Tag Archives: Rocket Italian Course

Rocket Italian Learning Lounge – An Improvement On The Old Course ?

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So Rocket Italian has been updated. It’s not a huge change in the teaching content just the way that the course is delivered. Basically, the course has become more interactive which I think should improve the way that the student learns Italian. The updated course is now referred to as the Rocket Italian learning lounge. This article will detail the changes and determine if the course is now better or worse than before.

Get a 6 day free trial of the Rocket Italian Learning Lounge here >>>

The name of the new course gives a good indication of how it has changed. As far as I can see the teaching content is identical to the original course. But the way you use this content has changed. The creators want you to spend more time at the site. It is a lounge where you get involved or connect with the teaching and even other people as you learn to speak Italian.

Originally the Rocket Italian course was downloaded to your computer and after that it was pretty much up to you how you used it. So you could make a copy the audio lessons to put on your mp3 player and listen to the lessons at the gym, jogging, going to work or whenever you wanted. You would download the pdf grammar books/lesson guides and educational games to your PC and fire them up whenever the urge took you to learn a bit of Italian.

The approach was very much about making it convenient for you to learn which is fine but I think from feedback that the creators have received they identified a few problems with this teaching method. It leaves the responsibility for learning up to you. And ultimately this was a major stumbling block for most people.

In reality most people need a little more “hands on” teaching and inspiration from time to time, particularly when they are struggling with new concepts.

So the learning lounge format was created to remedy these problems. The learning lounge gives more  feedback on the students progress. This is done via the dashboard when you first log in. And also the various quizzes and tests at the end of each lesson or set of lessons.

The Dashboard Tracks Your Progress

Getting feedback helps to motivate a student and is an objective way to tell the student what they need to focus on. The learning lounge has multiple choice quizzes with each lesson. The student is encouraged to take the quiz at the end of the lesson. The answers are marked by the system and a score is returned. If the student passes the quiz, he/she can decide to progress onto the next lesson.

You Get Marked And Rated When You Take The Tests

There are two stages. The first stage is Italian basics. The second stage  is more advanced and focuses on cultural aspects of Italy and more everyday situations where you will be speaking Italian. It consists of 5 lessons. Each stage has a certification test. This is a 100 question multiple choice test that covers all the lessons that have been covered in the stage. This test is quite tough and passing it will give you a great sense of achievement. It will no doubt give you more confidence that you are making progress and inspire you to go onto the next stage or take your learning onto the streets and start speaking to people (if you are in Italy or have some Italian relatives to talk to of course)

I think this feedback aspect of the Rocket Italian Learning Lounge is a great improvement on the original course. Logging in and going through the lessons and taking the quizzes gives the student some structure. It helps them to focus on learning Italian and dials down the distractions. This is a major problem when the student has to take this responsibility onto their own shoulders. So this is good and is more like a student/teacher relationship.

Other than that, the Rocket Italian Learning Lounge still has the forum so that you can interact with other students or ask questions of the course creator or moderators.

Rocket Italian Forum - Talk To Maria

It still has the three educational games – MegaAudio, MegaVerb and MegaVocab. These work the same way they always did. They are desktop applications that you run on your PC.

Rocket MegaAudio Game - Listening And Comprehension skills

You can still download the audio files if you want to listen to them outside of the lounge at the gym or elsewhere so this feature hasn’t changed either.

Other Options To Help You Learn

Part of the navigation system is the Rocket toolbox on the left hand side of the dashboard. You can access the forum from the toolbox menu options.

Other options include my Motivation. This is basically information on how to best use the course and how to learn a second language. It takes the form of short articles that you can read from the screen or print out. So you will get things like “The 5-Step Language Learning Plan” which outlines a plan to follow when learning Italian. Another example is the article “Learn Smarter Not Harder”. This talks about things you can do to make your learning experience easier and more efficient. Things like setting up your study space are discussed along with getting your mindset right.

My Notes is a place where you can type in your own notes on a lesson or some other aspect of the course. These notes are displayed in each relevant lesson so you can really make the course your own. It’s a bit like making notes down the side of a book that you are reading or even highlighting a section. I think this is the aim behind the my notes section.

My Vocab is a feature where you can add Italian words and their English translation. If the word is already in the Rocket Italian system then the audio version of the word will automatically be added. The My Vocab feature lets you build up a bilingual dictionary of words that mean something to you.

Considering that the price hasn’t changed for this new update to the course, I think the learning lounge concept has made the course better. It gives you the option to make your Italian learning more structured and can motivate you by giving feedback. And it has still retained the features that made it convenient to learn Italian if that suited your learning style too.

>>> Get the Rocket Italian course here <<<

Get a 6 day free trial of the Rocket Italian Learning Lounge here >>>

Transparent Italian Complete Edition VS Rocket Italian: Which Program Should You Choose?

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So you want to learn Italian but you don’t know where to begin. The first step to being able to speak this beautiful language is choosing the right Italian language learning program.

However, with the number of programs on the market today that have different approaches, features, and tools, it is easy to get confused.

To help you out a bit, here is a review and comparison of two of the more widely used programs. Notably, Transparent Italian and Rocket Italian. So without further a do, here is Transparent Italian Complete Edition VS Rocket Italian – which program should you choose?

The Approach

The people behind Rocket Italian believe that the best way to learn a language is through the interactive conversational approach, aka, the natural approach. This method is based on how people all around the world have learned their mother tongue way back when they were young. Children learn to understand, listen, and speak before they learn how to read and write. So at the very first lesson, you will already take part in an Italian conversation.

Transparent Italian Complete Edition, however, takes a rather different approach. The creators and developers believe that it is very important to use all of your skills, from speaking to listening to reading and writing, in order to achieve your goal of speaking the Italian language fluently. So the method behind this program is highly modular and is filled with tons of features that focus on developing different skills.

The Learning Tools and Features

Rocket Italian

The Grammar Lessons

With Rocket Italian, you will have your very own personal tutor/guide, Maria Di Lorenzi to take you through all of these neat features and help you out along the way.

Rocket Italian offers you 29 interactive audio lessons that are 28 minutes each in length. In total, that is around 13 hours altogether. Over these classes you will have real life modern Italian conversations that have a casual tone to them so that you will actually be able to use what learn on the streets of Italy. You can even customize these classes so that you learn what you want when you want. Aside from that, all are fully downloadable so that you can learn wherever you want whenever you want by using your iPod, pocket pc, or MP3 player. Not to mention that the full transcripts of the classes are also provided to help you out even more.

MegaItalian is designed to add a little fun to your daily study schedule. Here you will have three games that are supposed to reinforce what you have already learned and even build up on it.

MegaVocab is for your Italian vocabulary.

MegaAudio is for your Italian listening, pronunciation, and intonation.

MegaVerbs is for your Italian verbs and verb forms such as tenses.

Through the Rocket Italian Learning Lounge you will have access to fully illustrated Italian language lessons that will further explain certain things such as grammar, as well as Italian history and culture classes. All are fully embedded with audio clips and are complete with detailed notes.

With Rocket Record, you will be able to record your voice and compare to that of over 1000 phrases spoken by a native Italian speaker. They claim that this will do wonders for your Italian pronunciation as well as your Italian intonation.

>>> Go to the Rocket Italian website now <<<

Transparent Italian Complete Edition

With Transparent Italian Complete Edition, you begin the learning process with their acclaimed Byki. Here you will have access to neat tools that are all designed make Italian easy for you. One of the most important feature is the flashcards that is supposed to build up your vocabulary in no time. Aside from that, you will also have access to other games and quizzes, all which will be recorded in order for you to keep track of your progress. Heck, you will also be able to record your voice so that you can compare it to a true blue Italian’s.

Start By Opening The Virtual Book

The Lexicon Translation Dictionary will give you access to over 65,000 Italian words that you will probably come across here and there. This is yet another feature that is designed to help you build up you vocabulary base.

Unlike Rocket Italian, this program will focuses not only on your verbal skills but also you written Italian through the use of Italian texts, stories, and videos.

The Flashcard system is the recommended start point

One feature that is unique to Transparent Italian is LinguMatch Italian. This gives you full access to 30 virtual reality scenarios that you actually take part in. It is kind of like an RPG of sorts where you can ask questions and answer them as well. You can click on other characters to start a conversation or simply click on objects to learn how they are called in Italian.

LinguaMatch - A Bit Like A Role Playing Game

>>> Get Transparent Italian Here <<<

What You will learn

With Rocket Italian, you will have Conversation practice, grammar, and listening comprehension.

Transparent Italian Complete Edition covers all of that- Conversation practice, grammar, and listening comprehension, and more as you will also focus on reading and writing.

To Sum Up

Basically, if you only want to focus on conversational Italian, then Rocket Italian is perfect for you, but if you want to go the whole nine yards, then Transparent Italian Complete Edition would be a better choice.

>>> Go to the Rocket Italian website now <<<

>>> Get Transparent Italian Here <<<

How To Learn Italian: Rocket Italian VS Pimsleur Italian

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Learning a second language is always a great choice. Learning Italian is an even better one since it is one of the most widely spoken languages in Europe, not to mention that it is by far one of the most beautiful. But choosing the right Italian language learning program is one crucial decision that is not so easy to make.

With so many courses available on the market today, it is easy to get lost in all of the flashy ads and sales talk. So here to help you is an article featuring two of the most popular programs in an unbiased review of sorts, totally honest with nothing but the facts.
How To Learn Italian: Rocket Italian VS Pimsleur Italian. Read the article, consider the facts, make a decision.

The Rocket Italian Approach:

Just like its other language courses, Rocket Italian takes the interactive conversational approach, also known as the natural approach. Basically, this method is based on one that has been tried and tested and proven to be successful for years on end. One that you, me, and basically everyone has tried. Back when you were young, you first learned how to listen, understand what you were told, and speak way before you started reading and writing.

So the people behind Rocket Italian took this method and integrated other features and tools to make the approach more effective, especially since you, the student, are no longer a child.

>>> Go to the Rocket Italian website now <<<

Pimsleur Italian Approach:

Also developed by Dr. Paul Pimsleur, linguistic specialist, Pimsleur Italian basically takes the same approach as all the other Pimsleur language courses but tweaked to fit this specific language better.

The Pimsleur approach is based on two main principles, Graduated Interval Recall and Principle of Anticipation, and supported by two other key factors, core vocabulary and the organic learning concept.

Graduated Interval Recall means that you will be encouraged to remember Italian words and phrases the very minute you start to forget them while the Principle of anticipation is pretty much you guessing and anticipating the right answer briefly before it is revealed in the lessons.

You will also build up your core vocabulary which is a selected list of the most important and useful Italian words using the organic learning concept which pretty much means that you will learn everything from vocab to grammar to pronunciation and intonation while learning common Italian phrases.

>>> Get the Pimsleur Italian course here <<<

Rocket Italian Features and Tools:

Rocket Italian comes with 29 interactive audio lessons that are 28 minutes each in length and focus only on casual, everyday, modern Italian conversations led by your Italian tutors, Maria and Roberto. You can fully customize these lessons so that you focus on what you really need and want to learn. All of these Rocket Italian interactive lessons are 100% downloadable so that you can learn pretty much wherever you want. All you have to do is put the files in your iPod, MP3 player, or pocket pc and you are good to go.

Not to mention that the full transcripts of all of the conversations are also provided to help the entire learning process.

Aside from the 13 hours of conversational audio lessons, you will also have classes on the Italian language and the Italian culture and history as well. The Italian language lessons will provide you with more detailed explanations on certain aspects such as grammar and structure and whatnot while the culture and history lessons will give you a deeper insight on Italy on the whole. All of these are fully illustrated and come complete with embedded audio clips and notes that you can access through the Rocket Italian Learning Lounge.

Rocket Record is an interesting feature that they claim will greatly improve your Italian pronunciation and intonation. What you do is record your own voice following a certain phrase or sentence then you compare it to one spoken by a true blue Italian speaker.

To add a little fun, you have MegaItalian.

MegaItalian provides you with three fun and interesting games that are all designed to help you learn vocabulary, practice listening pronunciation and intonation, and learn verbs and conjugation. You have MegaVocab, MegaAudio, and MegaVerbs.

Pimsleur Italian Features and Tools:

Pimsleur Italian keeps things simple as it isn’t jam packed with various tools and features. Basically, you will have an audio course. In the first ten lessons you will learn the basics, the following ten you will actually build and expand on what you have previously covered. All of these lessons come on CD but you also have the choice to download them to your iPod or MP3 player so that you can learn on the go. Plus, since each lessons is only about 30 minutes long, it is easy to squeeze it into any hectic schedule.

To help you along the way, since you will be speaking and taking part in an Italian conversation right off the bat, you will also have a short textbook.

To Sum Up

If you want something with more tools and features, then Rocket Italian is the obvious choice, but if you like to keep your learning simple, then you should opt for Pimsleur Italian.

>>> Go to the Rocket Italian website now <<<

>>> Get the Pimsleur Italian course here <<<