Rocket Chinese Reviews

Rocket Languages is a great way to learn languages because it feels as if I am talking to a person face to face instead of listening to some man named dave and a lady called lin (I think) who are speaking over a microphone which is good thing so xiexie ;) .

I have studying Mandarin Chinese for about four months. I started with another "highly rated" and very expensive program by a competitor. After two months I could only say hello and goodbye and a lot of phrases which I wasn't sure of their exact meaning and none of them related to any topics I wished to practice at the local Chinese restaurant (you have to look at pictures and decide what is being depicted. No English translations are anywhere in the program). Then I purchased Rocket Chinese and within two weeks, I could actually speak some meaningful Chinese...and know what I was saying...as do the Chinese that I practice with. Rocket Chinese tells you the words, pronounces them correctly for you, slows them down and then adds them to sentences, and speaks them in a dialog with another native Chinese speaker. It also shows you the written characters and the Pinyin language as you go. If you want to learn this difficult language, Rocket Chinese is my recommendation. It doesn't cost you an arm and a leg and you will be speaking basic Chinese almost immediately!!

I was impulsive when I bought Rocket Chinese but I definitely do not regret it because my Mandarin has improved so much in these few months where I can strike up some everyday conversations with my family. But I must disclose that though I have improved a lot these few months, it is not solely due to this program. I can speak Cantonese fluently so I can easily understand the Chinese grammar as I have been exposed to it and I can get immediate feedback from my mom whom speaks both Cantonese and Mandarin. I like how I can teach myself at my own pace without needing to travel to a class to learn. I like the overall format of listening and the ability to speak and have it rated based on how well I do. There are some technical issues that can be fixed but the experience is certainly very enjoyable and it is very fun! The only downside is there is no one that can immediately fix your pronunciation because as mentioned, the rated recordings of our voice does have faults as it may not pick it up when you pronounce a word correctly or incorrectly. This program does help tremendously in terms of improving my vocabulary and help to build my own sentences. This program really got the ball rolling for me and hopefully in the near future I can converse fully in Mandarin.

I think the overall teaching style of this program is pretty great, but the execution is not there yet.

The major shortcoming is the male's pronunciation. I am a complete beginner to studying Chinese, but it's incredibly obvious his pronunciation is absolutely awful. During the conversations, I can understand the female perfectly fine, but I still can't understand the male speaker well even after studying the lesson. I also worry that I may pick up bad habits myself even listening to his speech.

Another minor drawback is that I do not believe there is a way to zoom in or make the characters larger on the mobile app, which is unfortunate since I tend to study these lessons while exercising on an elliptical or other cardio machine, so the phone is a fair distance away from my eyes.

A feature I wish they would add in the future is increased robustness of the conversations. Instead of teaching us exactly one perfectly scripted conversation, teach us variations. Most of the time there are a handful of different ways someone could say the same thing, so even if the conversation is relatively simple in content, learning just one specific tightly scripted conversation is going to be pretty useless once you step out into the real world.

Overall, Rocket Chinese is founded on good ideas and has solid potential, I hope it will strive to improve and live up to the potential I see.

I am pretty happy with the whole experience, although I haven't used the program as much as I intended. Wish I had more time! A well thought out and fairly comprehensive approach to solo language learning. I shall be renewing my subscription for sure. Perhaps a section for HSK Exams could be a useful addition for those of us going down that path, just a thought. In summary, my overall user experience is a very positive one.

Overall this program is excellent. The lessons make sense and the progression seems natural. The only major problem with the course is the voice recognition. It's terrible. Obviously if I was a great speaker of Mandarin I wouldn't need this program, but even when I'm really close to the right pronunciation, it doesn't register it as correct. It sometimes stops recording before I've finished speaking (especially on the longer sentences), and sometimes out of frustration I've spoken gibberish, not even close to the right sounds, and it gave me 100%.
So I treat the voice recognition like an audio book. Just repeat, but the feedback is totally meaningless. I'm happy with my purchase since I was able to buy this program on sale.

The record with voice recognition grading really helps to get your pronunciation right, and the playback of your voice really helps you find out why you did get the grade you expected. These tools give a strong incentive to practice speaking, and have helped me to progress faster. The downside is that these tools are only practically useful on PC and not useful on Android because of speed and different limited web page. (I cannot speak for Apple versions).

I would give the course 5 stars if all features were available on all platforms.

On android viewing the website, speech recognition is so much slower to respond, and much less accurate, so the time delays become frustrating - it is very dependent on internet and wireless speed. The key thing android misses is it that it has no ability to play back what you said (so that you can hear and correct your own mistakes). From the forum comments this appears to have been missing for 2 years or more, and I think Rocket Languages should make playback of your own voice a priority fix for android users.

Read More

Rocket Chinese is a great learning tool where you can learn Pinyin (Chinese Alphabet), Chinese characters, and audio. I found the price extremely reasonable compared to other programs of equal quality. My only concern is their translation from Chinese to English. They present a rough translation to what the sentence means and sometimes a very loose translation. I would like to see in addition to their translation, a word to word translation so the student can grasp what each word actually means. I find when I look up each word, my translation may not coincide with that of Rocket Chinese. Not that one is better than the other, it just provides me with another interpretation of the sentence.

It is awesome. I learned so much. I am still just a beginner, but learned so much sense we bought it. Thanks I love it so much. I hope a lot of people learn stuff through it. Rocket Chinese is the best.

Well designed course that combines visual, audio, written, quizzes, flash cards and reminders along with a little humour. It's a very well designed program.

The online computer version has an advantage. It records your spoken phrases so you can play them back to compare pronunciation with the native speaker. This is great! The iPhone version lacks that feature. It grades your spoken response but you can't hear your spoken response.

Overall, I'm very impressed with the educational design and the usefulness of Rocket Chinese. Very well done! I used both the computer and my iPhone for practice. I like both versions. It's the best language learning course I've seen, by far.