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 6 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 4 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.

I think the Rocket Spanish audio course is very good. It comprises 31 lessons of about 20-30 minutes in length.

The basic format of each lesson is a scene involving the narrator of the course and her native Spanish speaking friend.

So for example, they might be in a restaurant and they would have a conversation revolving around things you might say at the restaurant.

After the conversation the lesson would work through the conversation explaining points of grammar, vocabulary and, most importantly, pronunciation.

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

The native Spanish speaker (Mauricio, the creator of the course) speaks all the Spanish conversations. He 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 method is similar to the Pimsleur way of teaching pronunciation. It might be a bit slow to begin with, but it breaks down each syllable and ensures that you stress each syllable correctly.

The native Spanish speaker generally says all the sentences once and then pauses allowing the listener to say the sentence out loud. They stress that you have to speak the words out loud to get the pronunciation right. As I said before, by saying something it seems to stick in your head.

At the end of each lesson the narrator recaps the points of the lesson. They will run through the conversation again and then ask a few questions that try to incorporate what you have just learned into what you learned in previous lessons.

The interactive part of the audio lessons involves speaking the sentences and pronunciation chunks after the native speaker and answering the questions that the narrator might ask. If the narrator asks a question, there will be a pause that allows you to answer, then the native Spanish speaker will give the correct answer.

As I say, I think the audio course, in conjunction with the games, e-book course and flash cards makes the Rocket Spanish course good value for money. It will definitely help you to learn Spanish or take your Spanish learning to the next level. I think the audio will give you more confidence to speak to real Spanish people, which is half the battle when it comes to becoming fluent in a new language.

For a review of the other components of the Rocket Spanish course see my Rocket Spanish Review and description on how to use the Rocket Spanish games.

Go to the official Rocket Spanish website.

Rocket Spanish teaches 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.

Michel Thomas course is easy to use, all you need is a cd or mp3 player. You can listen to the lessons anywhere, however, you do need to concentrate on the lesson so driving might not be the best idea.

Rocket Spanish can be downloaded from the Internet. This is a great feature as you can be learning Spanish within 30 minutes of having purchased the course. Once downloaded the program starts with a main menu. The main menu lists all the lessons available, with descriptions of the topics covered . It also lists the educational games and the flash cards. All the lessons and games are controlled by the mouse.

Michel Thomas Spanish is aimed a people wanting to learn Spanish quickly. If you are planning a sudden vacation in Spain or a Spanish speaking country then Michel Thomas is a great choice. My only criticism of the course is that Michel Thomas does not have a good Spanish accent. This might not be so good for perfecting pronunciation but his teaching methods are really good.

Rocket Spanish is aimed at people that want to get a fully rounded Spanish language education. It has sections that teach you to speak, listen, read and write. You will spend many hours using the program as an educational tool and as a reference guide for Spanish words and verbs. The games provide a useful distraction when you need a break from the lessons. You can also warm up on the games before starting a proper lesson.

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

Do you have the discipline and motivation to follow through with the course and actually learn to speak Spanish. Most people don’t because they need a carrot and a stick applied simultaneously; they need to be disciplined and inspired to keep going, in equal measures. In the case of a self study course most of the discipline and motivation to learn the language comes from you. Yup, it’s all down to you. You’ve gotta want it.

However it is not completely down to you. The course that you choose can have a significant influence on how you proceed in your Spanish language learning. It can help you to progress and keep you coming back for more. These are the fundamental elements to a successful self study course.

Two self study courses are the Rocket Spanish course and the Rosetta Stone Spanish course. This article will compare the two in terms of how they motivate a student and how they keep the student coming back for more.

First of all, I’d like to say that there is no comparison between the two products in terms of the way they teach you Spanish.

Rosetta Spanish takes the approach that the best way to learn a language is to learn it as you did your native language.

This means how you learned as a baby. There were no notepads, books, vocabulary or conjugating the verb Estar. Simply pictures and sound. Your mother may have placed an apple in your field of vision and said apple a few times. Then she might have started to eat it and said ‘eat apple’. This would all be registering in your head until the day you first say ‘mama’ or ‘ma’. And from then on your capacity for language would grow at an exponential rate using the same method of looking, listening and learning.

Rosetta Stone works like this. A lesson will consist of a series 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. It is then your task to select the image that corresponds to the audio. You would go through the whole lesson, that would be on a particular theme, say colors. At the end of the lesson you would be given a mark on how many questions you got right. If you got all the questions right you could advance onto a harder level.

The Rosetta Stone course uses this method to quite an advanced level. It is not simply vocabulary recognition but quite elaborate sentences along the subject verb object formulation.

They also use the 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 Spanish is a bit different in it’s learning approach.

I think Rocket Spanish have tried to combine a lot of different teaching methods into the one package. Thus they have an audio course of 31 20-30 minute lessons. The lessons deal with basic Spanish through to everyday situations like a birthday party.

The audio follows the narrator, a native English speaker and her native Spanish speaking friend. The English speaker introduces the lesson and goes over concepts in the lesson. The Spanish speaker speaks the Spanish parts. You are encouraged to say the words or sentences after him aloud. Each lesson ends with the narrator asking you questions. You are given time to say them aloud and then the Spanish speaker gives an answer.

The second part of Rocket Spanish is a lesson book. This is like a PDF ebook that has lessons from beginner through to intermediate/advanced levels. This is where you are shown verbs in action and the finer points of reading and writing in Spanish. You will also learn vocabulary and how Spanish grammar works in these lessons. There are a number of questions at the end of each lesson to help you consolidate your learning.

Rocket Spanish have two games that are used to improve your vocabulary and audio recognition. They are similar to the Rosetta Stone method in that they use pictures. You have to guess which picture is correct after hearing the written or spoken Spanish word. You receive a mark at the end of the lesson to indicate how many you got correct. With the Vocabulary game you can add your own pictures and vocabulary making the game as complex or large as you want.

They also have flashcards that you can physically print out and make into cards that can be used to practice your Spanish with friends.

There is also a forum where you can ask questions and practice with other people using the course. From time to time the Rocket Spanish team will send you a new follow up lesson.

Good points of Rosetta Stone Spanish

Unique way of learning – like native language learning

Good pictures and photographs – clear what the meaning of the photograph is in most cases

Track your progress

Speech analysis

Bad points

Expensive for the 3 courses

look and learn method may not work for everyone or they may feel they are not progressing fast enough.

Good points of Rocket Spanish course

Get a lot for the price – audio, ebook, games, forum , follow up

Send out follow up lessons and have forum so a bit more responsive to customers needs

Bad points

Some of the Megavocab photographs are a bit confusing.

Go to the official Rocket Spanish website for more details.

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 details of a free 6 day course visit the Rocket Spanish website.

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 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 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 Rocket Spanish site