Rocket Languages Reviews

First of all, In the middle of exercises (as I'm trying to speak a German phrase) I get annoying popup windows asking me to write a review of Rocket German. I think that's pretty indicative of how much Rocket cares about me actually learning, an how much it just wants more business. In fact, just above this box where I'm typing, Rocket has a link to some "example reviews" which are glowing reports of how when you buy RG, all your wildest fantasies will come true. Since RG insists, though, here is my review...***

Right after I paid $250 dollars for the three German courses (the first of which I didn't even want, but you have no option to remove it from the bundle) I get directed to another page telling me I should really also buy another add-on course that normally costs $50, but they're going to give it to me for $30. Classic used-car salesman tactic. I decline. I'm directed to another page saying "Ok, we'll give it to you for $20, but only if you buy it right now. No kidding, this is your last chance!" Does it get any more sleazy than that?***

The German course was clearly written by native German speakers, which is good, but not really checked by a native English speaker for the quality of the English dialogue.

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Way too much English spoken in the course. My experience of learning a language is that total immersion is the fastest way to learn.

In this course the constant interruption with English is very distracting.,

not loving all of the badge interruptions within the lesson! very disruptive.

I like the lessons. The only downside is that I like to do lessons on a device -- specifically, a waterproof iPod while I do cardio in the pool for an hour -- not on my computer or phone. Unfortunately, with your program, I have to download one lesson at a time, rather than download all the lessons at once so I can put them into a file and transfer them to my device. That's the reason I would not purchase from you again. If there is a work around that would allow me to do a single download, like I can with Pimsleur, I would definitely buy from you again.

Almost 2 months in, I've requested a refund. I hate this ridiculously juvenile course.

I hate this course so passionately. It's juvenile, stupid "silly" and so so SO annoying. I literally do not understand how any adult could do this course. I cannot stand the banter with Amy for another second. Does irritation, annoyance, and flat-out anger increase retention? If so maybe Rocket Spanish is on to something...but I want to shake the people leaving positive reviews and ask them what the WHAT is wrong with them. I beg you, do the free trial lesson of whatever level, and if you're annoyed with all the English stupidity, know that it does NOT get better. It does not decrease. It will only get worse. If you love Amy's voice, speaking in English, and want to listen to her kid around, this course is for you. OR...if you don't care about the audio lessons. I think buried in this course is some good content. And I know it's not meant to be audio-only. But the audio is THAT bad. Just don't do it. Maybe do it high or something. Might be tolerable. Probably not.

Honest review

The voice recognition could use some work, but it's fun to use and definitely gets you speaking out loud. I haven't really seen any features offered yet that's worth the price. I'm basing that off of what's offered for free on the internet already.

Another feature though that deserves praise is the 'Play as' feature where you take the role of someone in a conversation. It's honestly a 5 star feature on its own.

Thinking about this in depth is making me realize how much is actually offered and how much I'm paying for it... I could only think of a couple good things (and they're basically the same thing). I can't recommend this to a friend while I'm thinking about discontinuing use of it myself. Wow

The program is OK but no grammar nor conjugation. It is a lot to pay for things I could get for free on Youtube

My opinion may change over time, as I will complete this series (I paid for it.) But right now, I am not sure I like this method, generally speaking. I prefer methodical, professional books such as Genki/Adventures in Japanese/etc which actually explain what is going on. For example: Japanese conjugation is a little tricky and this course (so far) is not helping. I also have a tutor in Tokyo, and nothing is better than that. Lastly, the Kanji exercises at the end are super frustrating as when the sentences are long, the stupid thing auto-places the words and I cannot get them in the right order even when I know it. That said, it's always good to listen to native speakers, but in today's world, there are no shortages of resources in that department.

It says to write something awesome about Rocket languages. I can't. The voice recognition is absolutely terrible. I have changed the setting from default, to "Easy" and to "Hard", and it still doesn't recognise half of what I say. I can't complete the exercises properly because it fails to recognise most speech. It marks me down. It is REALLY slowing down my progress. I have tried: emphasising words with clear enunciation, speaking louder and softer, and speaking slowly. Still most of the time, even with simple words like "soy" and "doctor" it interprets them a something completely and randomly different, even with vowel sounds that aren't in the words. The rest of the time I just get the message that it "didn't catch that". I don't have a speech impediment. So should this review really give such low grading JUST because of one thing, the speech recognition? Yes, because the speech recognition is used in about 80% of the course sections.

with more practice, there'll be a light at the end of tunnel.
wundebar!