Rocket Chinese Review  

Reviewer: Tony Chen

Rating:

Website Reviewed: Rocket Chinese

Since I started to teach Chinese few years ago I loved writing reviews about Online Chinese Lessons and learning software. I have used some Chinese learning programs in the past to learn Chinese but have never really researched them. I thought it’s just simple a program and I just needed to buy the one suited my budget.

How silly was I? After I became a teacher I started to realize a good Chinese learning program could save you a lot of time and frustration. So I spend some time to really get in to the detail and find the best online Chinese Lesson for home study. After reviewing many courses my attention finally dropped on Rocket Chinese Learning Program.

What to look for when buying online Chinese Lessons

There are few important things you should keep in mind when looking for Chinese Lessons. These are:

• Do they teach you PinYin?
• Do they teach you tones?
• Do they explain how and when to use the word?
• Do they cover the basic conversations in daily life?
• Do they teach you how to read Chinese Characters?
• Do they teach you how to write Chinese Characters?

What is Rocket Chinese

Rocket Chinese is a product of Rocket Language Ltd. It also owns some other great language learning course such as Rocket Spanish, Rocket German, Rocket French, Rocket Italian, Rocket American Sign Language and Rocket Japanese. Rocket Chinese is created by a native Chinese Lady called Lin Ping. 

What’s inside?

There are thirty-one audio tracks that teach you word by word to speak those basic Chinese words and phrases. From each audio the Chinese lady Lin Ping will demonstrate the exact pronunciation of the words and an English speaker called Dave will explain the meaning and how to use those words. I love Dave’s explanation it’s clear and easy to understand. Even my students who have no basic at all could start to learn right away by following the audios. All lessons are presented

in conversational Chinese.

Each audio track covers a situation in our real daily life. You don ’t only learn how to speak the Chinese words you will also learn how to use them. After you complete this module you should be confident to have basic Chinese conversation about order food in restaurants, bargain for shopping, asking for directions, etc. Each of the audio is about 25 minutes.

The time set up is good, because 25 minutes a day is not difficult to do. The package also includes the transcripts of all audios. My students said the transcripts are especially helpful. It has the Pinyin, Characters and English translation. You will be fully understood all lessens without much difficulty.

How about tones?

Chinese is a tonal language, the same word with different tones can mean various. Speaking Chinese without tones is like speaking English without stress and syllables. In this program, they start to teach tones from the very beginning and reinforce the tones all the time through the lesson. My students who went through the course they could handle tones very well.

Can I learn how to read Chinese?

Beside the audio lessons, Rocket Chinese also includes software that help you learn Chinese effetely and more enjoyable. MegaVocab and MegaAudio are the software it includes. 

MegoVocab is a great tool to assist you improves your Chinese vocabulary. The concept of this software is similar as the flash cards. You will learn vocabulary by recognizing words and pictures. This is the great way to learn vocabulary especially for beginners and also your reading skill. The software comes with 1,000 pictures and words. If you think it ’s not enough you can add more pictures and words. You can actually build up your own vocabulary database as your

Chinese vocabulary is increasing.  

MegaAudio is software that practice and improve your understanding of Chinese in spoken. You will listen to the audio and then recognize the right pictures and words. This is a great tool to practice your listening. Listening is the most important skill of learning a new language. Each exercise also has score to measure you progress.

One thing I 'm very impressed is about the Rocket Chinese Language and Culture Lessons.

If you are serious about Learning Chinese, you can ’t only just know the words and sentences. You also have to understand the culture in order to level up the comprehension of your Chinese. I have met students who knew a lot of vocabularies, but when they speak his Chinese still sounds like English sentence.

This is one thing I think that makes this product stand out of other Chinese learning courses. In my opinion, the Language and Culture Lessons are the best aspect of this course. With these lessons you will be confident to speak more native Chinese. Can you imagine how happy you will be when you travel to China and have nothing to worry about? Because you are confident about handling all the communication in Chinese?

Writing Chinese…

Rocket Chinese has supplied videos to teach you how to write Chinese Characters stroke by stroke. I like this function, because usually when people learn to write Chinese from a book, it’s hard to figure out all the strokes at one time. With these videos, you can easily follow the structure without frustration. You can check out the sample videos at Rocket Chinese Official Site

You're not alone...

Rocket Chinese also provide a forum for people who purchased this product. It ’s for members only, so you have to buy the product to get the access. But the forum is a place where you can ask questions and communicate with other people who are learning Chinese. There will also be online instructors to help you and answer your questions. This is actually what makes you learning more interactive. You won ’t feel you are learning this language alone.  

What Others Are Saying

“It's a very, very good course - I can really recommend it, even if your native language is not English”

“It only takes a few minutes out of the day, every day. It is so quick that you could use it during the summer to keep up with school...”

Click Here to See more about What People are Saying

I 've been teaching Chinese for 8 years now and Rocket Chinese is one of the best Online Chinese courses I recommend to my students. I know there are a couple of other courses are as great as Rocket Chinese, some of them even has more features. But if you look at the price you will know why I recommend Rocket Chinese. Those similar courses will cost you about $300. You can get the Rocket Chinese with less than $100 which I think is affordable to almost everyone. This is for the downloadable Edition. Rocket Chinese also offers the Hardcopy Edition which is a physical product. But you need to pay about $300 for it.

If money is issue, I strongly recommend the downloadable version. In my opinion the downloadable Edition is pretty satisfying. You can download the whole package and burn the audios into CDs to listen when you are driving. One of my students downloaded the lessons into his iPod and listen to it when he is jogging. However, to work with Rocket Chinese on computer is the most effective way to learn from this course.  

I have just checked the official site of Rocket Chinese, they have a special time limit offer. If you order now you will get a nice bonus pack about survival Chinese, which covers a lot of daily basic phrases you must learn.  One of the bonuses from the pack is specifically featuring tones. With this feature bonus you will be a master of tones which a lot of people are struggling to handle.

If you have made the decision seriously to learn Chinese, then the Rocket Chinese is the first recommendation from me.