There are lots of Rocket French reviews. However, most of the people who wrote these reviews just summarized other reviews they found on the Internet and don’t know any French at all! I decided to actually buy the course myself and write a genuine review to help you determine whether it’s worth buying or not.
Overall, I loved Rocket French as it offers a TON of fun and easy audio lessons that can help students learn FAST. To visit the official website of Rocket French click here!
What Will I Get?
Rocket French has over 70 lessons covering everything you will need to know to learn to start speaking and understanding French fast.
The course covers a wide variety of subjects including basic greetings, tourism and travel vocabulary, asking directions and finding your way around town, food and restaurant-related vocabulary, shopping and clothing-related vocabulary, dating and meeting new friends, sports and hobbies, days of the week, countries, numbers and much more!
What is great about Rocket French is that all of the lessons are online. That means you do not have to download any software or wait to receive any CDs or DVDs in the mail.
All of the lessons are in the form of podcasts. That means that the audio MP3 files are stored on their site and all you have to do is click and listen. If you want you can also download the lessons to your PC or MP3.
There are a few online reviews that say Rocket French does a bad job teaching grammar. Actually, I don not think the people who wrote these reviews ever saw the course. It does indeed offer a lot of grammar lessons. In fact, Rocket French does a much better job covering grammar than I do here.
Rocket French has lessons covering the following subjects in grammar:
- Alphabet and Pronunciation
- Masculine/Feminine (Naming Things)
- Definite & Indefinite Articles
- Singular & Plural Pronouns
- The Verbs Avoir (To Have) & Etre (To Have) & When To Use Them
- Demonstrative Pronouns (This & That)
- Gender (Masculine & Feminine Nouns)
- Verb Conjugations
- Past Tense
- Reflexive Verbs
- Future Tense
- Making Negative Sentences
- Making Comparisons
- Important Keys (Y and En)
- Adverbs
Furthermore, Rocket French does a great job helping teach various kinds of vocabulary lists. Within the lessons you’ll find material covering the following:
- Counting
- Telling Time
- Question Words (Who, Where, Why etc.)
- Direction and Location Words (Left, Right, etc.)
- Adjectives
- Talking About Money
- Slang
- Work & Employment
- Reading A Restaurant Menu
- Family Members
- Sports
- Formal Vs. Casual Conversation Distinctions (Tu vs Vous)
How Is The Course Structured?
Rocket French is divided into three main sections: Stage 1, Stage 2 and finally Survival Kit.
Stage 1 contains four main sections:
- Meeting, Greeting, Foot & Drink
- Travel
- Getting Around Town
- All About Food
Section 2 Contains five main sections:
- Retail Therapy
- Family & Friends
- Activities & Hobbies
- In Review
- MegaFrench Software
Section 4, the Survival Kit, covers a ton of vocabulary:
- Pronunciation
- Days of the Week
- Countries
- City
- Clothing
- Colors
- House
- Beginners Numbers
- Advanced Numbers
How Are Rocket French’s Lessons Structured?
Each section is broken down into about eight individual lessons. As you’ll see each section has a TON of material. Each lesson is divided into two parts: Interactive Audio Course and Language and Culture.
In the Interactive audio Courses you get the chance to listen and speak. In the Language and Culture sections the teachers, Paul and Claire, cover lots of vocabulary that you can apply to learning about and understanding real-life cultural situations in France.
This is also where you’ll find the majority of the grammar lessons.
For example, in lesson 1.4, All About Food, the Interactive Audio Course lessons cover supermarket, kitchen and restaurant vocabulary while the Language and Culture section covers some necessary grammatical rules such as how to make a negative sentence, making comparisons and the future tense.
How Do The PodCasts Work?
Each lesson has two podcasts in the My Conversation section. The first podcast is the teachers going through a dialogue word-by-word and explaining it.
Then, the second podcast is just the dialogue. This is useful because you can play the second only-dialogue podcast over and over until you get a good feeling for the vocabulary and sentence structure.
What Else Can I Do With Rocket French?
After you’ve listened to the podcasts in the “My Conversation” section you can click on the Practice tab. There you’ll find the conversations broken down line by line with both French and the English translations.
Click on any of the blue audio icons and you can listen to that particular line. Below that you’ll find more practice vocabulary words. There are two things you can do to further enhance your learning. Firstly, you can record your own voice and compare with the teacher’s voice.
This is called Rocket Record (more on that below). You can also highlight words and add them to your “My Vocabulary” list.
How Can I Measure My Progress?
After finishing the Practice section you can click on the My Level tab. There you will find two useful interactive features called “Here It Say It” and Know It. Under Here It Say It you get the chance to listen to individual words and phrases in French.
Then, you can have the English appear beneath the French and rate how well you know the word from “It’s Easy” to “Not At All”. Under Know It you can read an English word or phrase, record your own voice saying it in French, then have the French word appear underneath.
Again, you can rate how well you’ve mastered the word.
At the bottom of the My Level tab will find a quiz. Here you will be asked questions about what you have learned. After each quiz you can see your score.
If you answered some of the questions wrong you can go back, review the lesson material and take the quiz again as many times as you want until you master the material.
Another way to test your progress is under the My Assessments section on the upper-left hand portion of your screen.
Here there are two sections: My Rocket Rehearsals and My Proficiency. My Rocket Rehearsals are quizzes covering all of the main Interactive Audio and Language & Culture sections.
The My Proficiency section offers two tests covering Section 1 and Section 2 of the course. These are 45-minute long tests which are based on standardized testing formats used in Europe.
How Can I Know If My Pronunciation Is Correct?
With Rocket Record you can compare your voice to that of the native speaker. It is a great tool which will allow you to enhance your pronunciation ability.
Towards the bottom of each page for each lesson you can click on “Rocket Record”. Simply hover your mouse over the word you want to practice. Listen to the tutor’s voice, record your own and find out the accuracy of your pronunciation to that of a native speaker!
The Games Section
Many French language learners depend on visual techniques for memorizing new words and phrases. Rocket French offers several games which help students to increase memory of new vocabulary. My favorite game is called MegaCards.
There are two levels: beginners and advanced. MegaCards is essential a game of flashcards where an image appears and you have 15 seconds to come up with the right French word before moving onto the next card. Rocket French also offers a downloadable game called “MegaFrench” as well as Phrases Master and Word Master Games.
What Can I Do With “My Toolbox”?
Rocket French has a new feature called My Vocab, which can be found under My Toolbox on the upper-left hand portion of the screen.
This is designed to help you build your own vocabulary list. If you find any words to be extra tricky or just want to make a note of them for your own memory you can use this feature. On every page of the site you can double-click your mouse over any word.
Then, you will see an ABC appear. Click on that and you can make a personal note for yourself. Before you know it you will have your own personal vocabulary list.
Another excellent feature of My Toolbox is the Phrase Finder. Here you can type in any word or phrase which you’d like to look up.
Then, the French translation will appear along with several other related words or phases. This way you can really build upon the words and phrases that you’ve already learned.
This is proven to be on of the best ways for mastering foreign languages fast.
The Advanced Learning Techniques section in My Tool Box offers a series of articles that you can read to help you learn faster and get better results.
Here you can read about what kind of learner you are (visual, sound-oriented, etc.), how to develop a language-learning plan and set goals, how to build self-confidence and get your head around grammar, how to have more fun with the language, how to improve your memory, and the true secret to learning a foreign language (thinking in that language).
Members’ Online Forum
As a member of Rocket French’s website you will have access to the online forum of other French learners like yourself. Currently, the forum has over 12,000 members covering over 3,000 topics. Here you can meet friends with similar interests, ask questions and get them answered.
The forum has sections covering French culture and travel, conversation, vocabulary and grammar. I found the grammar section to be extremely useful as it covers lots of tricky subjects such as pronouns, masculine/feminine, reflexive verbs, past tense and much more.
Help & Support
Rocket French offers an excellent help and support section. Here you can get your questions answered fast. Here you can read answers to common questions other students have submitted.
These cover many broad but important subjects such as very occasional sound/audio issues on computers and download questions.
If you are unable to find answers to your questions the company offers both telephone and email contact information.
Any Criticisms For Rocket French?
One criticism for Rocket French is that it does not cover sentence structure enough. However, this is not such a bad thing.
The reason I say this is that many beginner students get bogged down and confused by sentence structure. Indeed, this can slow the learning process a lot.
Rather, Rocket French puts a strong emphasis on learning vocabulary, speaking and listening comprehension – making it an excellent choice for people who want to start speaking fast.
Testimonials
If you look at the official website you will find that many happy students have left a lot of positive testimonials, which are called “Success Stories”.
Overall, most people commented that they liked the courses practical lessons, that they could learn at their own pace and that they felt they gained confidence to speak French in practical situations.
On man named Fred from Canada called in saying that the course was “organized and extremely user-friendly”. He went on to say that he’d recommend it to anyone.
Another satisfied customer from the United States wrote in saying that the program has helped him tremendously in everyday situations. He works as a mountain guide in Switzerland and has used lessons from the course to help book hotel rooms and restaurants.
Another happy customer named Joyce from the United States wrote in saying that the course has helped to enhance her travel experience in Paris. Also, she said the lessons were very helpful and that she liked being able to refer back to key parts quickly and easily.
Finally, another satisfied customer named Keith from the UK said that he’s improved his French rapidly and that he’s able to hold conversations with local people thanks to the course.
How Much Will Rocket French Cost?
There are several price options for buying the Rocket French course. If you’d like to just test it out you can access the free trial course.
To get full online access to the Rocket French Premium course (covering over 30 interactive audio lessons and 30 more cultural lessons) the cost is $99.95. This is a 30% discount from the original price of $149.90.
It offers payment options of Visa, Mastercards and PayPal in addition to a 60-day money back guarantee. If you’d like to have CDs delivered to your house you can the Rocket French Premium 20-CD Pack for $299.95. This offer includes free shipping and also gives you full access to the online course.
Another fantastic offer is the Rocket French Premium Plus course. This is an additional 31 interactive audio lessons which are an average 30 minutes in length for a total of 13 hours of additional material.
The lessons cover an additional 7 practical topic areas and you’ll also get an additional 29 cultural language lessons. The cost for this is an affordable $129.95 and you can learn more about it from within the Rocket French course.
If you’d really like to take your knowledge of the French language to the next level you may consider the more advanced Rocket French Platinum interactive audio course. This course will allow you to express yourself in more complex situations and with increased flexibility.
The course offers an additional 31 audio lessons which cover a broad group of topics ranging from dating to eating out in restaurants.
The course also does a great job teaching more about written French as well as grammar, which will help you to speak fluently faster. The cost for this course is $149.95, a discount from the original cost of $299.95.
Conclusion:
Rocket French is an online course designed to get you speaking French fast. After buying the course and doing a complete review I conclude that it’s definitely the “real deal” and not a scam at all. The course has a ton of material covering everything you need to know including vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar and much more.
The podcasts are fun to listen to and make the whole learning process easy. An added bonus is the forum which allows you to connect with other users and get your questions answered quickly. I would definitely recommend anybody who is looking for a good solid online French course to buy Rocket French today.
