Rocket Languages Reviews

After seeing many different sources to learn Chinese I am glad I chose Rocket Chinese. I got a great deal during Christmas which was definitely worth its price, and there is a huge amount of material to explore. The best feature that makes the difference is the voice recognition that motivates you to speak and practise pronunciation. Obviously, it is not 100% accurate, but it is much better than expected compared with other voice recognition software. The dialogues are really useful too, and the mini-games are pretty good at helping you learn the new material. The only part that could be added is some exercises to help you learn the characters as this is a challenging part of the language with not enough attention given. Only the Sort It exercises focuses on the characters but it is far too easy and not enough to help you memorise them or understand their meaning.

Although I am loving the course, its not as easy as I initially thought it would be.

The conversations to listen, follow along with, and repeat after, are pretty good and based in some realistic contexts. They were fine. Also, some of the explanations during the text-based lessons were decent explanations. My main issues are with thereview, the study flashcards, listening and repeating, typing the sentences, then repeating them with only the translation. It felt less like trying to figure out what it was, and instead more on how much I could remember of the sentence or what I could memorize, and after about 45 days it gets old feeling like the only practice after the initial flashcards is memorization of sentences. It would be good to see some variations in those sentences for the flashcards, then the listening and repeat, then typing, then saying it. They could still use the same words maybe and have the overall vibe of the lesson, but when they're all the same exact sentences in the same exact order for four reviews in a row then it isn't really working towards figuring out what to say.

What I like about this course is that it does not expire. I bought it 4 years ago and it was there waiting for me when I picked up learning Spanish again after a two year hiatus. Normally, I don't like recorded Spanish lessons but I have to admit that it is helpful being able to listen to the speaker and then being able to listen to what I recorded in order to compare it with the original.

The pace of introducing new material is perfect. And it's all very conversational -- Close your eyes and absorb the conversation. It's great!

You aren't hearing me on about 30% of the words. Maybe it would be better with a headset - I am just using a laptop with the built in mic. But I've tried many times with my mouth in many different positions and different proximities to the mic - it should be able to hear me just fine.

Non va bene avere istruzioni in inglese invece d' italiano. Anche, questo è un sito per imparare bene l'italiano e si usa una persona, Charlie, che non ha per niente una pronuncia buona in italiano. Ridicolo!

I have been having much more success with this as compared to something like Duolingo and it isn't nearly as expensive as something like Talk to Me in Korean. Plus, Kelly, Sujeon, and Taewoo are all very engaging and work hard to make sure that everything they are saying is understood.

I would say the only sticking point I have is that some of the phrases we're expected to learn take a sharp turn into being very difficult both in pronunciation and just memory. I recognize that that is just part and parcel when it comes to learning this kind of stuff - but it's pretty frustrating when I go from learning things like "Annyeonghaseyo" to trying to memorize a phrase about serving in the Korean military.

I don't think it's bad to include them in the lessons, but making them part of core vocab just throws me off sometimes. Like, let me finish the basics first, you know?

So far I like it much more than Pimsleur! It sticking with me a lot better.

After much debate, I finally decided to try Rocket Spanish…and I LOVE IT! Having tried Rosetta Stone, Duolingo, Babbel, and Pimsleur, I was very skeptical that Rocket would simply be more of the same… and another failed attempt to learn Spanish. The other programs were ok, but were focused strictly on associative learning and teaching canned phrases and vocabulary without any context about how to apply or use those phrases or vocabulary. The lessons were simply not relevant to my daily needs.

To the contrary, Rocket started providing useful, real-world phrases, vocabulary, and context that I readily recognized from my previous interactions with native speakers! It has been relevant and useful from the very first lesson!! The lessons are straight-forward, easy to follow, and provide explanations about how and when to use the new info you’re learning. Although a little longer and time-consuming than the other programs, Rocket lessons provide more information and are still fairly fast-paced. They also require you to learn and apply the information to different situations beyond the scenario in the lesson so you are gaining a contextual understanding.

Read More