Rocket Languages Reviews

Very good. Unfortunately, I can not find more time to learn Rocket Chinese

So much potential….but the play buttons in the app work sporadically. Records just fine and voice recognition is great. But I Have to reboot my iPad Air quite often to clear the issue. Note that The coin is flipped on the web site - which I tried hoping to address the play buttons in the app not working. Well - the play buttons work fine on the web site - but the voice record says “having trouble” on every single item. And I am, per the instructions, using safari and the red microphone is on (not crossed out or greyed out). As such - this tool can’t really be used. Will try tomorrow - maybe a server issue. Ready to request full refund if issue(s) persist. Exasperating experience. May resort to old fashioned Pimsleur CDs to prepare for vacation to france in a few months.

Very monotonous and hard to follow material. I can't keep engaged in the material. Super boring content.

I purchased the English rocket language, but I have encountered some issues with the audio on the Android app. The words and phrases do not play correctly, but they do work properly on the laptop browser. However, when trying to record on the laptop browser, only the last part of the word or half of the sentence is recorded, which is very inconvenient. As a solution, I have been playing the words and sentences on my laptop browser and attempting to record on the Android app. Rocket language has a 60-day refund policy, so I will be requesting a full refund due to these issues.

Overall, I think the Rocket French folks have developed a pretty good system to learn French, so I won't go into detail about the things that I like. The big downside, however, is how their system tracks how far you've progressed in each module. For example, I just finished module 3.9, and the icons have changed from no color to the following colors and comments:

FLASHCARDS = ORANGE (GOOD)
HEAR-IT = ORANGE (GOOD)
WRITE-IT = ORANGE (GOOD)
KNOW-IT = ORANGE (GOOD)
QUIZ = GREEN (EASY)

That is not sufficient. What I want (and need) to know is how often I have reviewed each module and how I have done each time. So I have created an offline spreadsheet that shows the following for each section that I have studied. For example here is how I have tracked section 3.4 that I have reviewed several times and self-graded:

11/8/22 = D, 11/9/22 = C, 11/20/22 = C, 11/23/22 = B

You can see that first studied this module on 11/8/22, and then reviewed is subsequently three times, and my self-grade has improved from the initial D to a B. And, instead of a self-grade, I would much prefer to see the percentage of answers I got right.

Read More

Buggy on Ventura Safari, the most current MacOS and browser version.

Travelogue way too advanced and difficult to avoid.

Encountered user setup error that service and support quickly corrected.

So far greatly prefer Pimsleur and will likely invoke refund option.

Very sloppy mistranslations plague the course throughout. I raised this issue with Rocket and they gave the lame excuse that they don't want to have us memorise literal translations, but so often the meaning in English is just so unacceptably divergent from the French and I am not talking about idiomatic expressions. Rocket is terrible in responding to any issues raised so I have given up trying long ago. They just answer that they no best. Well I am sorry but I just don't find that good enough.
There are other clear mistakes:
Je prendrai la fraise des bois.
I will have wild strawberries.
From what I understand it is totally wrong. Should be des fraise des bois.
Ok. this is a simple error, but there are scores of errors throughout.
No use complaining though. Rocket seems to think it knows best and if you ever make a complaint it is usually so long before a response is given and I cannot ever remember them saying, oh yes, that is right, we will correct it.
I think they are worried that if suddenly a phrase is changed midstream then many people may get upset or confused by the change. But this is so bad if this is the case and is a major flaw in the platform.
In this regard duolingo is so much better.

Read More

The more I go through the course, the more frustrating it gets. Instead of learning and practicing individual words, I'm supposed to memorize incredibly complex sentences without understanding the meaning of how all the words work together in the sentence. There is no logical progression from learning words to forming sentences. As a result, I forget everything immediately and feel demotivated. And I stumble over the pronunciation because I have to say ten new words at a time. There is no daily reinforcement of previous lessons, which makes the course meaningless over time.

I absolutely want to love this program. The content is great. The audio lessons are top notch, but I can't get anything to work correctly on any device and 20 days in and still no contact from a manager or tech after several email requests and live chat requests for it.


I've submitted a pile of screen captures and video of the errors. I've tried multiple devices and computers.

Marie G responds quickly over live chat, but nothing ever seems to come of it.


The program has great content, but trying to use it is is beyond infuriating.


At this point I'm not prepared to keep the product unless it's next to free.

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.

Read More