Rocket Chinese Reviews

Alright, so I have been using Rocket Chinese for about a year now. I was attracted mostly by the price and the amount of features involved. I was not about the drop hundreds of dollars on Rosetta's Stone or Pimsleur, but I did want quality learning. There are hundreds of ways to learn Mandarin for free on the internet. I realize that. But I needed a place that could provide grammatical support, and have comprehensive lessons that taught a higher level of understanding to the language. Here is what I got:
-Good entertaining lessons
-Motivation
-An overall look at the language
-Chinese culture
And here are the things that I have noticed need improvement
-Despite the recent edits to the "Hear it, Speak it" I definitely think that it can be fixed up even more
-The point system can be more comprehensive for example someone that practices every day, reviewing old lessons will never get the same credit as someone who just puts random answers for quizzes, answers BS for blog posts. I know the end goal is to learn the language and these people wont be doing that but you get the idea
-Chinese writing section I think could definitely use some improvements, and a way of testing yourself to learn the characters.

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I'm currently only halfway through the second lesson, but it seems good so far. You should be aware that the main reason I'm writing this review, is because they'll give me $10 cash back if I do.

Note that there are a lot of special offers, and the one they email you may not be the best one available at the time. Also, if you're paying by credit card, and you're not in the US, you will probably get a better deal if you pay in USD, and let your bank do the currency conversion, instead of taking the option to pay in your local currency.

Honestly though, it does seem pretty good so far, and seems to be very good value.

Great value for price! I like the browser but was really impressed with the app on IOS. Since I am on the go quite often, it is nice to learn Mandarin and check things off right on my phone. The more exposure to the language the better, and now I don't have to just sit at a computer all day and learn. Despite a few little bugs it has been more than I expected and I would recommend Rocket over Rosetta Stone anytime.

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.

Very good interaction, even though there is no actual interaction with a live person. The testing is excellent with repetition of phrases. One thing I would like is a vocabulary list for each lesson.

Rocket Chinese has a lot of interesting features, but some don't seem to work as intended. I tried many times to do the testing...but somehow, it never registers when I do the speaking, although the microphone displays the profile it should have...lately the vocabulary did not seem to register eiter anymore when I put words into it.

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Really love the course, just wish I had more time to it. I started the course over 2 years ago and have barely made it out of the first levels. The course is fun and very informative, like I said wish I had more time for it. Xie xie

The ability to download the interactive audio and listen to it offline is great for making use of my time commuting on the London underground, then practicing with the Hear-It / Say-It / Know-It when I get home in the evening.
I hope they make the mobile-app have an offline mode too one day so that I can do the hear/say/know-it practice off-line too.

Da jia hao!
I decided to learn the Chinese language because I've always found it quite interesting and most of the population here speak this language. I did not regret getting the full version of Rocket Chinese because of the extensive content that it has. Since I've started learning Mandarin here, I have noticed improvements in my conversational skills, writing skills, and, from there, I also have manged to recognise some Chinese characters bit by bit as I complete more lessons.

However, I think the structure of the lessons can be better if they had followed the structure of the HSK standards. Although I find the content really good so far, some words that has been taught previously appears again in the "Extra Vocabulary" section, which I think can be replaced with other relevant words like the lesson "Going shopping" did not even mention the word "shangdian" which means "store" as in stores in a shopping centre or even appears on the extra vocab section. Also, the Chinese locals here speak differently and use different words (although the same meaning) in their daily conversation, like we use Huayu (chinese language) instead of Hanyu.

In conclusion, I think Rocket Chinese is good for learning but it requires constant improvements to fill up the gaps that were probably overlooked.