Learning to speak the language of another culture is a mind expanding experience.
And deciding to speak a second language lke German is one of
the most rewarding challenges you can
do in your lifetime.
Today many countries require
students to learn a second language in order to
graduate from their primary schools.
We wanted to experience another
culture and had planned a trip to Germany. We
wanted to learn German quick and be able to speak in the native tongue
before making the trip to Berlin. We also didn't have
time to attend a class (who does today) so we wanted to study at home.
You can find several courses
that claim to teach German, but how
do you know which ones deliver and which ones
don't? We put this review together as a way to
share our experience with anybody who wants to learn German.
The program
I'm reviewing is called Rocket German™ a course
produced by Rocket Language Ltd.
This course was written by a native German speaker whose name is Paul Weber.
The company has an
excellent reputation for producing high
quality language learning courses which include
French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and the American Sign Language.
The beginning module has
31 audio lessons designed to have you speaking
basic words after your first lesson. After these 31 lessons you'll feel
comfortable asking simple questions, getting
directions, ordering food etc.
The package
includes the printed transcripts of the audios and we found
them to be a real plus.
The first module is about 14 hours
in length, and this might seem like a long module, but
we became so excited to be able to learn German quick,
that we just consumed this part of the course. We were learning and having a great time doing it!
The program also includes software and the
first software application is called MegaVocab™. Using this
software is made learning so quick and easy, and more
importantly, it was fun.
The software is basically a vocabulary
recognition tool. You us it by running
through a series of words and learn the
words through repetition - and an association
with a picture. It's similar to the flashcards
you used to learn with when you were a kid.
The software has 2000 words
and pictures built into it, but it also allows
you to add more words and pictures as you decide to learn more and more
words.
screenshot of the actual software
screenshot of the actual software
Once we
started to learn the vocabulary we moved on to the
MegaAudio™ software. It was t this phase in the course is
where we started feeling confident about what we
had learned so far.
The software provides exercises designed to
improve your recognition of the spoken words.
And the system provides a score, which by referencing, we were able to gauge our progress.
We found
the software fun to use and had a
good time learning the vocabulary - but when we
realized we were
understanding it when spoken, we really got excited.
We had a tough time trying to find another
program that even offered this type of software.
This course is
designed with the assumption you have no background in the German language when starting.
But it moves on to an advanced level and we
felt this increased the value of the
program because you wouldn't have to
buy a more advanced course as you progressed.
As students of the course,
we were given a free membership to the Rocket
Language Online Forum. This is really an impressive
part of the course. The members only forum
is where you can ask questions and communicate with
other students and the Rocket Language online
instructors.
To us, this forum made the cost of
this course a real bargain, because if you happen to get
stuck on something, you can find lots of help in the
forum. We would be more than willing to pay a
monthly fee to belong to this forum, but
thankfully that's not necessary, because it's part of the
course!
At this point you might be thinking
a course like this is probably expensive.
The price of just under one hundred dollars for
the downloaded version is a steal. The
download was easy and we were able to watch it all
on our computer, burn the material to a CD to
listen in our cars, and
I even loaded the audio on my ipod!
If you prefer to
have the course shipped to you on CD's, the
company offers that option as well.
We think you'd have a hard time finding a
more user friendly course. We're very pleased
with the results from using this program
and are more than willing to recommend it. The
company offers a 60 day no hassle guarantee, so
if you decide it's not for you, you have the
option of a refund.
When we consider the quality
of the course, the software, the forum, the
guarantee, and the bargain price, if you want to learn German quick - we can only
give this program our highest
rating of 5 stars.
