Find out what actual users have to say about our courses through their Rocket Languages reviews.
It's so annoying. The microphone won't work. It keeps on saying "no speech detected," even when I am yelling it out in a quiet environment.
Response from Rocket Languages
Hi Hannah, sorry to hear about the issues you are experiencing with the voice recognition. We have reached out to you via email to get some more information. All the best!
the kanji test in the first lesson is a little too advance
Response from Rocket Languages
Hi Tony, we don't expect beginners to Japanese to know kanji right away, but we still feel it's important to include these tests so that our users can go back at a later date once they have learned some of the kanji. As such, these tests do not count towards completion, and you can simply skip them if you have not yet learned the kanji. All the best!
The speech recognition is terrible. It is very frustrating to repeatedly have to say simple words like tre, or anno because the first half of the word isn't picked up, also p and c are often confused by the software. Learning needs to be enjoyable and before I get the carbon copy have you tried setting this, get a better headset b.s. I have a $300 state-of-the-art headset that I use for zoom meetings, online test proctoring, and music production. It is NOT my equipment. This whole course is centered around listening (which works perfectly) and repeating to work on pronunciation. I am assuming and hoping that it will be better later in the course when I am speaking in complete sentences, but I'll never know because I can't justify paying this already high price for a program that doesn't work from the beginning.
Response from Rocket Languages
Hi Patrick, thank you for taking the time to leave us a review. We're sorry to hear about the issues you are having with the speech recognition—that shouldn't be happening. We have contacted you via email to get some more information from you. We can also jump on a call with you and try to iron this issue out.
Taking the sign language course next to someone who is fluent in ASL and am being told that some of the syntax and even signs in the early modules are just incorrect. Disappointing that I have to have her check your work.
Response from Rocket Languages
Thank you so much for your feedback, Braxton! Just like many other languages, American Sign Language (ASL) has unique variations depending on where you are. We always aim to present the most universally applicable version, but there will always be some regional variance. It is important to know that this does not necessarily mean it is incorrect and if you have any specific examples that you would like to discuss with us, please feel free to reach out at [email protected]. We'd be happy to help!
I am in the last (7th) Module of Level 1.
Generally, I like the course because it is very structured and explains language concepts very well. I like that there are dedicated grammar lessons that clearly concentrate on building your grammar foundations. A complete opposite of Duo Linguo which has no grammar explanations at all.
Some people find the humor in the course stale but I have no issue with it (not great but not bad either, tolerable).
The course does a pretty bad job in all flashcards and speaking (translation) excercises when the "you" word needs to be translated into German (translates to one of "du", "ihr", "Sie"). None of them are commented so you just make frustrating mistakes. There should be clear hints what is expected there.
The lessons are generally very long (often takes an hour to finish) which is not great. I think they should be broken up to smaller lessons that are no longer than 30 minutes. Due to the long time required to finish a lesson, I often cannot finish one during a single day and can only do the remaining part next day.
The Android app has been rewritten since I started the course and it is much better now (huge improvement there, congrats to the devs).
Response from Rocket Languages
Thank for taking the time to share your thoughts on the course; it's great to hear that you generally enjoy the course.
It is a bad version of other courses. The voice recognition is poor based on experience from other apps. I have paid into the course you may wish not to.
There are lots of opportunities to review and practice. It would be improved by cutting all the silly English comments. It takes up time and is not necessary to learn -irritating.
Shopping as the 3rd lesson? What an absolute joke!
It seems to be working. I've never tried to learn another language but this course has taught me a lot so far and I believe it's teaching me fairly well. I believe there is too much handholding so far in the beginner course. The translation leans too far on the English side of things and that creates problems. When the English phrase is too far removed from the Japanese translation you end up having to create a middle ground phrase to translate the translation. Some of the phrases translate well to very proper English and would make more sense in my mind, even if that's now how people regularly talk in America. Sometimes a literal translation would do a better job in teaching how phrases will be constructed in Japanese vs English. There are too many instances where I have to figure out how the course is trying to teach something before I can move forward with learning it. Sometimes this takes the form of inconsistencies in the flash cards. I bought the entire Japanese language course on sale and I think that it was pricey but fair. I don't plan on buying any other language courses any time soon, but if I did I would probably buy one from another company simply out of curiosity. I would recommend the Japanese courses to a friend.
The (new) japanese course #1 was great, it made me buy #2 ... which is a mess. The audio is not good, the japanese accent of the english speaker is wrong, the delay for repeating the word is wrong and the content is sometime the same as #1.
To make it worse, the content is highly specific, like opening a bank account, which is really boring and useless for a beginner.