Rocket Languages Reviews

Overall, I'm very satisfied with the product and approach so far, particularly coming from 7 months of Duolingo. It is a significant upgrade in experience over Duolingo. It has the right balance of drill and practice and grammar fundamentals, in the context of a conversation-driven learning style. It seems natural and well thought out. I truly appreciate that I can skip what I want in deference to things I already know. I know I will soon get to things I will not be able to skim or skip and I look forward to that. The "say it" element of the structure is excellent. It is forcing me to speak, which is exactly what Duolingo does not do well. I have lots of words and lots of conjugations, but on the spot I am like a deer in the headlights, and Rocket's style forces you to just "talk", mistakes and all, which is great. The speed and clarity of the voice actors is excellent and it makes listening easy and approachable. The rolling text approach on screen is great, as I can look at the scroll when I want to and look away (to test myself better) when I don't want to.

A couple of constructive things to say.

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I like the self paced aspect. You can listen and repeat words and phrases as often as needed.

I enjoy the multifaceted way in which the program is presented.

This website is overpriced and a bit overrated.

The nice thing about the course is that I can repeat over and over the phrases and words. I tend not to go overboard with perfection, but my German friend tells me that I'm getting better and sometimes corrects the structure and pronunciation. I talk about easy stuff, nothing too complicated. It's Ok, I'm happy with the progress, thank you. Leo

This course was recommended online after my CD Roms from Rosetta Stone became totally useless with the disappearance of Adobe Flashplayer. The price is reasonable and the practice is quite good.

I wish there were a chart showing a picture or a drawing of badges. I get new badges fairly often. It is announce only once. I really have no idea what my status is!
It is not clear how the stars work. Are white stars good?

But I still enjoy the course. I am "hooked" on it!

Tschuess

If you are looking to learn a language. I recommend giving rocket languages a try.

Pros:

Audio focused

forces you to listen to every new term/phrase

forces you to speak new terms/phrases and lets you hear back your voice back to compare

Also grades your speech on chrome automatically

lets you rate yourself and then you go back and review what you thought was okay or hard

I got it for ~$180 and get permanent access for about 230 hours of content

Cons:

No clear function for long term spaced repetition

Not enough spontaneity like writings essays or responding words organized in a new way(that's not already pre-planned)

You only cover everything in the ~20 minute audio lesson

No visual references if you care about that

You might lose your voice

Not gamified but I'm having fun

I think you need to use Anki, but its does everything better than duolingo or memrise when it comes to listening and speaking. While also providing a clear path compared to just venturing on yourself. Duolingo is better for grammar and conjugations, but you are at a much faster pace, its less repetitive, and you just can't tune out. It's not good for children or trying to get some else to learn. Ie. you need to participate and have a desire to learn.

There seems to be lots of errors in the program, i.e., correct answer given (as shown) but registers as an error. Also the software does not always register/hear the words spoken.

Great product; an overall fantastic way to learn/practice a language. However, the narrator's pronunciation in the Rocket French lessons (level 2) is comically bad at best and cringe-worthy at worst. A great example of what NOT to say. For context of my experience, I recently finished Pimsleur's 5 levels of French which is strictly focused on speaking and listening. Pimsleur is better in that regard, however, I don't recommend buying two services like I did. Rocket French seems to take you closer to fluency. I'm sure you can get everything you need from Rocket Languages. Salut !