RocketSpanishReviewed.com

There are quite a few learn Spanish courses around at the moment. These are self study courses that give you the freedom to study what you want when you want. Sounds great, no evening classes that you have to squeeze between work and a busy social life, but the only problem with too much freedom is lack of focus.

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.