Rocket Spanish Reviews

I have been using Duolingo because it's free, but it's not meeting my needs. I like that Rocket Spanish helps with my pronunciation, which Duolingo did not. I had a coupon so I'm willing to give Rocket Spanish a try for 60 days! Plus, I already had the headphones with a mic so why not??

I think conceptually, it's great. The progression of language makes a lot of sense to me and feels natural. A few critiques: it is very geared toward traveling to South America as a tourist or for work or something, so if you're learning Spanish for any other reason, this doesn't give you a lot of the vocabulary that would probably be useful. Also, though the concept is great, there are still a lot of kinks that need to be worked out so that it actually functions properly. Things are often misspelled, especially in the later lessons. If there are multiple ways to say the same thing, there is almost no indication which way they expect you to use, and you get docked if you say the one other than expected. Also, the software has a really hard time picking up what you're saying, so you can pronounce things the exact same way, and one time it's correct and the next time it's incorrect because the software just isn't good at understanding verbal language. So overall, really good product, I just wish they had spent a little more time developing it and working out the bugs before rolling it out.

Rocket (Spanish) is, I believe, a great language learning program. I say “I believe” because I have been using it a short time and have not successfully learned a Spanish, yet.

Pros:
I chose Rocket over courses from other companies because the trial demonstrated that it is more thorough.
It also seemed to focus on Mexican Spanish instead of European. Since I live in California, this is important to me.
The instructors are very clear and entertaining. Pro reviews say they are a bit cheesy but I do not think so.
A clean user interface that works well on my iOS devices. It is not as pretty as, say, Memrise or Duolingo, but it is well structured.
For my learning styles I feel the audio lesson, followed by an activity, flash cards, reading, writing and quiz is more thorough than any others have to offer.
Lessons are downloadable on my iOS devices, but...

Cons
...i stay in a hotel with poor wifi and although I download the lessons at home, for some reason my iPad (wifi only) will sit there and spin like its trying to stream the lesson, even though i had previously downloaded it, and this prevents me from even using the lesson at all when it does this
VERY EXPENSIVE. I paid almost $300 for the program for all levels lifetime.

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Starting to learn Spanish at 67 years old is probably not the best time but so far so good.
I can't fault the teaching method or the software and I even enjoy even the frustrating time when my mind goes blank.

The course has been good so far. There are good explanations about how the language works.

I like the way the lessons are made. There is a lot to learn. Thanks.

I am just considering to purchase program and I am currently trying out the free lesson and it seems pretty good so far

Tengo setenta y nueve anos y mi mina es poquito flaco. The progression of learning options is not intuitive. I tried to check flashcards, but nothing happened. I attended an english teachers school in Mexico two years ago. My main problem was the computer. surely you can make the lessons a bit more intuitive: when i click "flashcards" something should happen. The problem with the dashboard is that it is separated from the lesson: One must carry info from one basket to another or more likely to several baskets. Info gets dropped in the transportation process. Why not make info transportation easy and intuitive so one does not have to run to and fro to figure out how to make the program work

Overall, I think that it a very good course for learning a language at your own pace. The instructors are easy to understand, and the lessons are laid out in a logical manner. I have only gotten as far as lesson 7, but I can tell that the material is extensive. The only complaint that I have is that many points of grammar are not explained at all, I realize that many students of language don't like getting bogged down in a lot of grammar, but the lack of any explanation at all can lead the student to make false assumptions. As I said, I have only just begun the course, so I can only give you a couple of examples. These are cases where I was forced to google my question concerning some very basic material. For instance, the student is never given an explanation about the word "lo" and it's usage. Because of how it was introduced in the lesson, I made the erroneous assumption that "lo" and "yo" both meant "I" and were interchangeable. The instructor said that "lo siento" meant "I am sorry", never explaining that "lo" meant "it", with the actual translation being "I regret IT". Early on in the course, we were told that "tu" means "your, as in "tu madre".

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It's good so far, but I don't like being forced to write reviews to continue.