A bug in the "Hear it!" and "Know it!" sections

みんなさん、こんにちは！

Thanks to Rocket Japanese, I'm improving everyday.  I tested this theory by looking at a couple of pages of a Japanese manga, and I was able to read everything that wasn't kanji without stopping.  I need more work on actually understanding what some of what I read meant, but that just requires more study on my part...

Anyway, I wanted to also get better at the reading and speaking parts, so I started using the Hear it! and Know it! parts more.  They work exactly like I wanted them to, except for one small problem.

There will be times when I speak the word, phrase, or sentence 100% correctly, and the system will still say its not right.  I'll get like a 25% or 50% accuracy rating, but all of the kana/kanji that I spoke will match exactly to the example that I'm attempting to emulate.  I saved the page and made a copy of it if you would like to see it.  I still love the rocket product, but I also realize that this could become an issue for other users for certain portions (such as the tests).

Thanks again for everything!

Hi Trutenor, 

Thank you for your feedback and we apologize for any inconvenience with the tests; could you please send us the information to support@rocketlanguages.com? That way we can also review what could be the cause of the problem and a way to resolve it. 

Best!
 

Actually, my experience in the Hear it / Know it parts is that some of the speakers are VERY hard to understand.  Some are perfectly clear, no doubt about that, but there are times when I simply CANNOT make out what the people are saying.  I'll try to make a note of it, next time.
That being said, I very much like the Rocket course, and much prefer it over some of your competitors.

I think there are systematic problems with some hear it say it and also say it parts of the whole course. When words are involved like aa, naa, waa, unn and abstract words like that expect the score to be almost zero despite getting pronunciation correct. I am almost through the entire course and occasionally revise and some improve and some still have problems.

Actually, it's more of a problem than that.  It's words that are simply pronounced too indistinctly to be understood... by me, anyway.

I have also discovered that with Japanese in particular you can pronounce the numbers 100% correctly but the speech score will write the arabic numerals that we use like 1, 2, 3 etc opposed to Japanese, clearly it understands the numbers as they match the translation but the score is zero and if you are in the play it section it will move on to the next section without allowing you to finish speaking which is a pain.

Yeah, but you can override the "recommended" scoring if you feel that you nailed the pronunciation perfectly (the hear yourself button helps with this).

So while it can be an annoyance, it's not really that big of a problem. At least that's my feelings on the topic.  (>_^)

To be perfectly honest, I've pretty much given up on even HOPING for the system to recognise my pronunciation of words that only contain one syllable, especially if they contain the letter "r".
That being said, I do recognise the fact that I have a French accent...!

Hi there,

Thank you for your feedback and we apologize for any inconvenience with the tests. Is there a specific Module that gives you trouble? Please let me know if there is and I shall take a look and test it out myself.

Thank you!

Crystal
 

I find the shorter the word, the more likely I am to get 0%, however whenever I say it in a sentence I am getting 100%.  A good example would be か which I never seem able to get even 25% on!

I also have a cold right now, and am finding all my scores a lot lower.  Probably not a lot I can do about that other than keep taking lemsips.

"I find the shorter the word, the more likely I am to get 0%, however whenever I say it in a sentence I am getting 100%.  A good example would be か which I never seem able to get even 25% on!"

I'm having the same issue.   Any short (i.e. 2-syllable) word that begins with a か is almost impossible to get 100% on.  It seems to always interpret my K pronunciation as a "T" sound, which surprises me, as I am a native English speaker, and as far as I am aware there is no difference between the consonant part of the "K" sounds between Japanese and English.

If the target sentence has more than 8 syllables, I can make obvious mistakes that even I am aware of, and I'll still get it rated 100% by Rocket Record.  For a very long sentence, you can omit entire words and still get 100%.  The Rocket Record software seems to provide the most realistic/useful feedback when the target phrase has 3 - 7 syllables.   So in my opinion, there is plenty of room for improvement in the software.