Rocket Italian Reviews

My overall impression of the level 1 program is that, with the exception of vocabulary, and the present tense, Rocket Italian Level 1 is very weak on teaching the student Italian grammar. An example of this is the use of prepositions. These seem to pop up everywhere with no explanation as to the rules governing their use (like the use of "di" which has at least 15 different meanings!), Level 1 aggravates this problem by frequently giving you lengthy Italian phrases in th flash cards & the "Know It" section to memorize. These contain grammatical structures that are never addressed in the course. Also, it makes no provision for different responses that the student may have translated correctly even though it is different from the translation in the course.

I would suggest they introduce a grammatical rule give some examples, & and then drills on that rule. The drills would also incorporate review of a verb tense. This would reinforce the latter and help us master both until they become second nature.

Instead, we waste enormous amounts of time memorizing lengthy sentences with no idea of the grammatical rules which govern the sentences. These are sentences which we will never use and quickly forget.

The program--either on desktop or tablet, often does not record my voice, and thus does not record portions of lessons. This is not getting better. Until Rocked Languages can improve its server, I'd advise avoiding the program.

The guy, Alex, in the Italian course comes across as a somewhat of a douche. He tries to be funny by pretending to flirt with the co host, Maria, but it just feels awkward. It might just be me, but I would prefer if they just sticked to the language material.

I enjoy the conversations that Rocket Italian is based on, but as a language instructor that uses strictly immersion techniques, I can't stand the amount of English that is in each lesson. There is SO much room for additional vocab that could be taught through the use of more exclusive Italian. It makes me frustrated to waste so much time on English banter. I am really struggling to make use of this course.

I like the lessons. The only downside is that I like to do lessons on a device -- specifically, a waterproof iPod while I do cardio in the pool for an hour -- not on my computer or phone. Unfortunately, with your program, I have to download one lesson at a time, rather than download all the lessons at once so I can put them into a file and transfer them to my device. That's the reason I would not purchase from you again. If there is a work around that would allow me to do a single download, like I can with Pimsleur, I would definitely buy from you again.

The sexism is very irritating--the male character constantly sexualizes his Italian co-host.

It would be helpful to be able to fast forward/ be able to review the lessons --the ratio of chitchat to content is off. Less of Alessandro and more formal grammar explanations would be great.

Audio does not work, neither for initial pronunciation, nor playback. When I try to listen "session aborted" appears.

Very poor voice recognition despite trying multiple microphone, speaker phone, and headset options.

Nothing awesome about it. The speech recognition doesn't work half the time no matter how loud I say the word. Worst Italian online course I have tried.

I just started and I don't really really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, like its not amazing but I like it