Rocket ItalianThis Page is a Rocket Italian Review –Click Below if You’re Looking For:

I bought some old cassette tapes from a yard sale a few weeks ago. The tapes were one of the best-selling Italian language courses from about ten years ago.

I put them in my cassette player and tried to listen to them, but couldn’t get through the whole program. The course was actually pretty decent, so it wasn’t a matter of quality. I kind of just got bored since I wasn’t really learning anything new; my Italian was already more advanced than the course’s curriculum.

A beginner could pick up some basic Italian phrases and vocabulary by listening to those tapes, but they would probably learn just as much or more from a cheaper Italian beginner’s book. The real value of those tapes comes from the ability to actually hear the correct pronunciations.

I’ve studied Italian since middle school, back before the internet was around. Since then, technology has revolutionized education and the process of learning. But a lot of the glut of high-tech language learning tapes, videos and software just rehashes the same stuff over and over again.

I’ve gone through several Italian language programs and courses. Some are tolerable, some are pretty bad. I was just about to finally come out and subscribe to the belief that the only way anyone could ever truly become fluent in Italian was by living abroad in an Italian speaking country and being fully immersed in the language.

That is, until I discovered something truly ground-breaking; something that completely shattered everything I thought I knew about the most effective way to learn to speak Italian — Rocket Italian.

Now, I know that sounds pretty crazy. If I would have heard someone say something like that about an Italian language course, I would have had some trouble taking them seriously. But in my honest opinion, the creators of Rocket Italian are not joking when they say their course will help you “learn Italian like a ROCKET!”

So, what is Rocket Italian all about?

rocket italian premiumIn a nutshell, it’s a large collection of Italian language learning tools that you can download and start using immediately. You also have the option of getting the physical CDs and books shipped to you by mail. But the download will save you a lot of money, so it’s probably the better choice.

The backbone of the Rocket Italian course is an interactive audio course designed to get you speaking useful conversational Italian quickly. The audio course consists of 4 parts that include grammar and vocabulary exercises.

The audio course is designed to be interactive, and I find it to be a lot more fun than other similarly designed courses. The interactive course makes you feel comfortable and at ease while going through the exercises, which makes time fly.

You’ll find yourself having so much fun through positive reinforcement that you’ll be pretty surprised when you realize you are actually learning a lot of practical Italian.

After finishing an audio lesson, you can study that particular chapter in the conversational books included in the course.

The audio and book lessons are just the tip of the iceberg though. You’ll also get MegaItalian — a software platform for games that you can play to greatly increase your Italian language skills.

The games are fun and engaging. But the best part about it is the ability to change the vocabulary you want to focus on. That way, you are able to learn what you want to learn.

Rocket Italian covers a lot of material, enough to take you from a beginner to a fluent Italian speaker. The course is very comprehensive, but at the same time flexible enough to allow you to learn Italian in whatever manner you prefer.

It’s also important to note the overall high quality production of the Rocket Italian package. There is one thing I am a bit skeptical about though. The Rocket Italian course claims to make its users fluent in Italian in three months.

Now, that certainly will be possible for a small number of people blessed with a natural affinity for learning languages. In fact, I know a guy who speaks 7 languages fluently; he is able to learn languages well enough to talk to native speakers in about 2 to 3 months.

But for people like you and me, results like that aren’t going to be handed to us on a silver platter! If I wanted to achieve fluency in a foreign language like that, I’d have to work consistently every day over a period of months.

But if you are willing to do that and seek out other Italian speakers to practice with, I am pretty confident the average person could achieve fluency in about six months with the Rocket Italian course. Of course it could take longer or shorter, depending on your level of commitment and access to other Italian speakers.

Is Rocket Italian Scam?

rocket italian vs. rosetta stoneIt’s not a scam, in fact Rocket Italian is sold by a well-established company that sells language learning tools for different kinds of languages. They are so confident that you will be speaking Italian in no time with their product that they are even offering a 60 day money-back guarantee for it.

And if you’re still skeptical about the whole thing, you can always try out the 6 day Free Italian course so there’s absolutely no risk if you just want to try it out first before buying.

One thing I am sure of though is that this Italian language program will help you learn Italian faster and more effectively than any other course on the market. It’s probably the most entertaining one as well.

There’s something else I should mention. The folks over at the Rocket Italian website are offering 6 free lessons that will give you a taste of what’s to come in the full package. It would be nice if other language courses caught on and let their potential customers sample their product before purchasing.

As for the makers of Rocket Italian, the author, Maria DiLorenzi, is a native Italian who comes across as a nice lady. You really get the feeling she enjoys sharing aspects of her culture and language. The editor, Alex Marino, is a fluent Italian speaker who used to live and work in Italy. He is the brains behind the interactive audio course concept.

I went to Italy to study Italian a few years ago, and I wish I would have had access to this course or something like it before going. I would have had a much easier time in the beginning, and probably would have come away learning a lot more Italian, and having a much richer experience.

Rocket Italian vs Rosetta Stone Italian

Rocket Italian and Rosetta Stone Italian are popular self study courses for learning the Italian language. This article will compare and contrast these two courses in terms of their quality, how they teach Italian and which course may suit your style of learning.

To start with, these courses have some marked differences in how they teach Italian.

The aim of Rosetta Stone Italian is to immerse you in the language. This means you will not see any English cues when the lessons begin. Everything happens in Italian and you have to figure it out.

This is a bit like the immersion process of learning Italian, where you might be in Italy and have to get by speaking Italian. Another parallel could be as you learned your mother tongue, purely by hearing the words and making some kind of connection to the meaning of the word.

It works as follows :

A lesson consists of a number 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. Once you have listened to the audio you must select the image that corresponds to the audio.

You go through the whole lesson in this fashion. Each lesson has a particular theme, say colors or two verbs. At the end of the lesson you are told how many answers you got right. If you get all the questions right you could advance onto a harder level.

You may think this sounds a bit simplistic but Rosetta Stone uses this method to quite an advanced level. It is more than just learning vocabulary and some fairly complicated sentences are also used as questions.

They use this 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 Italian ScamRocket Italian takes a slightly different approach. Basically, Rocket Italian uses a combination of teaching methods in their course. I believe they have looked at the successful elements of courses like Pimsleur/Michel Thomas and Rosetta Stone to give the student three distinct ways of learning.

So you get an audio course which is similar to the Pimsleur/Michel Thomas types of teaching. They have an interactive PDF course along the lines of a traditional book course. And they have 3 games that are similar to how Rosetta Stone works.

In terms of details, the audio course is 31 15-30 minute lessons. The lessons deal with basic Italian through to everyday situations like going shopping or talking to people at a birthday party.

The audio follows the narrator, a native English speaker and his native Italian speaking friend. The English speaker introduces the lesson and does the teaching by illustrating points and asking you questions. The Italian speaker speaks the Italian parts so that you get to hear an authentic accent. You are advised to say the words or sentences after her aloud.

The end of the lesson involves recapping what has been learned and then answering some questions posed by the narrator. You are given time to answer and then the Italian speaker gives the answer.

The second part of Rocket Italian is a PDF interactive course. This course has lessons from beginner through to intermediate/advanced levels. This is where you are taught grammar, shown how verbs are conjugated and introduced to new words. You will learn more about reading and writing in Italian. There are a number of questions at the end of each lesson to help you consolidate your learning. It is termed interactive because you can click an Italian word and you will hear audio of it spoken. This can help you with pronunciation if you say the word afterwards.

The Rocket Italian games are called MegaVocab, MegaAudio and MegaVerb. They work on the same principles as the Rosetta Stone method in that they use pictures and you have to answer a series of questions.

In the case of MegaVocab and MegaAudio, you have to guess which picture is correct after hearing the written or spoken Italian word. In MegaVerb, you are asked to type in the correct conjugation of a series of verbs in terms of the tense and person that is speaking.

There is also two sets of flashcards that you can print out and play with your friends.

If you get Rocket Italian you are given access to a forum where you can ask questions about the course or about the language. There are people there of varying levels of Italian and they can help you with your studies.

The Rocket Italian team will send follow up lessons to your email address occasionally.

Rocket Italian Review

Good points of Rosetta Stone Italian

  • Unique way of learning – no books or writing things down.
  • High quality images and generally professional looking system.
  • Track your progress through a scoring system.
  • A system that can analyze your speech (need your own headset/microphone though).

Bad points

There are three courses (beginner, intermediate and advanced) which are separate products. So you have to buy all three if you want to use Rosetta Stone to advanced level. This makes it quite expensive and most people only get the first level because of this reason.

This approach has no formal instruction, particularly in grammar. It relies on repetition and consistency to work. Some people might not like this style of learning.

Good points of Rocket Italian course

Value for money. You get an audio course that can be used separately from the other parts of the package. The pdf interactive course is also a course in itself, that teaches the finer points of the language and grammar. The games are helpful but not as comprehensive as Rosetta Stone. The forum and follow up emails with extra lessons are good to keep you motivated and develop a sense of community.

Bad points

The meaning of some of the images in the games are ambiguous so you need to use the show English word button from time to time. This kind of defeats the objective of the games because it makes it too easy.

So, I’ll end the review here! My recommendation is that if you are looking for a course that will really make it easy to learn Italian at home quickly, go and take a look at the Rocket Italian website.

Right now, they are offering the full downloadable course at half price. I’m not sure how long this discount will last, so take advantage of it while you can.

Click Here To Visit Official Rocket Italian Website

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