RocketItalianReviewed.com

What is Rocket Italian ?

Rocket Italian is an Italian learning course. It is unique from many other language courses in that you download it from the Internet. It takes around 30 minutes to download with a broadband Internet  connection. There is also the option to have the hard copy version of the course shipped to you but this is far more expensive than the download version and the content of both are the same.

This is what you get with Rocket Italian :

An Interactive PDF course
An Audio course
3 Educational games
Access to a forum
Follow up lessons from time to time

The rest of this review will cover the Interactive PDF course as the other components are covered in other posts.

What level is Rocket Italian ?

The course is aimed at people with no knowledge of Italian. It takes them from beginner through to intermediate and onto an advanced level of the Italian language.

How does it teach Italian ?

The course comprises 31 lessons.

The lessons relate to the audio course so they follow the same themes and topics. The PDF interactive course is not just a transcript of the audio (although a separate transcript of the audio is also provided). It gives more background to the audios. It explains points of grammar and introduces vocabulary.

Each lesson can take around 30 minutes to an hour, depending on your skill level and knowledge of the topic being covered.

How is a lesson taught ?

The topic of the lesson is introduced along with any new Italian words. The student will read through the introduction. Any Italian words can be clicked on and the audio for the word will be heard. The word is clicked you will hear the English equivalent, then the Italian. Then there is a pause and the Italian is spoken again. This gives the student a chance to speak the Italian and practice what he/she is learning.

More examples will be given of the topic and examples of how it is used.

A variety of written and multiple choice type exercises conclude each lesson.

Another feature of the course that gives it an interactive quality is the random button. You can press the random button at any time and a Italian sentence or word from the current lesson will be spoken.
So you can practice conversation and comprehension for this particular lesson by speaking and understanding the random audios. It can also give the student a bit of control over the lesson.

Any other teaching methods used ?

The three games are accessed through the PDF course. The games are already covered in some detail but here is the basic outline :

MegaVocab - vocabulary recognition, match one of 6 pictures to a word picked at random by the software
MegaVerbs - verb conjugation, conjugate a verb in the correct person and tense. There are 20 questions within each game and the software can select any verbs it has in the system.
MegaAudio – comprehension, listen to audio of a word or sentence and guess which of the 4 pictures represent the audio.

A set of flashcards are also provided. These are a set of pictures with the Italian/English meaning underneath. There are 250 of these cards but they need to be printed out to use.

What is good about the course ?

The course starts from beginner through to advanced.

The verb conjugation game is useful, as learning the forms of the verbs can get quite boring and tedious.

Random button is good for adding a bit of spontaneity to the lesson. This is useful if you have done the lesson more than once and need to freshen it up a little.

What is bad about the course ?

The pictures in the MegaVocab game are not always intuitively clear about the meaning. This can make guessing the words quite difficult at times. The English word can be displayed if this happens but doing this makes it too easy.

You can only improve your pronunciation by listening and repeating the audio, no feedback is given by the software as to how your accent sounds.

Any bonuses ?

A good way to see how the course works is to try the free 6 day course. It should help you decide if Rocket Italian suits your learning style and you will learn a bit of Italian along the way.

A Rocket Italian newsletter is sent out every fortnight. The newsletter has a new lesson or extra material in each issue.

Summary

I think the Rocket Italian course represents good value. You get an Audio and ebook course and 3 software games. The forum and follow up newsletter are good if you need a bit of support and to stay motivated. Although it is not easy learning a new language, Rocket Italian can certainly make the task easier provided you use it consistently and put the effort in to learn Italian.

Go to the Rocket Italian website for more details and success stories.

The audio part of a language learning course is probably the most important part in my opinion, because it is aimed at teaching you how to speak in Italian (and understand people speaking to you in Italian). Ultimately, this is why you want to learn a new language – to speak to people.

Being able to speak in Italian to Italian speaking people is not only the point of learning the language but it motivates and makes a student learn quicker.

To expand on these points, if you can communicate with an Italian speaking person, your confidence will soar and you will begin to believe that you actually can speak Italian. Confidence is half the battle when it comes to learning a new language.

And it goes without saying that the more you speak to people the faster your Italian language skills will develop. For instance, every time you have a conversation is like having a mini Italian lesson. You can practice things you have already learned on ask questions about certain vocabulary. It all good once you talk to people without being shy or self conscious.

I think the Rocket Italian audio course is very good. It comprises 31 lessons lasting around 15-30 minutes each. The audio quality is excellent. You can put the audios onto an mp3 player or Cd’s so that you can listen to them at your own convenience.

The basic format of each lesson is a scene involving the narrator of the course (Alex) and his native Italian speaking friend (Maria). There are 6 different themes with 4 to 5 lessons in each theme. through Italy.

So for example, they might be booking into a hotel. They will go through the typical things you would say doing this and some other questions you might ask when checking in.

After the conversation, the lesson works through all the phrases that were said. It explains new words, how the grammar works and how you would pronounce the phrases and sentences.

The narrator is an English speaking person and he will guide the teaching and explain concepts and meanings of Italian words.

The native Italian speaker (Maria, the creator of the course) speaks all the Italian conversations. She will say a sentence and then say each of the words or pronunciation chunks separately so that the listener can repeat the pronunciation after her.

This is similar to the Pimsleur method in the way it teaches pronunciation. It breaks down each word to the syllable so that it is easy to copy the Italian pronunciation. It can be a little slow going but it is an effective way to get a good accent.

Maria (the native Italian speaker) says all the sentences once and then pauses so that you can say the sentence aloud. They stress at the beginning of the course that this is the only way to do it if you want to be successful. I tend to agree with them on this point. Only by saying something out loud will it sink into your head. Saying it repeatedly will ensure it stays there and can be recalled when you need it.

At the end of each lesson the narrator summarizes the main points of the lesson. They may run through parts of the original conversation again and ask you questions. The questions generally try to include parts of the previous lessons along with the new stuff.

The course is advertised as an interactive course. What this means is that you must say the words or sentences out aloud when instructed by the narrator. For instance, if the narrator asks a question, there will be a pause that allows you to answer, then the native Italian speaker will give the correct answer.

This is a good audio course that starts with the basics like meeting and greeting and goes through to more complicated sentences and grammar. Many of the scenarios are things that people traveling in Italy would find useful, like booking into hotels, eating at restaurants and lessons about Italian life and culture. I think the course will boost your confidence and motivate you to speak to real Italian people. Once you are comfortable relating to Italian speaking people, learning the language will become easier and you will soon attain fluency.

Go to the official Rocket Italian website.

Rocket Italian and Rosetta Stone Italian are popular self study courses for learning the Italian language. This article will compare and contrast these two courses in terms of their quality, how they teach Italian and which course may suit your style of learning.

To start with, these courses have some marked differences in how they teach Italian.

The aim of Rosetta Stone Italian is to immerse you in the language. This means you will not see any English cues when the lessons begin. Everything happens in Italian and you have to figure it out.

This is a bit like the immersion process of learning Italian, where you might be in Italy and have to get by speaking Italian. Another parallel could be as you learned your mother tongue, purely by hearing the words and making some kind of connection to the meaning of the word.

It works as follows :

A lesson consists of a number of questions. Each question would consist of 4 images/photographs and a button that can be pressed to hear audio. The audio would be either naming the image or describing what was occurring in the image. Once you have listened to the audio you must select the image that corresponds to the audio.

You go through the whole lesson in this fashion. Each lesson has a particular theme, say colors or two verbs. At the end of the lesson you are told how many answers you got right. If you get all the questions right you could advance onto a harder level.

You may think this sounds a bit simplistic but Rosetta Stone uses this method to quite an advanced level. It is more than just learning vocabulary and some fairly complicated sentences are also used as questions.

They use this same method for recognizing written words, practice writing and have a way to analyze your speech patterns to help improve your accent. The number of lessons is vast and will take you to an advanced level but you have to buy the complete set of 3 courses to get to this level.

Rocket Italian takes a slightly different approach.

Basically, Rocket Italian uses a combination of teaching methods in their course. I believe they  have looked at the successful elements of courses like Pimsleur/Michel Thomas and Rosetta Stone to give the student three distinct ways of learning.

So you get an audio course which is similar to the Pimsleur/Michel Thomas types of teaching. They have an interactive PDF course along the lines of a traditional book course. And they have 3 games that are similar to how Rosetta Stone works.

In terms of details, the audio course is 31 15-30 minute lessons. The lessons deal with basic Italian through to everyday situations like going shopping or talking to people at a birthday party.

The audio follows the narrator, a native English speaker and his native Italian speaking friend. The English speaker introduces the lesson and does the teaching by illustrating points and asking you questions. The Italian speaker speaks the Italian parts so that you get to hear an authentic accent. You are advised to say the words or sentences after her aloud.

The end of the lesson involves recapping what has been learned and then answering some questions posed by the narrator. You are given time to answer and then the Italian speaker gives the answer.

The second part of Rocket Italian is a PDF interactive course. This course has lessons from beginner through to intermediate/advanced levels. This is where you are taught grammar, shown how verbs are conjugated and introduced to new words. You will learn more about reading and writing in Italian. There are a number of questions at the end of each lesson to help you consolidate your learning. It is termed interactive because you can click an Italian word and you will hear audio of it spoken. This can help you with pronunciation if you say the word afterwards. 

The Rocket Italian games are called MegaVocab, MegaAudio and MegaVerb. They work on the same principles as the Rosetta Stone method in that they use pictures and you have to answer a series of questions.

In the case of MegaVocab and MegaAudio, you have to guess which picture is correct after hearing the written or spoken Italian word. In MegaVerb, you are asked to type in the correct conjugation of a series of verbs in terms of the tense and person that is speaking.

There is also two sets of flashcards that you can print out and play with your friends.

If you get Rocket Italian you are given access to a forum where you can ask questions about the course or about the language. There are people there of varying levels of Italian and they can help you with your studies.

The Rocket Italian team will send follow up lessons to your email address occasionally.

Good points of Rosetta Stone Italian

Unique way of learning – no books or writing things down.

High quality images and generally professional looking system.

Track your progress through a scoring system.

A system that can analyze your speech (need your own headset/microphone though).

Bad points

There are three courses (beginner, intermediate and advanced) which are separate products. So you have to buy all three if you want to use Rosetta Stone to advanced level. This makes it quite expensive and most people only get the first level because of this reason.

This approach has no formal instruction, particularly in grammar. It relies on repetition and consistency to work. Some people might not like this style of learning.

Good points of Rocket Italian course

Value for money.

You get an audio course that can be used separately from the other parts of the package. The pdf interactive course is also a course in itself, that teaches the finer points of the language and grammar. The games are helpful but not as comprehensive as Rosetta Stone. The forum and follow up emails with extra lessons are good to keep you motivated and develop a sense of community.

Bad points

The meaning of some of the images in the games are ambiguous so you need to use the show English word button from time to time. This kind of defeats the objective of the games because it makes it too easy.

Go to the Official Rocket Italian website for more details.

The main aim of the Michel Thomas Italian course is to teach conversational skills. I really liked his teaching style and you finish the course with confidence that you can speak to an Italian speaking person.

The purpose of Rocket Italian is to teach reading, writing, comprehension and conversational skills. There is a large vocabulary set that can be learned through the games and exercises in the lessons. The exercises allow the student to practice writing.

Using the Michel Thomas course is easy. All you need is a cd or mp3 player. The course is completely on CD so you can listen to it anywhere and anytime that is convenient for you.

The best way to get Rocket Italian is by downloading from the Internet. This is a unique feature for a language course. You can be using the course within around 30 minutes after purchase. The Rocket Italian program has an audio component, a PDF course and three games to practice vocabulary, comprehension and verb conjugation.

Michel Thomas Italian is designed for people wanting to learn Italian fast. So if you are going to Italy for a vacation or business and you need some basic conversational skills to get you by, then Michel Thomas Italian is a great choice. The teaching method that is used is that you act as the third student in his class. The other two students are on the recording. Michel Thomas does the teaching and explains concepts. The other students ask questions and answer questions that are posed by Michel Thomas. You are advised to answer these questions too by stopping the recording, answering out aloud and then restarting it to get the answer.

Rocket Italian is a more comprehensive language course. The aim of the course is to get a fully rounded Italian language education. It has sections that teach you to speak, listen, read and write.

The audio component of Rocket Italian is similar to Michel Thomas. It features a narrator and a native Italian speaker. The narrator does the teaching and asks questions. You are advised to stop the recording and answer the question out aloud. Then start the recording and the native Italian speaker gives the answer. By listening to the native speaker and mimicking the accent you can improve your pronunciation.

The pdf course is an interactive course that starts with the basics of the language and builds to real world situations. The interactive part of the course comes when you click on a word and the Italian audio is spoken. There are also tests at the end of each lesson that you can take to consolidate what you have learned.

Rocket Italian also has 3 language learning games and some flash cards that you can use as educational tools. They are good as a reference guide for Italian words and verbs. The games add a bit of fun and competition to the learning of Italian. They can also be used in between lessons if you need a break from concentrating on grammar or some other aspect of the language.

In summary, I think Michel Thomas Italian is a way to get conversational skills quickly. These are basic skills but they would help you ask for things and not be totally helpless when in Italy on vacation or business. I think Rocket Italian is a complete course that will take several months to go through. You would probably return to it afterwards as a reference resource. You will learn all the skills needed to speak a language using Rocket Italian.

If you are interested in Rocket Italian then visit the Rocket Italian official site.

Learning Italian grammar, like any language, can get a bit tedious after a while. Megaverb is a way to make learning grammar a bit more fun and even a bit easier. If you want to master any language you have to know verb conjugations without a second thought. Megaverb helps you do this.

MegaVerb starts by offering you the tense that you want to practice. You can select more than one tense if you feel confident. If you are just starting out then it is best to stick with one tense.

Once you have selected the tense/s you go to another screen that gives you the infinitive of the verb and the person that is conjugating the verb. Your task is to type in the correct verb and ending for that person. This is actually quite difficult, especially as you have to get the exact spelling correct. This includes accented characters.

You are asked 25 questions and given four attempts to type in the correct answer. At the end of the questions you are given a score. This score indicates your level of understanding and if you should go to the next level.

So you will learn how to spell a wide variety of verbs, including using accented characters. If you use it often, you will develop a good understanding of how a verb should look for a tense and person. By writing the verb and it’s ending you will develop an understanding of the correct verb conjugation. It beats learning it from a book and can be played as a break from the proper Italian lessons and audio in the Rocket Italian course.

For more details of MegaVerb and the complete course, visit the Rocket Italian website.

MegaAudio looks and plays the same as MegaVocab. You have up to 20 topics to select from. The topics range from simple vocabulary words to more applied words like things you may hear in a shop or restaurant. Once you have selected a topic you go to a new screen.

The screen has 6 pictures with the English word underneath each picture. A word or phrase is spoken in Italian and you guess which picture the spoken word represents. There is a replay button that can be pressed if you want to hear the word again. When you pick a picture, the game gives you the Italian equivalent word and tells you if your guess was correct.

You are given a score of the number of questions that you answered correctly at the end of the 20 questions. Depending on your score, you may decide to go onto another topic or do this topic again.  The levels get harder as you move on and become more real world as opposed to simple vocabulary.

I think MegaAudio will help you learn comprehension and pronunciation skills. In reality, the pictures and English words are of no use to you unless you have some inkling of the word you are hearing. So you won’t learn new words based on the pictures but you will learn how to pronounce the words. If you repeat the words after the speaker and try to perfect the pronunciation you will develop a decent Italian accent of the words spoken. You will also get experience of hearing words from a native Italian speaker.

For more details of the MegaAudio game and the complete course visit the Rocket Italian website.

Rocket Italian has 3 games that help you to perfect some of the skills you need to speak Italian. The games are called MegaVocab, MegaAudio and MegaVerb. This post covers MegaVocab and asks can it really help you learn Italian ?

As the name suggests, Megavocab is a game that helps you learn vocabulary.

Once you have the basics of the grammar down one of the biggest things holding you back is a decent vocabulary. However, picking up vocabulary is a hard thing to do in any language. It generally just comes with time and practice as you speak more Italian, hear more words spoken to you or ask what the word for something is.

But speaking Italian all the time is not always possible if you don’t live in Italy or another country that speaks Italian. So how do you learn vocabulary ?

Most educators agree that using audio-visual cues to communicate and reinforce the meaning of a word is the best way to teach vocabulary. By repeatedly seeing an image or image and sound together, a link or connection in the brain forms.

This is the principle behind flash cards that are a popular way to learn vocabulary. Flash cards are basically picture cards with the Italian word underneath or on the other side, to describe the picture.

You can play games with flash cards against your friends or other students. For instance they may show you the picture and you have to give them the Italian word. The game element makes the learning of new words more enjoyable and gives the student a bit more emotional involvement in the learning process. And the visual element makes the link in your brain a little stronger.

Rocket Italian MegaVocab is basically a digital set of flash cards turned into a game.

The breakdown of the game is as follows :

• 20 separate topics to choose from.
• Each topic concentrates on the type of words that might be associated with the topic, some examples being shopping, colors, food, times and tourism.
• When you select a topic, you are taken to a screen that has a photograph, 4 Italian words down the side of the picture and a box where you can display the English word for the picture.
• Your task is to click the Italian word that corresponds to the picture.
• Each topic asks you 25 questions and keeps a score of your correct answers.
• At the end of the questions, you are given a percentage of correctly answered questions.

Depending on your score, you can go onto another topic and set of vocabulary or repeat the same topic.

The box where you can toggle the English word on/off is useful at times because some of the pictures do not make it clear what word is being asked for. For instance, a picture of black cat may be looking for the answer black rather than cat. This is sometimes confusing but in most cases you get the context of the picture and what is being asked.

The MegaVocab also has a feature where you can add your own pictures/questions to the system. This is a handy feature as you can pretty much create a huge digital inventory of flash cards. This can keep the game fresh and test you or your friends on a whole variety of topics and words.

In my opinion, Megavocab is a useful vocabulary learning tool. It is easy to use and gives you feedback on how you are doing. It can make a potentially boring task of learning new words interesting or can be played as a break from the proper course lessons.

Find out more about MegaVocab and the whole course by visiting the Rocket Italian site.

Rocket Italian Reviewed is focused on how to learn Italian using a home study course. A home study or self study course is good because you can use it whenever you want, and with some courses pretty much wherever you want. This is great for people that lead busy lives but in order to get the most out of your self study course you also need a good deal of motivation and determination to reach your goal of speaking Italian fluently.

This site will cover a few learn Italian courses, including Rocket Italian, that can help you learn to speak Italian. It will detail how each course works and point out the good and bad points of each. On a more general point, it will highlight the aspects of learning a new language that a typical self study course cannot really help with and  suggests some way to get round these problems.