Rocket Languages Reviews
Find out what actual users have to say about our courses through their Rocket Languages reviews.
The best feature of Rocket French is that I can use the program any time of the day, which is handy because I work a full time job and cannot be flexible with my time. It has so far proven useful for helping me develop my speaking and comprehension skills. I would recommend this programme to a friend.
Overall, I'm very satisisfied with the product and approach so far, particularly coming from 7 months of Duolingo. It is a significant upgrade in experience over Duolingo. It has the right balance of drill and practice and grammar fundamentals, in the context of a conversation-driven leaning style. It seems natural and well thought out. I truly appreciate that I can skip what I want in deference to things I already know. I know I will soon get to things I will not be able to skim or skip and I look forward to that. The "say it" element of the structure is excellent. It is forcing me to speak, which is exactly what Duolingo does not do well. I have lots of words and lots of conjugations, but on the spot I am like a deer in the headlights, and Rocket's style forces you to just "talk", mistakes and all, which is great. The speed and clarity of the voice actors is excellent and it makes listening easy and approachable. The rolling text approach on screen is great, as I can look at the scroll when I want to and look away (to test myself better) when I don't want to.
A couple of constructive things to say.
1.
Response from Rocket Languages
Hi Paul, thank you for leaving such an in-depth review of our Rocket Spanish course. At Rocket Languages, we strongly believe in the effectiveness of interactive learning strategies that encourage students to actively use the language they are learning. So, it's great to hear that you have enjoyed using our speech recognition feature in activities that promote the use of Spanish. We truly appreciate your feedback on how we could improve the course. Your comments have been passed on to our Product Development team, who will consider them as they work on updating the course. We wish you all the best with your ongoing Spanish language-learning journey!
I think conceptually, it's great. The progression of language makes a lot of sense to me and feels natural. A few critiques: it is very geared toward traveling to South America as a tourist or for work or something, so if you're learning Spanish for any other reason, this doesn't give you a lot of the vocabulary that would probably be useful. Also, though the concept is great, there are still a lot of kinks that need to be worked out so that it actually functions properly. Things are often misspelled, especially in the later lessons. If there are multiple ways to say the same thing, there is almost no indication which way they expect you to use, and you get docked if you say the one other than expected. Also, the software has a really hard time picking up what you're saying, so you can pronounce things the exact same way, and one time it's correct and the next time it's incorrect because the software just isn't good at understanding verbal language. So overall, really good product, I just wish they had spent a little more time developing it and working out the bugs before rolling it out.
Response from Rocket Languages
Response from Rocket Languages: Hi Kristen - Thanks for the feedback. We are halfway through rewriting Rocket Spanish (Level 1 was re-released a couple of months ago). We hope to have the new Level 2 up soon. As far as the voice recognition goes, for the best results we recommend a headset microphone otherwise the system can have difficulty with short words/phrases in particular.
Overall this is a very good program.
*I compare this with DuoLingo online learning as well as a personal coach I use with Verbling. Also against Babble
which I used for 6 months.
*Price is kind of high but it is for a complete program so I'm neutral on this rating.
*Lessons are interesting. I could use less of the banter but still, very good content when focused on actual language
skills. Of great importance to me are the moderators speaking in a clear and moderate speed. Rocket delivers on
this!
* Now to my most concerning (to me) knock...Some of the exercises are terribly long in the Language and Cultural
sections. It's not uncommon to have 50, 60 or greater than 70 words, phrases or sentences to learn, memorize and
recite back. Personally, I get very frustrated when i fail due to sheer volume of material. Knowing how difficult and
frustrating these exercises are, I have to fight the urge to simply by-pass these sections. Reducing the volume within
Language and Cultural modules would be a huge plus for me.
Response from Rocket Languages
Response from Rocket Languages: Hi Fred - Thanks for the feedback! Regarding your point about the length of the lessons, we are currently reviewing all of the Language & Culture lessons, and the amount of phrases is one thing that we will be looking at. In saying that, having an abundance of phrases to learn is not a bad thing!
I'm not going to sugarcoat this, so don't look for it in any Rocket promotional material. :-)
Had a little bit of an issue when trying to buy this product. Wasn't Rocket's fault and they were very helpful in getting it resolved.
I am currently at lesson 2.4.
This is a good product for learning and practicing speech in Japanese. The exercises are very geared towards that, along with some writing.While it has been great for speech, I use a different product for grammar.
The interface is simple to figure out and use, so you don't have to waste a lot of time trying to figure out how to do courses. Japanese is hard enough as it is without trying to master a weird interface too.
This is really meant to help the student SPEAK the language, not necessarily stressing grammar too much, though it might in later lessons.
I've used a lot of tools for learning Japanese, but Rocket is the best at making you speak the language instead of just listening to lessons. That's why I purchased the whole product.
As for issues with the software, I had a few minor ones. At first, I would either have audio, or I could record my voice, but not both. To resolve this, I had to completely reinstall my browser.
Response from Rocket Languages
Response from Rocket Languages: Thanks for pointing out the spacing issue when writing reviews. We will fix that asap! Also, it is possible to flag (from within the Tests) phrases like the example you give. We can then look into what is causing that
I am really happy with the Rocket Language experience! At first I was worried that it might get too difficult, but it wasn't! I've learning German for the past three weeks and I couldn't be more convinced that this is the best website to learn languages.
bien, falta algo de ejercicios y algunos temas que apoyen mejor
Response from Rocket Languages
Thanks so much for your review, Jose. Please don't hesitate to contact our Customer Support team on [email protected] with any questions or feedback.
Response from Rocket Languages - Muchas gracias por su comentario Jose. Por favor, no dude en ponerse en contacto con el equipo de atención al cliente con el email [email protected] con cualquier pregunta o comentario que tenga sobre el curso.
As with any language, immersion and conversation will get you the farthest, but Rocket Spanish does a good job at giving you a wide range of vocabulary and practice with the spoken language. The reinforcement tools can seem tedious at times, but repetition and commitment is vital to learning a new language. Get it on sale and it is totally worth your time and energy.
Overall Rocket Italian is a pretty good system. You get exposed to the language in a variety of ways and have some explanation as to why a particular pattern exists.
It does have the problem that there is only one correct answer for each thing. This of course ignores the fact that many things can be said in slightly different ways. As an example the phrase "She is angry" technically can be said as either "Lei è arrabbiata" OR "È arrabbiata" however the only accepted answer is "È arrabbiata". In other places an answer is only accepted if it has a he/she indicator.
There are also numerous places where the English phrase refers to you plural but for some strange reason they have not realized that _every_ place they do that needs some kind of indicator that they mean you plural rather than you singular since English only has 'you'.
Overall the issues with Rocket Italian aren't that big but they make it feel more like you are memorizing lines in another language rather than learning another language. The dialogues are the worst for this as they slowly take away more of the words you are supposed to say but you have to say the phrase word for word to get it right even though there are times when you could get the same meaning across with slightly different words. (They really should package the dialogue portion so that it can be used by actors memorizing lines as that is what it does.)
I recently was introduced to your programme from my local library. It has been both informative and helpful! I really enjoy the useful vocabulary and informative cultural tips. It is very very very very very very very very cool!!!!