Rocket German Review

Rocket German is an online German course and app from Rocket Languages. It comes in three levels making it suitable for beginner to intermediate German learners.

Rocket German doesn't have quite the same flashy marketing as bigger names like Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur or Fluenz. It's also nowhere near as cute as that Duolingo owl. But you'll see a lot of people talking about it because it seems to offer a whole lot, without costing the earth.

On first glance it can be a bit hard to understand exactly what you're getting with Rocket German: There are podcast-style lessons, a grammar course, and a bunch of other tools for each lesson with a sugar-dusting of gamification, badges, awards and other trinkets.

So how does it actually work?

Let's take a look.

The first place you start in Rocket German is with the "Interactive Audio Course".

The Interactive Audio lessons are essentially podcasts. You can listen to them on your computer, download them to a music device, or access them through the app. They're all around 20 minutes long, which is a good length for me: Long enough to learn something, but not so long that it gets dull.

The audio course covers the most essential German you need to survive, and it gets you "functional" fast. But if you want to become fully fluent in German, the audio course isn't going to get you all the way there. 

So Rocket German also comes with a more detailed written grammar course that can be used alongside the audio course. (They call it the "language and culture" course, but it's mostly grammar and vocabulary, with a few extra cultural insights included.)

This is more like a traditional-style German course. They cover in greater depth all of the nitty-gritty that the audio course skims over. The explanations are straightforward, and there's a lot of that lovely clear audio built-in, so you can practice hearing and speaking the words.

If you don't like learning all the technical grammar points in these lessons — that's ok. I'd recommend that you just stick to the interactive audio lessons, which are much easier to digest.

Once you start to get a little bit more curious, or you bump up against something you can't figure out, you can come back to these lessons.

(Curiosity is the best fuel for learning!)

One of my biggest weaknesses when learning a new language is that it's tempting to skip through the material too quickly. I think I understand it, so I move onto the next section. Then it all evaporates from my memory when I need it most.

Rocket German gives you a bunch of tools at the end of every lesson to make sure you've fully mastered every single angle of the material before you move onto the next step.

It tests your listening, your writing, your pronunciation, and your ability to find the right words when you're under pressure!

The tests use a self-rating system (so it's up to you to be honest) and spaced-repetition (so if something is difficult, you'll keep seeing it until it's easy). I've found these exercises challenge me to slow down and really learn the material, and my recall and confidence is better.

One of my favorite tools is the flash card game — simple but effective.

If you've ever been afraid to speak your German out loud, for fear that nobody would understand you... you'll like this next feature.

Every single audio example in Rocket German has a voice-recording tool built in, so you can record your pronunciation and see how good it is. 

The tool is based on similar voice recognition technology to the technology in your phone that lets you give it voice commands. 

The idea is that if you can get it to understand your German... you'll probably be easily understood by an actual German-speaking person. Right? 

There are three difficulty levels that are supposed to require more refined pronunciation. In my testing I didn't notice much difference between the levels, but it could simply be that my German pronunciation is sehr gut.

You can try it out on the Rocket German website, about halfway down the page.

• Anyone who needs a fast grasp of some German basics: The Interactive Audio Course is a great introduction. It's fun to listen to, teaches you a surprising amount, and it gives you real, usable German building blocks from very early in the course.
  
  
• Anyone who wants to become fluent: The addition of the "language and culture" lessons means you can dig deeper and learn more grammar and vocabulary. Rocket German comes in three levels so you can go all the way from beginner to advanced.
  
  
• German learners who have trouble getting German to "stick": The testing tools are really useful for locking the material into your memory, and they're fun as well.
  
  
• Anyone taking a German course who wants extra help: The "language and culture" courses and testing tools can be used alongside another course for revision and practice.

• It gives you meaningful results, fast: The course is front-loaded with useful language, so you can actually start using it from day one. This is a lot more motivating than courses that start with grammar basics, and it means you're more likely to stick with it.
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• But it's also includes a really comprehensive grammar course: So that after that initial burst of accomplishment, you can also dig down and learn the finer details of the language. This is a course that just keeps giving.
  

• It's good for different learning styles: Rocket German offers different approaches to learning German. You might learn best through tests and games, or through listening to the audio course, or by reading through the lessons. You can pick the strategy that works best for you.
  

• But it's not a gimmick: Some language courses are little more than fancy games that make you feel like you're doing well, but don't really help you become fluent in German. Rocket German is, underneath, a rock solid traditional German course with some fun ways of approaching the tried-and-true material. (Yes, there are 16 ways of saying "my" in German. Yes, Rocket German will teach you all of them.)
  
  
• There's an app for iOS and Android so you can do the entire course from your smartphone or tablet.
  
  
• No software to install on a laptop/desktop. It's an online course, so you just go to their website, log in, and it all works. No need to download anything or muck around installing things. It just works.
  
• Good bang for buck: At the time of writing this, you can get the first level for under a hundred bucks. That gets you 29 interactive audio lessons, 34 "language and culture" lessons, 2051 voice comparison phrases, 61 flash card sets, and the full suite of testing tools. That is a LOT of material, and it will take you a long way towards fluency. If you're after value for money, this is for you.
  
  
• Not a subscription service: It's a one-off purchase, so there are no ongoing subscription charges of any kind. You'll also get free updates for life, so you don't have to worry about it getting outdated.
  
• There is a 60-day money-back guarantee. This is the real clincher for me. You can buy it, try it, and if you don't think it'll work for you — get a full refund. Because it's an online course, you don't even need to pay for return postage.

• Allows you (possibly) too much freedom: The layout lets you jump around to whichever lesson you like, and doesn't insist that you pass tests before moving ahead. This gives you the freedom to use the course however you like, but it might be too easy to push ahead before you've truly mastered material.
  

• Occasionally pedantic tools: On a couple of occasions the testing tool told me I was wrong, when I was technically correct. (For instance, when I gave a shortened "wie geht's?" instead of the full "wie geht es dir?", or vice versa.) On the plus side, there was an option to report an issue with the phrase — so I did — and I received a courteous email from customer support within a couple of days saying that clarification had been added to the tool. Nice!