Imagine if you had the possibility to learn a foreign language and speak like a native in less than a week. Imagine you could get a pay raise just for speaking another language. And now imagine you could finally enjoy your vacation abroad, meet new people and get new friends just because you started to learn and speak another foreign language. Yes, that’s right. As a traveler I found myself lots of time in trouble just because I lacked the ability to speak with natives even though I speak English very well. Knowing just one language is not enough and I felt like I need to improve it somehow. I am that kind of person who always does his best to make everything working like a charm. Sometimes I get into situation, which can’t be solved without knowing at least few local basic phrases. Therefore, I started thinking how to remedy this absence.
My first thought was to attend a language school in my neighborhood. But this turned out to be time consuming what I couldn’t afford. Suddenly, I hit the bull’s eye when I ran across an online course! It seemed like a perfect solution for me but the questions were – which course would be the best and would answer my needs? So I started searching the Internet and from plenty of options I finally chose 3 winners – Rocket Languages, Rosetta Stone and Babbel. In order to pick out the final winner I began with demo/trial version of each product.
To be honest, I was the most fascinated by Rocket Languages and I bought the Premium Version right away. I clearly understood everything and quickly advanced to another levels. I found very positive the fact that wherever I went or traveled I always had Rocket Languages with me, since you can use it not only on your computer but also on a tablet or your smart phone. The course itself provides downloadable PDFs with Vocabulary and audio records which you can play on every platform. To give an illustration, when I was travelling to Spain I had downloaded previously Audio record on my tablet and I was able to practice on a plane even though I had no Internet connection. So basically I used the spare time to learn new vocabulary and useful phrases that I utilised on my trip.
I would like to highlight the way how Rocket Languages approach the learning. The course consists of several modules and each module is divided into sub-parts where you practice real-life situations such as booking a room in a hotel or meeting new people. Each lesson takes approximately 20 minutes, which is long enough to repeat sufficiently and to not become annoyed at the same time. After finishing whole module there is a revision exam where you test your recently gained knowledge. Great thing is that you listen to native speaker, who also explains basics of grammar and teaches you how to maintain a conversation. In other words, lessons emphasize mainly listening and proper pronunciation. This helped me a lot to be self-confident when speaking to other people or directly to natives. However, I quite miss more reading and writing related lessons. I would welcome for example some interactive articles with Quiz or Fill-in exercises.
In order to practice the pronunciation you need one important thing and that is microphone. I definitely recommend you to get one otherwise you will lose the possibility to record yourself and check your progress in pronunciation. Also make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Flash player installed. I experienced some problems when it came to recording my voice.
If you are somehow advanced, you might find it difficult with which lesson to begin. Despite this, you can still contact online support which will likely give you an advice how to advance. Here comes handy the dashboard that gives you an overview how far you got in each lesson. Unfortunately, when upgrading from Trial to Premium version your dashboard will reset and you will go through those basic lessons again. Therefore, I would recommend considering to buy the full version right away.
Another thing that I find interesting is the toolbox where I was able to see my score. By completing exercises you obtain points, which determines your skill level and afterwards you can compare yourself with other users. I am not a Facebook maniac but someone might welcome the feature that you can share your results on Facebook with others. With Rocket Languages you have nothing to loose. In case that the course will not meet your requirements they provide 60-day Money back Guarantee. However, I don’t think you will have to ask for refund. If you want to make your friend or family member happy, you may consider giving them Rocket Languages Gift Voucher!