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.

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Rocket Languages is bettter than what i had before. The length of the lessons is very long for my taste though... ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;; ; ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Rocket misses the mark in many ways. Teaching phrases without a literal translation is not helpful. Ideally, one should know what each word in the sentence is, so that one can then compose one's own sentences. Additionally, the speakers speak very quickly and one can't really tell how they are pronouncing the words in spite of having them spelled out in cyrillic. Also when teaching color names, why aren't' there colors on the screen, or at least on the flash cards? And when there are nouns, why not a picture of the object? I've been learning languages for many years, and I like some of Rocket Language's features, but I have to say that Pimsleur, does a much better job of teaching one to actually speak and understand the language, and they give literal translations and help one understand the context and syntax of words. But Pimsleur only teaches the audio, and they are way too expensive to only do that. Rocket Languages does offer voice comparison, but I have my doubts as to how good it really is at telling me how close I am to correct pronunciation. Rocket Languages is okay, but not the greatest. However, it is affordable. But, their customer service isn't very good.

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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.

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The 3 rated review was not from the content in the program. I feel the lessons are terrific. However, I would like to see a company recommended approach to beginning study in the program. I began by doing the lessons one at a time. Is there a better way or are there some other alternative approaches. Would appreciate your assistance.

The app on iPhone doesn’t work property. After I email the customer service for a few days, the problem still has not been solved. The app is not as good as the desktop version., which is a shame. The responses from customer service seem slow. The audio lessons are interesting but the culture and language don’t make me feel interested about learning. There are definitely things that require improvement.

I like the interactive part it really helps with memory. So far the voice recognition has been really annoying, maybe because im a perfectionist and when it wont record correctly I cant move on. Also I have not had any grammar lesson on conjugations. If i hadnt had a background in Spanish I think I would be a little lost by now.

Overall a good course - perhaps a few too many bells and whistles. In the French course the instructor needs to speak MUCH more slowly and enunciate more clearly. Speaking too fast, especially in the early stages, does NOT provide the student with proper pronunciation. It may be the way many French people speak day to day, but you need to learn the proper way to say things before speaking rapidly. I speak some French and what I'm hearing is not clear for a new student to learn properly.

If you’re planning to travel, I can see that it would be helpful to carry a conversation. I think the testing is a good idea. I like the Flashcards. However, this program just doesn’t meet my learning needs.

Pros:

The reinforcement of the Hear it, Say It, Write it and Know it activities.
The flash cards - and the ability to customize your flashcards.
Learning phrases as opposed to just vocabulary
The point, progress and streak information.
The Rocket Fuel emails are very helpful.

Cons:
I could locate only one pronunciation lesson. It would be help to have more. (Note: that lessons indicates that there is further help included in lesson 3.6, but that doesn't appear to be a pronunciation lesson.)
Some of the audio, done by the native speaker, is unclear. Either the first portion of the audio is cut short, or there is lack of clarity in the audio.

Because of the clarity issues of the audio, I become quickly frustrated. I've verified that the issue is with the audio itself by trying a headset and bluetooth speakers, comparing them with other audios. Unfortunatly, this single issue is my reason for cancellation. :(