Rocket Japanese Reviews

It is a good program/service, I think good value for money. But the voice detection I assume is non-existent. Why? For any word in the Japanese module, I can say anything and I get recorded as correct. Nami (Name) I can say "Yellow" or "Brick" or "Superman", they all register as points. So both the voice detection and points system is rather irrelevant in its current state. But if you come for the exposure to words, practice out-loud yourself and don't need some software telling you that you are hitting the mark correctly, I think it is still worth it. It would be worth getting some quality A.I. software that really does test one's pronunciation of native speech - the one Rosetta Stone 3 had was pretty good, but their product has gone down hill since then.

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 am hoping that within a year of this program I will be able to Speak Japanese to my co workers. Its much better than Rosetta Stone. I just wish this program explained at very beginning why certain words are used in the sentence like ga, wa, no, imasu, desu and masu so it can be applied instead of just memorized.

I am a bilingual person (translator from English into French) trying to learn Japanese. I've been trying several methods books, on-line, etc., over several years. Even though this method is far more interesting and educational than Rosetta, I feel that it is lacking of grammatical points or explanations, so to be a complete learner, you need to complement it by another mean (books or apps). After saying that, I will still recommend this on-line method, since I believe it is one of the best today.
Improvements:
The testing system: it would be more educational to be testing more than 5 (Japanese 2) or 10 questions (Japanese 2), while the listen and writing, test you on over 30 questions.
Even though the voice recognition improve dramatically over the years, it is still sometimes difficult to use it, especially with long sentence in the Play role section. The system stops before I say half of the sentences. It works fine most of the time with single word.
The first audio is too long and have a lot of unnecessary moments. For example, why practicing to say a word or sentence when it is listed in the vocabulary section in which you can learn how to say it as well? Also, to be honest, Kenny's voice is a little annoying after a while.

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I am just starting Rocket Japanese and so far I quite like it, with one exception so far. I decided to approach learning Japanese methodically and to try to master each concept before moving on. The problem is that in Module 1, there is a section on numbers, and it teaches numbers from 1 to 100,000,000. Obviously, there are patterns and generalizations one can make across the 10s, 100s, 1000s, etc, but there is a lot to learn here in one large gulp and now I have lost my momentum with the language learning. I feel the numbers should be introduced in smaller chunks so that one can progress with new vocabulary and grammar at the same time. I have been bogged down with number learning for days.

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

Great so far but, too soon to really give a review. learning a few words here and there but no repetition or context make it so it's only vocabulary lessons.

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

Love everything so far, but I’ve noticed that you are changing the voice actors with the audio files. In my opinion, I’d prefer the original combination of the English Kenny and the ‘Osaka’ kansai-jin Sayaka...especially Sayaka, whose accent, in both nihongo-ga and eigo-ga is very helpful in terms of realistic Japanese phonetics. The new Sayaka is less ‘endearing’ and the new Kenny-san has perhaps a too refined Kanto-style accent.

the rōmaji on the flashcards is driving me away from using Rocket for Japanese.

just maddening to have in SETTINGS as OFF

In 1/5 of a lsdon, I can set English OFF but where i WANT it off, it is stuck ON as a feature ?!?