Rocket German Reviews

I like the interaction in the 'Play it' section but there are problems;

1. The programme frequently states that it has not heard my reply - despite that when I press playback my reply is very clearly there - this is very frustrating and time consuming.

2. The programme makes no allowance for a beginner taking time making a reply which inevitably takes a lot longer than a fluent speaker would take - this again is very frustrating and prevents making best use of the programme.

An interesting language program but has problems playing in the company's recommended browser " Chrome ", keeps crashing used different laptops using Windows 7, Vista, and Windows 10 whilst using " Chrome ". Ended up doing a lot of work on a laptop running Windows XP using
" Firefox " avoiding " Chrome " as the system is too ancient for " Google " developers of " Chrome ". The constant crashes of " Chrome " disheartened me , after doing the same work three times run out of free time to get the 400 points that is recommended for daily target. That said if the constant crashes are eliminated then it is a good program.

This could easily be a 5 star program, but there are enough poor choices by the designers that make it less valueable or frustrating to use that I am being generous to give this 3 stars. The bottom line is that it works, and it did better for me than when I used Rosetta Stone to learn another language.

I have been using this program for 10 months and have had 3 visits to Germany during this time related to work. This is where I think the program isn't good:
1. This program stresses in the informal ways of addressing people. Germans, especially in business, use the formal case (Sie not Du).
2. The program doesn't teach any language rules, rather just provides example after example such as how to conjugate a verb.
3. THe most frustrating part is that the program tries to inculcate easy words (Ja, Nein), and sometimes not useful words like Wunderbar constantly, but doesn't stress words that are important to know such as to want, to like, to take, to need. If someone can't get Ja and Nein correct after the third lesson, then they need to quit.
4.

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Been doing the Rocket German for about 3 months. So far, I've enjoyed it for the most part and am looking forward to getting into the second Level. My one complaint/suggestion is that I find the written lessons to be poorly set up. The focus looks like it is supposed to be on grammar in many lessons, yet they are taught with 20+ new vocabulary words in many of them. So instead of focusing on the new grammar rules, you get lost trying to figure out what all of the new vocabulary is. Would suggest using only words already known when first introducing a grammar lesson so that the focus is kept on the grammar and not diverted to the new words. I've come out of several of the written lessons with no more knowledge of the grammar rules then when I went in because 90% of the examples were with new vocabulary. Audio lessons are great though, and overall I still think there are many positives. Looking forward to the updated level one German whenever it is due out.

German Level 1 was great - detailed and thorough, moving at a good pace. I have just started Level 2, and it is a different thing entirely, and unfortunately not at all good. It seems to have been botched together from a previous, separate attempt at a course (the numbered Audio lessons are completely different in the lesson plan and in the audio track), and it doesn't follow on from Level 1 in any meaningful way (there’s repetition of stuff we've already covered).

Most disappointing is a dramatic drop in quality of the Language lessons. The grammar explanations are much shorter, and leave gaps and questions unanswered. The lessons on Dative and Genitive are terrible - cursory explanations and patchy examples. Example sentences either display grammatical features which go wholly unexplained in the text; or fail to display the relevant grammar at all. Poorly thought out, and a frustrating contrast to the excellent Level 1.

This program is certainly very good for beginners, but only to a certain point. I am currently in Module 7 and finding myself extremely frustrated at the amount of unnecessary English description that happens in the audio.
When I started the program, of course the added English was very helpful because I was starting from the very bottom, but I really feel that by almost the end of the first level, there should either be much more spoken German, or at least much less English dialogue.

1. You could give more practice with the words, before passing to the flashcards.
2. More activities can be introduced, such as putting in the missing words in the sentences, and others like those. Currently, the major way of learning is merely the typical drills. It is too much technical, which is good if it is something additional, but without the greater variety of the exercised it is too inhuman, and somewhat boring. I am also comparing it with the Babbel, and they have some adaptions to the humans, when the dialog is going on, and one has to add the missing words. So, more human like activities would be useful.
Cannot say anything about the customer service, because did not use it yet.

Voice Recognition is poor.
Especially small words & words starting with letter "S" !!

I am in the last (7th) Module of Level 1.

Generally, I like the course because it is very structured and explains language concepts very well. I like that there are dedicated grammar lessons that clearly concentrate on building your grammar foundations. A complete opposite of Duolingo which has no grammar explanations at all.

Some people find the humor in the course stale but I have no issue with it (not great but not bad either, tolerable).

The course does a pretty bad job in all flashcards and speaking (translation) exercises when the "you" word needs to be translated into German (translates to one of "du", "ihr", "Sie"). None of them are commented so you just make frustrating mistakes. There should be clear hints what is expected there.

The lessons are generally very long (often takes an hour to finish) which is not great. I think they should be broken up to smaller lessons that are no longer than 30 minutes. Due to the long time required to finish a lesson, I often cannot finish one during a single day and can only do the remaining part next day.

The Android app has been rewritten since I started the course and it is much better now (huge improvement there, congrats to the devs).

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I would recommend Rocket Languages if you are a complete beginner. But it is frustrating for someone, who has basic familiarity with the language and is looking to improve. The program has too many elements, like the speaking, writing, quizzing, etc. And the conversations are so basic and repetitive that it is annoying. I wish there was a version that offered a refresher approach or a reading based approach for those who know the basics and want to expand their vocabulary and brush on grammar. Alternatively, it would be nice if one didn't have to purchase the basic levels in order to get the more advanced sessions. Rocket language dialogs seem to focus more on tourist activities. Also, I think it would be useful to have all of the presenters speaking with the proper accent. In the German course, only one of the presenters is a native speaker. Finally, the speech recognition is slow and often spotty - and that's on the desktop version. In the iOS app, many of the quiz/practice functions don't work at all. I purchased the program because it was on sale, but I should have just relied on reading German books and media and on watching movies in German.

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