Find out what actual users have to say about our courses through their Rocket Languages reviews.
Es buno aunque aveces como que no teb escuch y tienes q repetir varias vexes , Unque no es ran malo porque practicas tu pronunciation
As with any language, immersion and conversation will get you the farthest, but Rocket Spanish does a good job at giving you a wide range of vocabulary and practice with the spoken language. The reinforcement tools can seem tedious at times, but repetition and commitment is vital to learning a new language. Get it on sale and it is totally worth your time and energy.
I have liked the program so far but here are my main criticisms:
First, the pacing. I wouldn't say I like having 5 audio lessons consecutively and then 5 language and culture lessons in a row. I prefer to have one audio and one language and culture lesson each time. I also wish these two types of lessons were more related and interconnected. they seem so disjointed and irrelevant right now.
I also wish that there was some sort of spaced repetition feature for reviewing previously learned vocabulary and materials. Therefore I have to manually make flashcards in another program (Anki) for this which is a little cumbersome than having them readily available.
I would like to see some new features for exercising the learned vocabulary and grammar instead of just repeating the limited number of sentences in each lesson and requiring the students to form and come up with new sentences.
Response from Rocket Languages
Thank you, Mohammad! You've raised some great points! We have a testing activity called the Rocket Certification tests in the Tools area for revisiting covered content. The course is divided into different lesson types for flexibility, so there's no fixed way to progress through it. You can switch between lesson types as you see fit! We understand the need for a stronger connection between Language and Culture, and Audio lessons, and we're working on incorporating this into our newer courses. We always value user feedback, so if you'd like to discuss anything in more detail, feel free to contact us at [email protected]!
Overall, I'm very satisisfied 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 leaning 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.
1.
The audio lessons are presented very well. They are by far the best part of the program. The written tests and multiple choice tests work fine. The interactive voice tests are sometimes glitchy. As others have said, the website and iOS app can sometimes have issues. The iOS app is not as quite as fully functional as the website, but still pretty good. Overall, I'm happy with the program. I suspect it will continue to get better with time. I'm not disappointed with my purchase.
Over the years, I have used Rosetta Stone, Babbel and now Rocket. Rocket is what I have been using to learn Italian as I used Rosetta Stone for Spanish mainly. There are things about this I like for learning but I feel this pushes too far toward memorization and not concept or forming sentences and mental recall. I have been doing the daily lesson for 3 straight weeks. I have a good bank of vocabulary, but I am struggling forming sentences for the most part. I will see this through Level 1 for sure and most likely 2, to see how effective it is. I felt more progress at this point through Rosetta stone and their style of learning, but I did it for 6 months daily. Time will tell for Rocket but I am going to go into with my mind open and following their method.
Response from Rocket Languages
Thank you for your feedback, Anthony! We designed our Rocket Italian courses to make the learning as flexible as possible so our community of users can tailor the course to their needs. As such, if you would like some extra information on how to use the course for maximum effect when it comes to forming sentences and mental recall, just reach out to us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help!
Lesson 1.7 is about to do me in. I simply cannot understand it when they're saying such long sentences and speaking so rapidly. Then again, I got made fun of once in the 90's Mexico when I said cuatro because I said it so slowly. I'm from the South. I speak English slowly and damned sure can't speak Spanish that fast. I also can't remember all those words and phrases. There were a lot of them in this lesson!
Awesome, provided an easy way to learn reading, writing and listening Japanese language.
It is an interesting way to learn a languge. Very good to listen to people who speak. It is very realistic and natual. The second time you listen it is easy to remember the words again. I hope I will improve my spanish soon. The use of ipad will do it easy to practice every day, at home, on the bus and when I am walking.
I think the Rocket format is a solid tool for learning - especially for beginners. Each lesson is a conversation between two people that you study and use to learn vocabulary and grammar. I always enjoyed that the format gave me little "stories" I could grab on to as memory aids. It really gave me a great start.
As my enthusiasm waned, as it always will when learning something new and moving past the beginner phase, I found that the rocket format started to bog me down a little. Some lessons would have over 60 phrases to practice and memorize. I'd get bogged down trying to get through the homework. I felt my learning speed was slowing down as I entered Level 2 of the course, and I began to turn to other tools like "Spanish Dict (spanishdict.com)" to augment the material and speed me up.
I think the course could be improved drastically in three ways.
1) Shorten Lessons. People like to move through lessons quickly. It produces a sense of accomplishment. This means, reducing the number of phrases to be mastered in each lesson.
2) Enhance Memorization Tools. There are well known systems for reviewing words and the idea of building a deck of flashcards you can continuously review is missing from the toolkit of Rocket Spanish.
Response from Rocket Languages
Thanks so much for your review, and for all of your feedback - we sincerely appreciate the thought you put into it, and the time you took to send it to us. We have forwarded your comments to the Products Development team for their review - we are always looking for new ways to improve learner experience! All the best with your language learning!