Find out what actual users have to say about our courses through their Rocket Languages reviews.
I am about ready to give up on you. I was going to do another lesson tonight, but when i saw my percentage completion on Modual 1 and 2 was at 93% instead of the 100% that was there this morning. How do you expect anyone to complete anything if you keep adding new, and in my case, unnecessary, lessons to the areas already completed?
Response from Rocket Languages
Hi Richard - Thanks for submitting a review. As part of our annual review of our courses, sometimes we make improvements to the lessons. Unfortunately, the changes made yesterday impacted on your percentage complete as we added in some new phrases and we improved a few of the quiz questions in some of the Module 1 lessons. So, sorry about that, but it is part of our continuous improvement strategy!
The combination of the online tools and the ability to listen to the lessons whilst doing other things provides a really powerful learning combination. I particularly value the ability to watch and listen to my own attempts and compare them with a good French speaker!
Although I am making progress learning Spanish, the app has several bugs that have certainly affected my pace of learning. Missing translations/text are not uncommon. Sometimes it takes deleting and reinstalling the app to get it working. On some lessons it simply will not work no matter what action you take. Customer support has not been able to resolve the matter and I have decided that you get what you pay for. With the regular discounts offered as well as the supposed one-time price cut to entice you to buy all 3 level at the onset, I found the course fairly inexpensive. If the bugs ever get worked out, I would then consider this one of the best language courses available.
TL:DR -These courses are worth bothering with and a fair deal but don't expect perfection or a miracles.
This was sold to me (by external reviews) as being better than Rosetta stone and the current market leader in comprehensive language learning for self study, and yeah it is better and may be the best all around, but its still far from perfect. There are other products that are distinctly better for certain aspects of Japanese study, but this one is a good all-rounder.
It is very much like a by the book language study course that you would get in a generic language school.
Its not ground breaking, but its very solid and should successfully teach any diligent student some extent of their target language.
Given that you get hundreds of hours of lessons that you can do at your own pace I think the price is great value but I can't quite give 5 stars because there are some flaws in the product and service.
Unlike many free apps you aren't limited to 5 or 10 mins per day which means that the system can take its time to teach you slowly and methodically, and that if you have a lot of free time (and almost everybody does at the time of writing mid-April 2020) then you can do an hour or more everyday.
Response from Rocket Languages
Hi Sean - Thanks for submitting a review. Some interesting observations in there! I thought that I would comment on a couple of things;
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!
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.
Voice recognition is very variable with certain short words. eg un, deux trois. The rest of the numbers appear fine. How do you get better than 35% on a one word answer eg être?
Overall I think the programme is very good
Affordable compared to RS. Like not having to use discs and being able to use a tablet. Like the grammar explanations, but haven't yet found all of the verb tenses in Spanish premium. Admittedly though, I've been quite lazy and haven't used the program as much as I should. It's not a program that makes you can't wait to get back to it. You need to be self motivated. I suppose that's true of the others, too.
I'm stuck on 1.1 It can't recognise me saying the name "Dave" and "Lewis". And Xing for last name and Na for which. I swear I'm saying it long and low but it keeps thinking I'm saing the other na.
I'm still in the free trial and I'm not sure if this is just a bug I can skip or if i have to pass this.
Response from Rocket Languages
We're sorry to hear that you've been having trouble. If you aren't already, we recommend that you use a headset when recording yourself - any background noise can affect the quality of the voice recognition. If you continue to have trouble, please contact the Customer Support team for further assistance.
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.