Rocket Japanese Reviews

Shopping as the 3rd lesson? What an absolute joke!

the kanji test in the first lesson is a little too advance

I've been using RocketLanguages for a few years now and prefer it over any other learning program for speech and conversation. Level 1 of RocketJapanese is superb, though the audio lessons of Levels 2 and 3 lack the same clarity and smoothness. The content of the lessons is great and I have no issue with the Japanese speakers, but the English-speaking hosts in Levels 2 and 3 have distractingly poor delivery: the pacing of their sentences is inconsistent, the editing cuts some words too early, and the speakers' intonation and emphasis is very odd, often quite unnatural. When repeating Japanese words immediately after the Japanese speakers do, the english-speaking hosts' pronunciation is so far off I sometimes wonder if the lessons were recorded without the speakers listening to each other. I still get the practice and review in Japanese that I want from the lessons, but not without difficulty listening to the hosts.

It's a great program, and I do recommend it to anyone who asks. The fact that Level 2 was updated is a good sign for the future; if the hosts of the audio lessons in Levels 2 and 3 can be re-recorded to match the rhythm and clarity of intonation that Level 1 has, it'll be top-notch.

I have found Rocket Japanese to be useful, and frustrating in about equal measures. The voice-recognition is a great idea in helping perfect your pronunciation. Unfortunately I find that about 20% of the time (I haven't kept a count, this is a rough estimate) it simply doesn't work. Either your phrase is not recognised, or deemed incorrect. As a beginner, not knowing if it is you, or the software that is the problem can be insanely frustrating. It doesn't appear to be the longer sentences that suffer from this. The very first sounds we are asked to repeat are riddled with examples. After 3 months it still tells me I can't pronounce 'ka'.
I have finally been prompted to write this because the system tells me I cannot pronounce 'America jin' correctly. Clearly this is an almost native sound to an English speaker, but I mimic the example exactly to no avail. I can forgive these issues, although there are other minor complaints. I have also reported some mistakes in the text, but they remain unchanged. Personally I find that the audio lessons are rather childish, and would be happier if we just got on with the lesson, but I recognise that might just be me being grumpy.

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It's hard to accurately review Rocket Language Japanese, since the levels are so different in quality, but after 2+ years I believe that I can give you a very accurate impression of the first 2 levels, I hope, unless major changes has been made in 2019-2020 (I still haven't made it past level 2, and I haven't used the course since December 2019).

Level 1 is AMAZING! 5 stars! I couldn't recommend it more!
True story: after doing the first section, it helped me land a job in Japan!
I had to do an interview in Japanese via Skype (I needed conversational Japanese for the position), and several of the Q&A was straight of Rocket Languages Japanese Level 1!! I honestly felt that I only had basic Japanese, but the interviewer considered my level to be conversational Japanese and I landed the position!

Level 2 is such a disappointment! The conversations are wayyyy too fast compared to Level 1, and the target language is not anywhere near as useful for everyday living in Japan, I find. Keigo should be taught at a much later stage, and instead it would be much more useful to teach colloquial Japanese that you can actually use with your friends! When you use the masu form that is mainly used in the course, your friends will say: "Yeah...

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I hate the points and streaks function and you have provide no ability to switch off!

I am preferring the Pimsleur system far more.

My opinion may change over time, as I will complete this series (I paid for it.) But right now, I am not sure I like this method, generally speaking. I prefer methodical, professional books such as Genki/Adventures in Japanese/etc which actually explain what is going on. For example: Japanese conjugation is a little tricky and this course (so far) is not helping. I also have a tutor in Tokyo, and nothing is better than that. Lastly, the Kanji exercises at the end are super frustrating as when the sentences are long, the stupid thing auto-places the words and I cannot get them in the right order even when I know it. That said, it's always good to listen to native speakers, but in today's world, there are no shortages of resources in that department.

the audio recognition needs work. Also stop asking me to review every six times i record a word.

What I liked: Grammar lessons and examples. The conversational lessons are generally good, but I thought that some were not really applicable to what I wanted to learn. For example, several focus on "workplace" conversations that don't seem particularly relevant.
What I don't like: The speech recognition program is terrible. I get the impression that Rocket Languages (1) didn't adequately test this program prior to incorporating it into the course, and (2) doesn't seem to be interested in trying to fix it.

The speech recognition module actively detracts from the utility of the course. Please bring back the older speech recognition program or fix this one.

The bottom line: Not recommended due to speech recognition issues.

Enjoy learning it, Very good because you can always return to difficult parts. Had to stop for a while because of moving my home, but it was easy to pick up. From now on, I'll regularly continue. The target is learning the language. Unfortunately, my computer does not allow voice recording. I hope that this does not influence the study results.