Rocket Languages Reviews

I like the program, though it goes VERY slowly and each unit is terribly long. But the biggest problem is that after working for awhle on a unit it crashes and I get a message saying "aw snap, something went wrong". This happens every day

The course is fine and the french lessons are in good taste but for a developing country like Brazil the prices are absurdly high and literally makes it impossible for me to actually buy the course.

UMMMMM FIRST OF ALL IT WON'T LET ME DO OTHER LESSONS BECAUSE I'M JUST DOING THE FREE PART - IT ADVERTISES THAT IT'S FREE - A COMPLETE TRICK!!!! OUTRAGEOUS! IT DOESN'T TEACH YOU PROPERLY - IT TELLS YOU TO REPEAT THE STATEMENT/QUESTION AND THAT'S IT!!! NOTHING ELSE! I AM VERY UNSATISFIED WITH THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE AND WOULD RECOMMEND NOT LEARNING FRENCH FROM THIS HORRIBLE WEBSITE - I WOULD SUGGEST NOT EVEN LOOKING AT THIS WEBSITE!!! A SCAM, I TELL YOU!

Rocket italian is not bad, but it could be so much better.

I'm still studying Level 1 - Unit 3 but I have noticed several issues:
- The audio tracks are a bit long for my taste. They take from 20 to 30 minutes and are spoken very slowly. The website and the app don't allow you to speed it up, so you have to download the tracks in order to do it;
- The conversations are between a native italian and a heavily accented american. I am not a native english speaker and several of the rocket students also aren't so I don't see why not using only native italian speakers on the audio tracks
- There are several small translation mistakes and inadequacies, over time they start being annoying;
- Some audios should be reviewed/updated, the other day I heard one that made reference to the year 2008.

Also, Rocket Languages is oblivious to the existence of potential students in developing countries (as in my case) when establishing their pricing strategy. These courses are way more expensive for me, for instance, as they are for my american or european counterparts, when purchase power is concerned.

Rocket languages also does not give meaningful discounts when you enroll in more than one language.

I have no plans to visit Egypt, but I want to read Naguib Mafouz's books without having to look up all the dialog, word by word, so I was interested in at least an introduction to Egyptian. The Rocket Arabic course offers far more than an introduction - there's a mass of the spoken language, if not much grammar, which seems pretty easy after some MSA. I skipped ahead from Module 1 to Module 4 (which has a lesson with Naguib Mafouz in the title) and decided to finally try out the Chrome version to see how it graded my pronunciation. The app graded my MSA at 100% (set on Hard), but routinely flunked my Egyptian (around 30%) - it wanted quhlumu ruhsuhsun, not alum whatever for pencil. So I'm going back to Firefox and not worrying about the pronunciation, beyond trying to mimic the native speaker as closely as possible. Once I finish Module 4 I'll go back to 2 and proceed in order from there (happily skipping the lessons on numbers, which are absolutely essential when you're in a country but take an inordinate amount of time if you really just want a reading knowledge of a language).

As far as recommending Rocket Arabic to a friend, it really depends on what they want it for.

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I agree with several reviewers that the narrator, Sarah is possibly the most monotone person on the planet. I mean, she gives Ben Stein a run for his money. The product idea is great and when it's working properly, it's the best on the market. Unfortunately, I can't gove it five or even four stars as it's just too buggy (sometimes the audio doesn't play or double plays - sounds like there are two Sayakas or Kennys competing for my attention - or the mic doesn't work at times). Hopefully, those are fixed soon!

I am now working on the 3rd module of the Hindi course, so I've tested the programme a fair bit. Hindi must be about the 20th language I study, so I have some idea of what learning a language is about.

While I enjoy the app, the format, the light-heartedness of the dialogues and voice actors, I am frustrated by a number of things.

First of all, there are too many typos for a language course. As a learner, I shouldn't be left wondering what's going on, only to realize later that it was a typo. There are too many weird things happening, like odd or irregular translations, plurals instead of singulars, the female voice actor reading a first-person response in the masculine, etc. All this gets in the way of the otherwise fun topics and voice actors. It adds confusion to an already difficult process.

Second, I disagree with the general principle that the student should just repeat without understanding. I'm fine with putting emphasis on the carelessness of "just repeat and you'll eventually get it", and it does remove pressure from the student to perform, but there are grammatical questions that need to be explained (even with some simple additional written material), and to leave it to chance, frankly, just feels lazy.

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Italian, it started off great but the guy's voice has become tired and boring. In fact I can't bring myself to listen to it anymore simply because his voice depresses me. Maria is great, energetic and up beat, but the dude, o' maron! Lui e molto stanco.

Almost Great
The organization of material, and its presentation are great. There is one technical flaw, however, and it is major, and inexcusable in this very expensive app. In neither the Lesson or the Conversation can you stop or go back to something that you are not sure of. In learning a language, there are ALWAYS situations where something specific is not clear and you need to confirm or correct what you just heard. It’s amazing that you in order to find that specific thing you need to double check, you have to finish the entire lesson or entire conversation, go back to the very beginning and listen to the entire thing again! That is a MAJOR technical flaw, and I am amazed that, although it has been mentioned by other reviews, it hasn’t been fixed. If that were fixed, this would be a 5 star app, now it’s only a 3 star app.

I used to really enjoy these lessons (taking the Japanese course). The banter between tutors Sayaka and the original Kenny made lessons enjoyable and fun. Since I had returned from my trip to Japan I had taken a short break from practicing, but I recently jumped back on only to learn that the original audio lessons have been replaced with a super boring monotoned narrator. While the program did initially help me impress all of my Japanese friends, it no longer feels like I have lifelike tutors to encourage me to keep up my studies, just a robot with choppy cut and paste vocabulary being lectured at me. The enthusiasm of the lessons is gone and sadly so is mine with learning from this program.