Japanese, Japanese for Busy People and Take off in Japanese. Then I tried Rocket Japanese and I can say Rocket Japanese is the best programme I have ever seen. Not only is it very creative but very practical and applicable, too. Modern tools and features make it even more interesting, in particular for youngsters! Sayaka as our guide is excellent as well as Mauricio and Amy for Spanish. What I like most about Rocket Languages is that there is always a dash, a touch of culture and customs as well as nuances in different countries (for Spanish). I have already recommended Rocket Languages to several friends of mine. Last but not least, I wish all the teams of Rocket Languages success in the future work-I am sure you will grant us with some new, interesting improvements!
Daria Simunovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Finally! I can learn what I've always wanted to. Thanks to Rocket Languages, it helps me master a second language as if it were my own and twice as fast. The systematic lesson plan enables me to approach my lesson at my own pace and allows me to understand about the language in depth. Short, precise and intensive, it will help anyone master another language like they were natives, in no time.
After taking a few Japanese courses in college, I ended up moving and having no access to formal instruction. While I was able to learn a few words here and there through various internet sources, most free resources give only very basic information about grammar and writing. I purchased a few textbooks which helped explain some basic grammar and writing, but there was no way to effectively test what I had learned. I was able to read and write a bit better, but I had next to no experience speaking the language since nobody around me also spoke it. So I finally started looking up instructional courses and stumbled upon Rocket Japanese.
As a full-time college student, it is a bit pricey, but nowhere near as bad as some other courses, and it's definitely not as expensive as a college course. It also covers more ground than my previous college courses did! As of now, I've finished the first module and gotten started on the second. I have a few criticisms, but they're mostly related to organization and romanization. The content itself is great, though the audio lessons start off with exaggerated pronunciation for people who have never heard or spoken the language before. It appears to lessen as you progress.
The Rocket Language program is great. I used their Chinese and Japanese courses before traveling. I'm now working with their Spanish program. Their conversations introduce useful conversational vocabulary and the supplemental grammar and culture lessons are valuable. I'm really impressed by their user forums which discuss a wide range of topics - I've appreciated the discussions around how words are used in different contexts.
I have been studying Japanese on and off for a couple of years, this is because i get too busy and reading a book takes a lot of effort and becomes boring when you do not know much of what you are reading and there is no one to tell you if you are doing the right thing or if you are even pronounce it correctly. This course is amazing in the way that it is very interactive and I feel like everyday I go on it I am learning something new and useful that I can add to my vocab. I love how the score system works and the fact that there is a leader board that lets you know how you have done that day compared to everyone else. I am a highly competitive person and I feel like this allows you to push yourself further to try and get number one in that leader board. I would highly recommend this course to anyone interested in learning a language, it is worth it as long as you will put in the time to study and stay consistent. Hope you guys enjoy it.
(Japanese, Level 1 review) Methodically located somewhere between Pimsleur, YesJapan/Japanese From Zero and Japanesepod101, Rocket Japanese provides a strong, content-rich guided learning experience that can serve as a backbone to any serious self-learning effort. Of all the programs I have tried (including Rosetta Stone, Textfugu, WaniKani, Living Language, the Genki textbooks and those mentioned above), this is certainly the most comprehensive and challenging from the start.
Conversation exercises, which are at the core of the program, are very well executed and the speech recognition system ensures that there is a degree of accountability here. For auditive learners such as myself, these work just as well if not better than Pimsleur, which is an old but effective way to memorize phrases and gain some initial conversational skills.
The main weakness of Rocket Japanese comes in the lack of a spaced repetition system. I STRONGLY advise learners to use an external flashcard software (such as Anki) or analogue flashcards for their vocab learning. Since actually creating flashcards is in itself good practice, however, I wouldn't deduct any points for this given the overall strong showing on display.
I have tried dozen of language learning courses including: Rosetta Stone, Duo Lingual, Udemy, etc. However, I think Rocket Languages is one of the best because it is well-structured with balanced among reading, writing, listening and speaking skills.
Rocket Japanese is amazing. Since it includes interactive audio lessons, I find it much easier compared to going to the bookstore and buy a book with all this stuff. Because of this audio lessons I find it easier to pronounce Japanese words and I can also assure that you will learn the correct pronunciation using this interactive audio lessons since one of the hosts is a native Japanese speaker. Another thing I liked about it is you can download the audio file and also the pdf file that goes with it, and you can study the language offline. There are also games which you can play that serves as a review or a test for you which is really fun to do. Its set up of how to learn this language is not boring. Its really fun to learn a language with the interactive audio lessons. It seems like you are having a one on one lesson with a friend who is a native speaker of the language you are trying to learn. And I really admire Sayaka and Kenny since they always sound so enthusiastic to teach Japanese language in every audio lessons.
Being a Jrock fan I think Rocket Japanese is one of the reasons why I am now able to communicate to other fans in a better way. And also, now I can understand some lyrics from the Jrock songs I'm listening to without any translations. Thanks Rocket Japanese!
Japan always has fascinated me & when I visited it, I was spell bound. The people, the culture, their politeness, i.e. in one word 'Everything'. The Empire of the Rising Sun, states exactly how Japan is. I never thought in my life, that one day I might get the opportunity, to learn Japanese. Thanks to my business, I got Japanese clients & to honor them, I wanted to learn Japanese. Domo arigtou guzaimasu "Rocket Japanese", that means to you Kenny San & Sayako San. The hard work you have gone through, has blessed my business in so many ways & shall these blessings be with you two as well. My life has changed entirely because of your honest dedication, which gave me a lot of hope & strength. I will further purchase & tell anyone who wants to learn Japanese about "Rocket Japanese" to buy it, because it is more than worth it. Aishi the i masu. Sharmila Ray!!!
TL:DR -These courses are worth bothering with and a fair deal but don't expect perfection or a miracles.
This was sold to me (by external reviews) as being better than Rosetta stone and the current market leader in comprehensive language learning for self study, and yeah it is better and may be the best all around, but its still far from perfect. There are other products that are distinctly better for certain aspects of Japanese study, but this one is a good all-rounder.
It is very much like a by the book language study course that you would get in a generic language school.
Its not ground breaking, but its very solid and should successfully teach any diligent student some extent of their target language.
Given that you get hundreds of hours of lessons that you can do at your own pace I think the price is great value but I can't quite give 5 stars because there are some flaws in the product and service.
Unlike many free apps you aren't limited to 5 or 10 mins per day which means that the system can take its time to teach you slowly and methodically, and that if you have a lot of free time (and almost everybody does at the time of writing mid-April 2020) then you can do an hour or more everyday.
Response from Rocket Languages
Response from Rocket Languages: Hi Sean - Thanks for submitting a review. Some interesting observations in there! I thought that I would comment on a couple of things;
This year Rocket Japanese is scheduled to have a total review of the course content. We realize that there are some issues and are moving to address those.
With regards the romanization toggle; this seems to be working. Can you please provide screenshots to customer support of where it doesn't seem to be working?
There was an issue with the voice recognition difficulty in that you had to refresh the page for the change to take effect. That has now been rectified, so it should just work.
And we will look into the review system as well. In fact we are re-factoring the entire members area into a new code base, so it's timely to look at some aspects that haven't been looked at for a while. The new version is due out later in the year.