Rocket Languages Reviews

Rocket Hindi is my favourite language learning method after reading actual books, which give me much more in depth understanding of grammar.
My fault with it is the use of the inherent vowel at the end of the English (romanised) tranliteration of words and where it’s not pronounced in the middle of some words. It’s a massive let down to the service and gets in the way of every session. The inherent ‘a’ vowel is only pronounced in Sanskrit. So for example the word namaskar, which almost everywhere else is transliterated as namaskar, on Rocket Hindi it’s written namaskara. Your brain is already spending a lot of effort learning new worlds, sounds, spellings, associations. To have to them sift out this ‘a’ all the time is exasperating.
They could simply write something about the inherent vowel at the start of the course. I mean it’s an English Transliteration not the actual spelling anyway. It’s meant to sound how the word is pronounced.
Every time I come across a word while I’m listening to the audio at the same time and it doesn’t match the audio I get a moment of confusion. I have to look hard at the word to see why it’s pronounced differently, if it is the inherent vowel or something else.

Read More

I initially loved the course because I used it in my mobile driving back and forth to work.

But once I got to level 3 I found the explanation of the dialogue to be very lacking. Essentially it required me to sit down in front of a computer. It was no longer a course I could do while driving.

I learn the most commonly used words so I learn faster. It repeats the words and connects them in context to different daily situations. Makes it easier to remember with daily practice. Plus I get a Spanish survival kit loaded with the most essential vocabulary. Great value!

Course #1's audio lessons were really excellent. The timing of the dialogue/repeat sections is spot on, the native speakers have very clear accents, and you learn a lot quite quickly. It is easy to put them on in the background and make several additional passes through the material to cement the teachings. I found the accompanying grammar lessons to be difficult to retain in the 'mostly text' format, and they often don't follow along with where you are in the audio lessons at all.

Course #2 is somewhat the opposite. The native speakers (and host) all have distinct accents, the dialogue timing is a mess, and the content is all over the place. One minute you're basically redoing a lesson from Course #1, and the next you're totally lost when everything switches to 'casual' speech, which you've had almost no exposure to thus far. Alternately, the grammar courses are now structured to expound upon specific parts of the audio, which is an improvement.

I was VERY happy with Course #1 overall, but I am soured on the audio portion of Course #2. When the dialogue-repeat sections sometimes go word-by-word, but give you 10 seconds to speak, it becomes very difficult to learn the line in entirety.

Read More

The beginner's course is good. The intermediate course is ok; but, not as good as the beginner's course. The Platinum (advanced course) is poorly done. In the Platinum course, the presentation is sloppy and there is very little interaction or practice time.

The only reservation I have is the fact that basic, essential grammar is not part of the first lessons. For instance, basic conjugations of "to be" or "to have" are not detailed and explained, but simply mentioned during lessons.
This is a problem since the grammar of the Spanish language is different than of the English language.
With this exception, I am content with the quality of the course.

Wish there was more grammar lessons and verb conjugations.

I think more emphasize should be placed in Hangul! Its the foundation of the language and everything is so jumbled. Consonant, vowels should be separated and thought differently. I learned by watch children videos of sing alongs in Hangul. Like they make it so simple there. Its ok I guess... It needs more material to be concise. But good program

Learning languages is really nice here; it sticks. Reciting the vocabulary and having it "graded" is really helpful for pronunciation. The "Play It!" portion is extremely helpful when it comes to being able to speak the language on cue. And when you're learning Russian, like me, or a language with a different writing system, "Write It!" can be frustrating and challenging yet extremely beneficial.

This could easily be a 5 star program, but there are enough poor choices by the designers that make it less valueable or frustrating to use that I am being generous to give this 3 stars. The bottom line is that it works, and it did better for me than when I used Rosetta Stone to learn another language.

I have been using this program for 10 months and have had 3 visits to Germany during this time related to work. This is where I think the program isn't good:
1. This program stresses in the informal ways of addressing people. Germans, especially in business, use the formal case (Sie not Du).
2. The program doesn't teach any language rules, rather just provides example after example such as how to conjugate a verb.
3. THe most frustrating part is that the program tries to inculcate easy words (Ja, Nein), and sometimes not useful words like Wunderbar constantly, but doesn't stress words that are important to know such as to want, to like, to take, to need. If someone can't get Ja and Nein correct after the third lesson, then they need to quit.
4.

Read More