Find out what actual users have to say about our courses through their Rocket Languages reviews.
I think that it's pretty useful, but the voice recognition doesn't really work for the languages that I am learning.
Response from Rocket Languages
We're sorry to hear about the issues you are experiencing with the voice recognition. We have contacted you via email to try and resolve this issue for you.
I learn the most commonly used words so I learn faster. It repeats the words and connects them in context to different daily situations. Makes it easier to remember with daily practice. Plus I get a Spanish survival kit loaded with the most essential vocabulary. Great value!
Unfortunatley, it's not going to be "awesome".
1. There is way too much English in the units. As a former language teacher I believe focus should be in the target language as much as possible.
2. The voice recognition does not work and cannot be calibrated. Doing the speaking units is useless.
3. The write it section should check what you wrote and not let you progress until you have it correct.
The voice recognition does work, and if you are having problems then please check the FAQs, contact customer support, or try the Rocket Languages Android/iOS apps.
The "Write it" section does check what you write. As with all our activities the rating we give is a guideline that you can either accept or rate yourself.
Response from Rocket Languages
Hi Scott - Thanks for your review. It is important to note that the first few lessons do have a reasonable amount of English, and that this lessens as you progress through the course and get to know more Spanish.
Course #1's audio lessons were really excellent. The timing of the dialogue/repeat sections is spot on, the native speakers have very clear accents, and you learn a lot quite quickly. It is easy to put them on in the background and make several additional passes through the material to cement the teachings. I found the accompanying grammar lessons to be difficult to retain in the 'mostly text' format, and they often don't follow along with where you are in the audio lessons at all.
Course #2 is somewhat the opposite. The native speakers (and host) all have distinct accents, the dialogue timing is a mess, and the content is all over the place. One minute you're basically redo-ing a lesson from Course #1, and the next you're totally lost when everything switches to 'casual' speech, which you've had almost no exposure to thus far. Alternately, the grammar courses are now structured to expound upon specific parts of the audio, which is an improvement.
I was VERY happy with Course #1 overall, but I am soured on the audio portion of Course #2. When the dialogue-repeat sections sometimes go word-by-word, but give you 10 seconds to speak, it becomes very difficult to learn the line in entirety.
Somehow there is not enough interactivity around speaking and listening. Some activities are writing, some speaking, the quiz environments largely test grammar but language is whole and you can't take time figuring out what you are going to say.
Response from Rocket Languages
Hi Mike, thank you for your review. We're pretty big on speaking so make sure you're interacting with the voice recognition whenever you can. You'll find plenty of opportunities to use it in your lessons as well as in the Rocket reinforcement activities. All the best!
I definitely loved it even I just try it for a while. However, the price is so HIGH and EXPENSIVE for a student like me.
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.
So far so good! I feel as if I'm back in school learning espanol! I cannot wait to try and speak to my new Costa Rican friends!! If I wasn't already excited, now I'm feeling a rad bit for confident with some new Spanish vocabulary!!
I am just starting Rocket Japanese and so far I quite like it, with one exception so far. I decided to approach learning Japanese methodically and to try to master each concept before moving on. The problem is that in Module 1, there is a section on numbers, and it teaches numbers from 1 to 100,000,000. Obviously, there are patterns and generalizations one can make across the 10s, 100s, 1000s, etc, but there is a lot to learn here in one large gulp and now I have lost my momentum with the language learning. I feel the numbers should be introduced in smaller chunks so that one can progress with new vocabulary and grammar at the same time. I have been bogged down with number learning for days.
Response from Rocket Languages
Hi Laura, thank you for your review. We're sorry to hear that you've lost momentum. Learning a new language is a huge undertaking, especially a language with a completely different writing system like Japanese. The Level 1 course is aligned with the JLPT, meaning we are teaching the number basics including 百 and 万 in this level. We've kept the lesson light, with less than 50 phrases in the testing section. The numbers lessons for Levels 2 and 3 deal with more advanced concepts like counters. We've emailed you with some helpful tips for learning a new language which we hope will help you get the most out of your course. All the best!
I have not been using this long enough to write a review. I have a question out there and am waiting for the answer.
Response from Rocket Languages
Thank you for your review. We have contacted you via email regarding your question and look forward to hearing back. All the best!