Rocket Languages Reviews
Find out what actual users have to say about our courses through their Rocket Languages reviews.
I am now working on the 3rd module of the Hindi course, so I've tested the programme a fair bit. Hindi must be about the 20th language I study, so I have some idea of what learning a language is about.
While I enjoy the app, the format, the light-heartedness of the dialogues and voice actors, I am frustrated by a number of things.
First of all, there are too many typos for a language course. As a learner, I shouldn't be left wondering what's going on, only to realize later that it was a typo. There are too many weird things happening, like odd or irregular translations, plurals instead of singulars, the female voice actor reading a first-person response in the masculine, etc. All this gets in the way of the otherwise fun topics and voice actors. It adds confusion to an already difficult process.
Second, I disagree with the general principle that the student should just repeat without understanding. I'm fine with putting emphasis on the carelessness of "just repeat and you'll eventually get it", and it does remove pressure from the student to perform, but there are grammatical questions that need to be explained (even with some simple additional written material), and to leave it to chance, frankly, just feels lazy.
Italian, it started off great but the guy's voice has become tired and boring. In fact I can't bring myself to listen to it anymore simply because his voice depresses me. Maria is great, energetic and up beat, but the dude, o' maron! Lui e molto stanco.
Almost Great
The organization of material, and its presentation are great. There is one technical flaw, however, and it is major, and inexcusable in this very expensive app. In neither the Lesson or the Conversation can you stop or go back to something that you are not sure of. In learning a language, there are ALWAYS situations where something specific is not clear and you need to confirm or correct what you just heard. It’s amazing that you in order to find that specific thing you need to double check, you have to finish the entire lesson or entire conversation, go back to the very beginning and listen to the entire thing again! That is a MAJOR technical flaw, and I am amazed that, although it has been mentioned by other reviews, it hasn’t been fixed. If that were fixed, this would be a 5 star app, now it’s only a 3 star app.
I used to really enjoy these lessons (taking the Japanese course). The banter between tutors Sayaka and the original Kenny made lessons enjoyable and fun. Since I had returned from my trip to Japan I had taken a short break from practicing, but I recently jumped back on only to learn that the original audio lessons have been replaced with a super boring monotoned narrator. While the program did initially help me impress all of my Japanese friends, it no longer feels like I have lifelike tutors to encourage me to keep up my studies, just a robot with choppy cut and paste vocabulary being lectured at me. The enthusiasm of the lessons is gone and sadly so is mine with learning from this program.
Response from Rocket Languages
Hi Christopher - We are sorry that you feel that way. The decision was made to replace the non-native speaker (Kenny's) parts with a native speaker. The decision basically came down to answering "what provides the best and most authentic learning experience for the majority of learners?". While Kenny has been a big part of Rocket Japanese we just thought that his accent compromised the voice recognition functionality.
I can't. I have just started some days ago. To say something awesome so soon after starting should be carefully evaluated. Studying Chinese isn't easy. Maybe I have something positive to say at the end of my first course. Thank you.
As an English language instructor, I find the Rocket Korean course is pretty good but not perfect on its own. However, given the price tag, it's worth the shot. I would prefer that instead of text that the software be more interactive. Through the use of visuals such as pictures and videos it allows students to learn more intuitively and recall prior knowledge on the spot. Text support, while necessary to a degree, can become a crutch that visual learners like myself can overly rely on causing less temporal tension and thus leading us to less overall retention. However, of course, this course is good for the price and I have been using it in coordination with a few other applications online. Therefore, I suggest using this in conjunction with other programs as well as considering language exchange to get much needed practice in real time.
I've only done the trial version but I decided not to buy it not because of the content; the material is quite good actually and, considering it's for life, the price is fair as well. But the activities cannot be done through mobile or app properly, the recording won't recognize what's said, the written activities never goes on to the next, the platform only works properly on desktop PC and the whole purpose is that you can learn anywhere, whenever. If I can't use my mobile and be alone when recording my pronunciation or I can't answer the cards on my free time then the "anywhere/whenever" thing is null
Rocket Hindi is my favourite language learning method after reading actual books, which give me much more in depth understanding of grammar.
My fault with it is the use of the inherent vowel at the end of the English (romanised) tranliteration of words and where it’s not pronounced in the middle of some words. It’s a massive let down to the service and gets in the way of every session. The inherent ‘a’ vowel is only pronounced in Sanskrit. So for example the word namaskar, which almost everywhere else is transliterated as namaskar, on Rocket Hindi it’s written namaskara. Your brain is already spending a lot of effort learning new worlds, sounds, spellings, associations. To have to them sift out this ‘a’ all the time is exasperating.
They could simply write something about the inherent vowel at the start of the course. I mean it’s an English Transliteration not the actual spelling anyway. It’s meant to sound how the word is pronounced.
Every time I come across a word while I’m listening to the audio at the same time and it doesn’t match the audio I get a moment of confusion. I have to look hard at the word to see why it’s pronounced differently, if it is the inherent vowel or something else.
Rocket Languages is bettter than what i had before. The length of the lessons is very long for my taste though... ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;; ; ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Rocket misses the mark in many ways. Teaching phrases without a literal translation is not helpful. Ideally, one should know what each word in the sentence is, so that one can then compose one's own sentences. Additionally, the speakers speak very quickly and one can't really tell how they are pronouncing the words in spite of having them spelled out in cyrillic. Also when teaching color names, why aren't' there colors on the screen, or at least on the flash cards? And when there are nouns, why not a picture of the object? I've been learning languages for many years, and I like some of Rocket Language's features, but I have to say that Pimsleur, does a much better job of teaching one to actually speak and understand the language, and they give literal translations and help one understand the context and syntax of words. But Pimsleur only teaches the audio, and they are way too expensive to only do that. Rocket Languages does offer voice comparison, but I have my doubts as to how good it really is at telling me how close I am to correct pronunciation. Rocket Languages is okay, but not the greatest. However, it is affordable. But, their customer service isn't very good.