Rocket Languages Reviews

I have been using the program for about a month and a half now and I have found it somewhat useful. My level is above that of a new beginner but not quite yet intermediate. My concerns about the program, starting with the idea that most people want what will be most useful i.e. picking up useful spoken language for travel, is that particularly when testing, the program expects your responses to be almost in the same order as their introduction. If the expected answer starts with Tu and you use the Vous form, you are marked as incorrect. The program should note what form is wanted. A "hint" function also would be nice to help someone with responses as learning, not just simple memorization, is the goal. The program also occasionally makes some unexpected detours from what is useful. For example, one lesson moved from general travel issues to a flight of fancy to go skiing. I did not find a lot of useful information in that lesson. Finally, today I took a test which contained a large number of questions involving the "passe simple". The last question on the test asked how much one would expect to hear the passe simple and the correct answer was "almost never". So, I feel a lot of time was wasted that could have been better spent elsewhere. I hope these comments are considered helpful. There are good things here but a few tweaks would make it much better.

Very good way to learn. multiple steps that help you to remember the course materials. I would definitely recommend a friend to learn Spanish with here.

I'm fluent in Spanish and I have always wanted to learn Portuguese. I tried out the trial version of Rocket Portuguese and found it fantastic and easy to follow. I like that there are both male and female voices. However, I found it a bit confusing because they seem to pronounce the same word differently. For example, the male voice Paulo pronounces "de onde" like "dze ondze", while the femal voice pronounces with a clear articulation of "de onde". Maybe it's the accent? Hope I can get a better sense of it from the rest of the course!

It's fun and not boring at all! Thank you Rocket Languages!

I'm not going to sugarcoat this, so don't look for it in any Rocket promotional material. :-)

Had a little bit of an issue when trying to buy this product. Wasn't Rocket's fault and they were very helpful in getting it resolved.

I am currently at lesson 2.4.

This is a good product for learning and practicing speech in Japanese. The exercises are very geared towards that, along with some writing.While it has been great for speech, I use a different product for grammar.

The interface is simple to figure out and use, so you don't have to waste a lot of time trying to figure out how to do courses. Japanese is hard enough as it is without trying to master a weird interface too.

This is really meant to help the student SPEAK the language, not necessarily stressing grammar too much, though it might in later lessons.

I've used a lot of tools for learning Japanese, but Rocket is the best at making you speak the language instead of just listening to lessons. That's why I purchased the whole product.

As for issues with the software, I had a few minor ones. At first, I would either have audio, or I could record my voice, but not both. To resolve this, I had to completely reinstall my browser.

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Great product. Very well structured, organized and involving. Voice recognition fails though and only somewhat useful and I had a feeling the app becomes dysfunctional from time to time. And also if the course would be adaptive - it would be a real hit.

I just bought Rosetta Stone and realized after a week, I could not speak French. I really was not learning how to converse. I bought the Rocket and had a full conversation with my French speaking friend after two days. Even he was shocked!! This is great!

I plan to go to Paris next year and want to be able to have some conversation or understand something and this has been great. I play it in my car, chat with the tapes, do it at home. Etc.

**Please fix the voice/tape thing -- it never works, I always sound like a Chipmunk when I record my voice.

Other than that, I love this. Thanks.

I waited a couple of months before my review so that I could be completely confident of my experience. I have become hooked on this style of learning, it is just what I was missing. You can hear your recording and compare it with a native speaker and repeat it until you get it right. There is voice recognition software that rates you, but it is sometimes inconsistent. But that is not a major issue to me. Considering you have unlimited time to learn, the price is right. I am starting to do the written test first since spelling helps me with remembering the words used in the other tests. The testing itself is a great teaching tool. Thank you Rocket guys!

Love the program. It is fun and easy to learn. I'm amazed at the upgrades and improvements that are frequently made to the program. I have hopes of learning French or Spanish after I have become fluent in German.

I have used Rosetta Stone and while it's great for learning vocabulary, it is not nearly as helpful with grammar and conversation. Rocket Italian is an excellent vehicle to learn common phrases for travel and conservation, as well as important vocabulary and grammar. I am very glad I purchased it.

After only six Spanish lessons I happened to drive past a beer garden in a small town in Texas. There was a sign in the front that had a hand drawn humorous quip written in Spanish. I knew what it said! There was no stopping and mentally translating. I just read it and understood!