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Japanese

An Honest Review of Rocket Japanese With Image of Mount Fuji

Rocket Japanese Review – Exceeded My Low Expectations

Rocket Japanese

Rating 3.7

Summary

Rocket Japanese doesn’t excel in any one specific area, but it’s more well balanced than other Japanese courses I’ve tried. The lessons can be very repetitive, somewhat boring, and rely too much on memorization exercises. But, the various aspects of Japanese are all explained pretty well. Their lessons also push you to speak aloud often while not neglecting things like grammar or Japanese culture. Overall, it’s better than I expected. It will likely appeal more to learners that like a mix of audio and visual content as well as a clearly structured course. Advanced learners, those on a tight budget, or anyone particularly interested in improving their reading and writing skills may want to look elsewhere.


Quality 3.5

Everything works well, but parts of their teaching methodology could be improved.

Thoroughness 4.0

It covers most things well, but reading is mostly ignored.

Value 3.5

It’s somewhat expensive, but the price is reasonable considering everything included.

I Like
  • Balances speaking, grammar, writing, and listening better than other Japanese courses.
  • There are less corny jokes and obnoxious English repetition found in other Rocket Language courses.
  • You’re pushed to speak often and practice the language with lots of exercises.
I Don’t Like
  • There’s too much emphasis on memorization and not enough critical thinking.
  • The lessons are very boring and repetitive.
  • You’re asked to complete writing exercises before ever being taught how to write.
Price

Level 1 costs $99.95 Levels 1 & 2 costs $249.90 Levels 1, 2 & 3 costs $259.90

Rocket Languages, the makers of Rocket Japanese, have courses available in several different languages – many of which I’ve already tried.

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Encore!!! Language Learning Mini-Review: Basically a Phrasebook

Encore!!! Language Learning

Rating 1.5
Price:

Free

Summary

Encore!!! Language Learning allows you to listen to playlists of common phrases, vocabulary, conjugations, and dialogues. It varies in terms of whether it uses native speakers or automated text-to-voice. The app is basically a phrasebook that allows you to practice translating sentences to and from your native language, or simply repeat after an audio in your target language. You can listen to a pre-made playlist, mute or unmute certain phrases within a playlist, adjust the number of repetitions of each phrase, or create your own playlist. You can also test your memory with the Test tool by reading prompts in your native language and translating into your target language. The app seems to focus more on understanding grammar structures than other phrasebook sites like Optilingo or Lingohut. Technically you could learn something by repeating the phrases aloud, but there are many other free apps that provide a clearer learning path and have a more intuitive interface than Encore!!! Language Learning.

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CaptionPop Mini-Review: Use The Free Version

Caption Pop

Rating 4.0
Price:

Free, Premium subscriptions start at $10/mo

Summary

With CaptionPop you can use YouTube videos to pursue your language learning endeavours using subtitles in both your target language and native language. Tap a single key to repeat the last caption, slow down the playback speed, and bookmark subtitles to study with SRS interactive flashcards. The flashcards will not just have you memorize words, but practice dictations with immediate feedback on your accuracy. Unfortunately there are currently some bugs in the programming, and you may only hear part of the caption you are being asked to transcribe. You can search for Youtube videos in your target language within the CaptionPop platform, but only those videos with subtitles in both your target language and your native language are available. This means that you will rely on captions translated and transcribed by the video’s creators, which improves your language learning experience but restricts the amount of available Youtube content. Nevertheless, there is a good amount of content from popular channels in more common languages. The free version of the platform combined with self-made Anki cards may be a better option than subscribing to the premium version, as the bugs in CaptionPop’s programming may not be worth the monthly payment.

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Instant Immersion Mini-Review: No Longer a Good Investment

Instant Immersion

Rating 2.0
Price:

1 level costs $29.95, 3 levels cost $44.95

Summary

Instant Immersion offers programs in over 120 languages, narrated by native speakers. It claims to help you build your vocabulary, converse with ease, and perfect your pronunciation. It has interactive activities on the computer, interactive games you can play with your family on a DVD, and MP3 files for your car. Their topics include food, shopping, restaurants, animals, numbers, etc. In other words, Instant Immersion will probably not help you if you are looking to have immediately applicable conversations A common trend in many reviews is the lack of structure in these courses. While other courses build on what you have previously learned and help you learn vocabulary relevant to your everyday life, Instant Immersion seems to provide a large amount of information without transitions or a clear learning path. There is a lot of content, but this doesn’t necessarily mean you will learn a lot. Instant Immersion may have been a good investment several years ago, but now there are many other options for affordable, quality language learning.

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Kanshudo Mini-Review: A Must-Have, And It’s Free!

kanshudo

Rating 4.0
Price:

Freemium, Premium subscriptions start at $6/mo

Summary

Kanshudo is unique, diverse, thorough, and an overall fantastic resource for anyone wanting to train their reading skills in Japanese. This mini-review can only brush the surface of Kanshudo’s many features. The program teaches beginner to advanced levels; there are a variety of activities to engage in, such as lessons, SRS flashcards, challenges, games, and reading. One of the many neat features of Kandusho is that the more you study, the more coupons you can earn to receive free Pro access. Beginner lessons will introduce you to 5 new kanji, then reinforce your understanding of each kanji through several engaging activities. After completing 20 beginner lessons, you can tackle the next 1000 kanji and more complex vocabulary and grammar. You can take a kanji quiz whenever you like to determine roughly how many you have learned; the site will change its study recommendations based on your score. You can also use Kanshudo with your current textbook — many of the most common textbooks are supported. In the Reading Corner you can find reading practice organized by level. In each text you can click the sentences to receive audio pronunciations, translations, grammar explanations, vocabulary explanations, and a breakdown of each of the kanji (including the radicals within the kanji and mnemonics to remember them).

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Learn Japanese: Bunpo Mini Review: One-Stop Grammar Practice

In this post we review the Japanese learning app Bunpo. While there are a ton of ways to learn Japanese, this app will be of interest to anyone learning Japanese gramnar!

Learn Japanese: Bunpo

Rating 4.3
Price:

Freemium, Premium subscriptions start at $6.99/mo

Summary

Learn Japanese: Bunpo provides simple and clear grammar explanations from JLPT N5 to N1. The app is not intended to be used alone in order to become fluent in Japanese — rather, it is a support for those who want to have a better grasp of Japanese grammar. A good portion of each section is spent on quizzes to test your understanding (although some people may still find that they advance a bit too quickly). There are some improvements that could be made, but overall Learn Japanese: Bunpo seems to be an effective resource for anyone who wants their grammar practice in one place. Learners new to Japanese can enjoy a free introductory level that will provide you with a basic foundation of vocabulary, hiragana, and katakana. For N1-N5 learners, you can try the first section from each of the levels without making any purchases. The paid version includes SRS review, listening exercises, and chat functions with native speakers for support. You can choose to pay monthly, but the Lifetime option is more economical.

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Readlang Mini-Review: A Must-Have For Language Lovers

Readlang

Rating 4.5
Price:

Freemium, Premium subscriptions start at $5/mo

Summary

With Readlang as your Google Chrome Extension, you can have instant translations for words or sentences in over 45 languages at the tip of your mouse cursor (or fingertip)! Browse the internet and effortlessly click on unknown words to get a translation that stays on your screen until it is no longer needed. If you can’t find anything to read on the internet, you can access a bank of public texts organized by word count and difficulty, browse the most popular websites for Readlang users, or upload your own text to study. If you read on the Readlang website, you can see words that you have previously translated highlighted across every text. Readlang collects SRS flashcards for you from words that you have translated. It will only record the most useful words for you to practice based on word frequency lists, which could be either a pro or a con depending on your study goals. Each flashcard also includes audio pronunciation and the sentence from which the word was taken. You can choose to reveal the flashcard to check your comprehension, or type in your response for more effective recall. The free version provides enough for the casual user, but upgrading to an affordable premium membership allows unlimited phrase translations and unknown word highlighting across texts. Although there may be some problems with translations in beta languages, and sometimes it fails to recognize text, overall Readlang is an excellent resource for language lovers.

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An Honest Review of iTalki With Image of Man Working on Computer

italki Review – The Good, The Bad, & The Just Alright

italki

Rating 4.5

Summary

italki is the most flexible and affordable place to find a tutor for the language you’re learning. They have a huge number of teachers offering classes to students of over 100 different languages. As a learner, you’ll be able to find a tutor that best fits your learning style, schedule, and personality. Teachers are able to set their own prices and make their own schedule.


Quality 4.5

You’ll find everyone from long-time professionals to brand new teachers.

Thoroughness 4.0

The overall platform has tons of useful features but also some room for improvement.

Value 5.0

Huge number of teachers, low prices, and flexible scheduling.

I Like
  • There are large numbers of teachers available even for less common languages.
  • You can find skilled teachers even at low prices.
  • The flexibility to schedule lessons whenever convenient. The huge number of teachers guarantees you’ll find someone to fit your schedule.
  • The extra features in the italki Community make it easy to ask questions, get your writing checked, and find a free language exchange partner.
I Don’t Like
  • Community features are only available through the app.
  • You may need to try several tutors before finding one that fits your learning and personality style.
  • It’s easy to not take classes as often as you should.
Price

The prices vary by teacher and language with some being as low as $5 and others as high as $60 per hour. Most will fall somewhere near the $10 per hour range. Right now italki is offering a $10 credit with your first purchase.

It’s very rare for me to recommend a particular resource for everyone, regardless of the language that they’re studying. Usually each language will have their own unique resources that are great specifically for students of that language.

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Sublearning Mini-Review: There Are Better Uses For Your Time

Sublearning

Rating 1.3
Price:

Free

Summary

Sublearning is a very simple website that supposedly helps you learn languages through movie subtitles. You will be presented with 1 to 6 lines of subtitles from your chosen movie, and then you can reveal the translation after thinking about the response. There are 62 source and target languages, which does make one wonder where the translations are coming from; be wary of Sublearning’s translation quality. Just to clarify, the subtitles do not seem to be sourced from the most iconic phrases from your favourite movies; rather, they seem to be random lines from the movie, sometimes as simple as “I don’t think so”. If you’re just looking to reminisce about anything that was said in movies you have seen, you can go to Sublearning to pass some time. However if you’re interested in language learning, I recommend checking out some of the many resource reviews we have on this site.

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Bluebird Languages Mini-Review: Over 160 Languages Available

Bluebird Languages

Rating 2.5
Price:

Free, Premium subscriptions cost $13.99/mo, $144.99/year

Summary

Bluebird Languages has several types of lessons you can choose from, including a daily lesson, core vocabulary, essential verbs, creating sentences, powerful phrases, and conversation. Each topic seems to have a beginner, intermediate, and advanced lesson, although it’s not clear how advanced “advanced” is. In each lesson, an English-speaking narrator will ask you to listen to and repeat translations of various phrases. The recordings in each language seem to use native speakers’ voices, which is quite the feat considering they have lessons in over 160 languages. Bluebird Languages’ phrases don’t construct a replicable dialogue, so the phrases don’t seem to have a lot of context other than the topic at hand. Furthermore, the topics seem to be identical in all languages, so most of the phrases will not be culture-specific. They also don’t break down complicated pronunciation, but you can try to break it down yourself by slowing down the recording to 0.5x speed. Bluebird Languages seems similar to Pimsleur but appears less organized and will probably not improve your communication abilities as quickly. Nevertheless, it may be a good free alternative for beginners, and the program will probably help you develop some confidence in speaking languages that have less challenging pronunciation. The conversation and personalized lessons require a monthly membership, but there is enough free content that these add-ons may not be necessary.

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