Rocket Spanish Review

What is Rocket Spanish ?

Rocket Spanish is a Spanish learning course. Unlike many other Spanish learning products, it can be downloaded over the Internet. It took me about 25 minutes to download it with a broadband connection. The Rocket Spanish site has a provision for dial-up Internet but I believe this would take longer to download. (There is also a provision to buy the course as a hardcopy but it is considerably more expensive than the downloaded version and will take longer to receive)

What level is Rocket Spanish ?

The courses caters for people new to learning Spanish. It aims to take beginners, through intermediate levels, to an advanced knowledge of the Spanish language.

How does it teach Spanish ?

The course comprises 31 lessons.
The first 12 lessons are beginner lessons. 9 intermediate lessons build on the basics. The remaining lessons are more applied and feature real life situations where you can follow a conversation, for example, in a restaurant.
Each lesson can take between 30 minutes to 1.5 hours, depending on the skill level of the student and the knowledge of the topic being covered.

How is a lesson taught ?

The topics of the lesson are introduced along with any new Spanish words. The student will read through the introduction. Any Spanish words can be clicked on and the audio for the word will be heard. The audio takes the following format : first, the English equivalent is spoken, then the Spanish. Then there is a pause and the Spanish is spoken again. This gives the student a chance to speak the Spanish and practise 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 end the lesson.
The Random button can be pushed at any time and a Spanish sentence or word from the current lesson will be spoken. This can allow the student to practise conversation and comprehension for this particular lesson.

Any other teaching methods used ?

There are two games that are used to teach :
MegaVocab - vocabulary recognition, match one of 4 pictures to a word picked at random by the software
MegaAudio – comprehension, listen to audio of a word or sentence and guess which of the 6 pictures represent the audio.
These games are useful to consolidate the knowledge learned in the lessons or as a warm up exercise before the lessons begin.
Flash cards are provided :
154 beginner flash cards
123 advanced flash cards

What is good about the course ?

The course builds from beginner to advanced. It will give the student a complete grasp of the Spanish Language at the end of the course.
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 are a bit misleading at times which makes guessing the correct words difficult.
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 ?

If you are still unsure about Rocket Spanish then you can sign up for the

free 6 day course . This will give you a taste of the full course and how it is taught.
Once you have bought the course, you will be sent the Rocket Spanish newsletter every fortnight. The newsletter has a new lesson in each issue.

Summary

I think the content and scope of the Rocket Spanish course represents good value. Although it will take some work for a new student to learn Spanish, Rocket Spanish can certainly make this effort easier.
Go to the Rocket Spanish website for more details and testimonials.

Rocket Spanish have two educational games to help you learn Spanish. They are :
MegaVocab
MegaAudio.
This post will talk about MegaAudio.

MegaAudio is similar in structure to the MegaVocab game. You can select from 20 topics that range from fairly specific topics like colors to more practical topics like tourism. 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 Spanish and you have to guess which picture the spoken word represents. There is an audio replay button that can be pressed if you didn’t catch the word the first time or need to hear it again. When you pick a picture, the game gives you the spanish equivalent word and says if the guess was correct or not.

You are asked 20 questioned and given a score of the number answered correctly at the end of the questions. This gives you an idea of how you are doing and whether you can move to another topic or redo the current topic.

I think MegaAudio is effective in teaching comprehension and pronunciation provided you take it seriously. 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 however you will learn how to pronounce the words. If you repeat the words after the speaker and try to mimic their pronunciation you will develop, with a bit of effort, a decent Spanish accent.

For more details of the Rocket Spanish course and how to get a free 6 day course visit the Rocket Spanish site.

Rocket Spanish have two educational games to help you learn Spanish. They are :
MegaVocab
MegaAudio.

This post will talk about megavocab. As the name suggests, the game is aimed at teaching you vocabulary. In some respects I think vocabulary is pretty hard to pick up.

It isn’t something that you can learn in a scholarly manner. The word just has to stick in your head so that it is triggered whenever you see an example of it. I think the best way to get a word stuck in your head is to use it in conversation. This seems to form a link in the mind; maybe even an emotional connection with the word. Once you have used the word, you will find that you remember it. Use it a few times and it will be part of your Spanish vocabulary.

Of course speaking Spanish all the time is not always practical if you are living in a country that doesn’t speak Spanish so how do you learn vocabulary ?

Common teaching methods are to use audio-visual materials to reinforce the meaning of a word. By repeatedly seeing the audio-visual material it is hoped that the connection in the brain will form. Another simple technique is to use flash cards. Flash cards are, essentially, home made picture cards with the corresponding Spanish and English word underneath or on the other side of the picture. The flash cards can be used to play vocabulary games. So you could play at guessing the word for a picture, against another student, and the one with the most cards at the end is the winner. It is hoped that this ‘competition angle’ provides enough emotional involvement in the learning process that the words being learned might stick.

Megavocab is a digital set of flash cards.

There are 23 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 and drink, tourism etc.

When you select a topic, you are taken to a screen that has a photograph, 4 spanish 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 Spanish word that corresponds to the picture.

Each topic asks you 25 questions and keeps a running tally of the number of correct answers. At the end of the 25 questions, an overall percentage of correctly answered questions is given. This can give you an idea of whether you should repeat the topic or do another one.

I found that the box where you can toggle the English word on/off was useful, as sometimes, the picture was a bit misleading. For example, a picture of new shoes would be displayed and the correct answer would be new. My first thought would be that the answer was shoes, so this feature helps. But I would try to keep the english word toggle on as a back up, as this makes it too easy. You start associating the spanish word with the english word and not the picture, which isn’t the point of the exercise.

The megavocab also has a feature where you can add your own questions to the system. You can add your own picture, spanish word and english word. In effect, you can create your own digital flash cards on any topic you desire. Given that there are many websites where you can get free pictures, you can create a flash card on virtually any word you can think of. I imagine this process of finding the word and picture might help you to learn the word anyhow so it’s a useful feature even though it might be time consuming to create hundreds of original entries.

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 is also a bit of fun to play when you need a break from the lessons.

Find out more about MegaVocab and the Rocket Spanish course by visiting the official site

Rocket Spanish Reviewed provides a comprehensive review of the popular Spanish language course Rocket Spanish . We hope to give you enough information about the product so that you can make the right decision when it comes to purchasing a Spanish language course.

We also provide tips and advice on how to learn Spanish in the most efficient and effective ways possible.