RocketGermanReview.com

Two self study courses that are popular at the moment are Rocket German and the Rosetta Stone German course. This article will compare these two course in terms of their quality and how they teach the German language to students.

To begin with, these courses are quite different in their approach to teaching.

Rosetta Stone German tries to immerse you in the language. Thus you will not see any English cues when the lessons begin. Everything happens in German and you have to figure it out. This is a bit like immersion German, where you might be in a German speaking country and have to get by speaking German. Or even as you learned your mother tongue, purely by hearing the words and making some kind of connection to the meaning of the work.

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 just about learning vocabulary. You will be asked questions that involve sentences, which will help you to learn nouns, adjectives, verbs, verb conjugation and adverbs.

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 German takes a slightly different approach.

Basically, Rocket German have tried to put a combination of teaching methods into their course. I think they have taken elements from Pimsleur/Michel Thomas by having an audio component to the course. They have an interactive PDF course along the lines of a traditional book course. And they have even used similar ideas as Rosetta Stone with their games section.

So the audio course is 31 15-30 minute lessons. The lessons deal with basic German through to everyday situations like being in a restaurant or shopping.

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

The second part of Rocket German is 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 German. There are a number of questions at the end of each lesson to help you consolidate your learning.

The course starts out with the elementary aspects of German and gradually builds to real world situations in the later chapters.

The Rocket German games are called MegaVocab, MegaAudio and MegaVerb. As mentioned before, they are similar to the Rosetta Stone method in that they use pictures and 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 German 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.

You receive a mark at the end of each lesson. With this information at hand you can select to go to the next topic or repeat this topic again. A useful feature of the vocabulary game is that you can add you own pictures/questions. This makes it possible to have a huge selection of vocabulary to work through.

There is also two sets of flashcards that you can print out and play with other German language students.

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

Good points of Rosetta Stone German

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.

Can analyze speech but you need your own headset.

Bad points

There are three separate products that take you from beginner to advanced. Each one is quite expensive and the whole set is considerably more expensive than Rocket German and many other types of courses.

This approach is very light on formal instruction, particularly in grammar. This might not be suitable for some people that feel more comfortable and confident by knowing why as well as how something works.

Good points of Rocket German 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 useful but not as wide ranging as Rosetta Stone. The forum and follow up emails with extra lessons are good to keep you motivated and develop a sense of community.

Send out follow up lessons that can keep you motivated and have a forum where you can ask questions and talk with other students.

Bad points

Some of the photographs in the games are not always clear and you have to use the show English word button from time to time.

Go to the Official Rocket German website for more details.