Rocket Languages Reviews

This reviews Rocket Languages' Chinese Premium and Premium Plus. The program is well organized in its audio and website. Audio lessons use a typical conversation to teach new words and basic grammar lessons. Lin Ping, the teacher for the course, has a good clear Northern Chinese accent and speaks the majority of the time. It is peculiar that she converses with Dave, an Austrailian with a good accent, but not one I'd try to imitate if I was trying to blend in while visiting. This is fixed in the Premium Plus section. There is some English to introduce the subject and context, but the majority of the lesson is repeating words while you can follow a written transcript in Pinyin and I think Simplified characters. Then you practice memorizing by repeating sections of the conversation, hearing and identifying words, and speaking the words in Chinese knowing their equivalent in English. (hard!) The only major complaint is a lack of a translation dictionary to double check if the words you are adding to your vocabulary have the right definition (the audio tapes breeze through definitions only once); when looking up a word you will most often find it used in other lessons/sentences.

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I am pleasantly surprised by the variety of different learning choices. There are many different ways to learn and I keep getting more by email. I spent several weeks researching different companies and I am very happy I went with Rocket Chinese.

I am really enjoying using Rocket Languages. It is easy to use and easy to learn the interface. I enjoy how enthusiastic the instructors on the audio are. I am considering buying the next step, and I've already been recommending the product.

Absolutely wonderful product... I'm already a native speaker and was looking at some language courses to see how to better approach my other language learning endeavors - thanks to Rocket Languages, I don't have to worry about some of the more fundamental problems like pronunciation, vocabulary cards and learning retention - it's all here!

I bought Rocket Chinese to learn very basic Mandarin and am not disappointed. I was thrilled when after using the program only several times I was able to speak out aloud and be understood by native Chinese!

I am lazy to learn a Foreign Language when most of the 'locals' can speak and understand English (like in the Philippines where I have lived since 2001 and 96% speak English).

However working in China as an ESL Teacher, I quickly learned that perhaps 96% can't speak or understand English! Rocket Languages gives me the 'Tools' to learn, and my Chinese Students the chance to practice it. I'm increasing my vocabulary, that I can 'think in Chinese' now!

Great way to learn another language, very helpful recordings which train you to remember. I've been studying for 2 months and already many of my friends who speak natively are shocked at how much I can speak.

Lin & David make learning Chinese a pleasure. I don't get much time to study but this course makes a very difficult language easier to understand and my wife's family say my pronunciation is very good. Thanks. Alan Barlow

Mandarin is very very difficult and Dave just makes it sound too too easy! Lin is awesome! When you get to China they actually talk twice as fast-I wish they had repeat buttons you could press- but they are very friendly and-in Xishuangbanna- I had my photo taken and shook hands at least a hundred times Ni Hao!

Rocket Chinese has a lot of interesting features, but some don't seem to work as intended. I tried many times to do the testing...but somehow, it never registers when I do the speaking, although the microphone displays the profile it should have...lately the vocabulary did not seem to register eiter anymore when I put words into it.