Rocket Languages Reviews

I am using Rocket Italian as a review to the Italian I studied "Molti anni fa" in college so that I can be more fluent and approachable when I travel. I like the pace and the ability to skip around. However, the American accent of Alex is distracting and there is too much spoken English. I can see if a beginner is trying to get traction it might be okay. I am looking forward to moving up into the later levels. Overall, hearing so much English and the English accent is distracting. There are also some grammar errors in the translations along the way. For the price, I would expect more flawless execution. However overall, I like the conversational approach and the ability to hop around to get what I need to progress.

The system, so far, seems good, though I dislike the way it's presented (e.g., the often "cute" wording and the constant exclamation points).
But I truly resent the constant spam from Rocket Languages that began the moment I paid, and that continue despite my making every attempt to unsubscribe.
And I hate the high-pressure sales technique and the "snake oil" methods of pushing the product. I was hard pressed to buy the program with how it was being marketed, and only the generally very favorable reviews, and the money-back guarantee, made me overlook the insulting marketing.
An email to Rocket explaining these opinions remains unanswered at writing.

Some days it is good, other days voice and speech recognition is plain atrocious and frustrating. Whole phrases 'not heard', words (or numbers) plucked out of nowhere that bear no resemblance to what was said. And this on a high speed internet connection. That wouldn't be half as frustrating come each time with a useless pop-up on what to do. Will I keep using it - yes. Can it be useful - yes. Does its voice recognition engine need to be improved - YES.

Tried the 7 day free trial, didn't work very well so not confident to purchase ,

I've been using Rocket Italian since December 2019. I purchased Levels 1, 2, & 3-Instant Lifetime Access and the Travelogue. (Yes, I am committed to learn Italian.) I am on Unit I- module 6. In addition to Rocket, I use 2 other Apps/programs along with Rocket Italian. After 3/12 months of use, I feel I can write an accurate review.
Pros
1. I love the structured lessons
2. Like having the audios of Alex and Maria (audio lessons and reviews)
3. Like having the ability to record myself and mimic pronunciation

Cons (or possible areas to improve)
1. I wish there was a way to manipulate and build sentences rather than solely memorizing. (Maybe this happens in later units, I don't know.)
2. I wish that in lessons, such as in Language and Culture, where they may be over 90 terms to learn, that the lesson be divided in smaller lessons. Memorizing close to 100 terms is overwhelming and a big challenge. Maybe limiting the terms to a more manageable number would be beneficial to the learner.
3. I wish there was a method to answer questions on a lesson directly on the lesson page itself rather than on the forum. Also, I would appreciate if someone from Rocket could answer those questions rather than relying mostly other learners.
4.

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I've been using Rocket Italian since about March 2019 and I purchased the program because I am required to pass a language exam. I purchased all 3 levels and if you are someone traveling to Italy or learning basic conversational skills this program is great. However, if you have more intermediate needs this program is just ok. It would be nice if there were more breakdowns of the conversations once you get more advanced and provide simple words or phrases to translate. While building skills, the program will ask you to learn the verb to have and memorize extremely long sentences in the same lesson. This happens most lessons and is ineffective for my learning because it doesn't help you practice the skill and learn competency but memorization.

One of the tenses used most often in my work is the historic past and this tense is the one with the least information and preparation. Beyond that, what I've noticed is that the program pushes you to learn specific meanings of words. For example, in one lesson that began with the word "well" I responded with a translation of dunque. The program marked me wrong and was looking for allora. Both are acceptable translations and I am likely to come across both.

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The courses itself are well structured and have intuitive user interface. I also like that you often repeat phrases in next lessons.
However the performance of the web site and its responsiveness is not always very good. I had few days when lessons hangs and I also see that while doing speaking exercises it is quite often that it will not catch the phrase I speak even after 2-3 attempts.

Not truly rating yet, Really, I just started it. Only on lesson 1.1. Not sufficient to judge. Using this along with other sources, Penguin book, Living languages CDs and Duolingo and Master Russian online, plus a few other lesser sources. Plus I'm already familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet as I used it in the Air Force back in 1962-4. I'm 76 now and not in a hurry as I have no place to use Russian, just keeping the brain active. Thus most of the vocabulary and some of the theory of lessons 1.1 and 1.2, I already am already familiar with from the other sources. Each course also has differing additional vocabulary. Having said that, I do like being able to hear and mimic the pronunciations and working through the exercises to help remember the vocabulary. It is impossible to rate a program so soon. I would prefer to do my rating after a month or so when I really know what to rate. Stay tuned.

My feelings with this course are quite mixed. On one hand, there is a lot of material and you pick up useful phrases from the very start. On the other hand there are several issues which in the long run are quite frustrating especially in the testing part

1) Apart from the Quiz section, everything else is clearly automatically generated from the material. This means you can have the same word repeated 2 or 3 times. In the "Know it" part there are cases where you cannot know what to say because two words have the same english translation (tourist).
2) Speech recognition is frustrating. It stops listening while you are talking, sometimes it doesn't want to recognize what you say no matter what (I even tried playing back the native audio from my phone near to the computer microphone, and it didn't even recognize the native speaker!) and sometimes it says 100% even if you mess up a few syllabes.

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I found that I would prefer to see the written words as well while learning the pronunciation, i did not see this on the trial so i opted out