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An Honest Review of Rocket Korean With Image of Korean Scenery

Rocket Korean

Rating 3.0

Summary

After trying Rocket Korean, I came away pretty disappointed. In part, this is because they don’t do a great job of teaching Hangeul, which leaves learners unable to read even very basic Korean. I thought this, coupled with the repetitive exercises, made Rocket Korean uninspiring. There are better courses that will help you build a sturdier foundation while also being more enjoyable to use. If Rocket Korean is for anyone, it’s for learners that are willing to supplement with resources that teach Hangeul well and for those that don’t find a less-than-exciting course, though it is structured clearly. It probably isn’t the best option for learners on a budget or those that want to learn to read.


Quality 3.0

Very repetitive review exercises that aren’t particularly well done.

Thoroughness 3.0

Does a poor job accomodating a different writing system.

Value 3.0

Too expensive to justify the cost.

I Like
  • The cultural lessons are written with a lot of depth and are interesting to read.
  • A good balance between the spoken language and grammar explanations.
  • Lots of opportunities to practice speaking throughout.
I Don’t Like
  • You’re taught Hangeul but never learn to read, which makes remembering words that much harder.
  • The Rocket Reinforcement exercises basically amount to rote memorization.
  • The writing lessons are slow and of pretty poor quality.
Price

There’s only one level of Rocket Korean which costs $99.95. You can also pay in six-month installments which costs $19/month.

Having previously tried several of the Rocket Language courses, I had a good idea of what to expect from Rocket Korean. That said, it’s a bit different than the courses for other languages; some parts are done better, and others need some serious improvement.

Like many platforms that teach several different languages, Rocket Languages struggles a bit to provide good, comprehensive materials for languages that aren’t written using romanized letters.

Compared with other Korean resources such as 90 Day Korean, I found Rocket Korean to be lacking in a lot of ways.

This review will take an in-depth look at everything Rocket Korean has to offer: the good and the bad.

Course Overview

Unlike many of the other courses offered by Rocket Languages, there’s only one level to Rocket Korean. This makes it only suitable for beginner level students.

There are eight modules throughout the course. These modules contain four types of lessons:

  • Interactive Audio Lessons
  • Language and Culture Lessons
  • Writing Lessons
  • Survival Kit Lessons

The eight modules contain a total of 31 interactive audio lessons, 32 language and culture lessons, 26 writing lessons, and 10 survival kit lessons.

With the exception of the writing lessons, each type of lesson also includes their Rocket Reinforcement activities. They’re a way to practice what you’ve learned by completing a variety of exercises. We’ll get into this a bit later.

For now, let’s take a look at their interactive audio lessons.

Interactive Audio Lessons

These lessons typically last between 20-30 minutes. There are three hosts, two of which are Korean, and the third is from the United States. The Korean hosts will speak Korean throughout, while the American host explains things in English.

The lessons start out by reviewing what you had learned in previous lessons before moving on to new material.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Rocket Korean wasn’t stuffed with the corny, cringe-worthy jokes that plague many of the other Rocket Languages courses. This made the lessons flow much smoother and more naturally. But still, compared to a resource like KoreanClass101, the lessons are pretty dry.

The audio lessons often start with a dialogue which is then broken down and discussed, providing translations with slow and clear pronunciation of words and phrases.

They’re interactive in the sense that you’re meant to participate and speak throughout. In fact, you probably won’t get much out of them if you don’t speak along with the lessons. In this regard, they’re a bit similar to Pimsleur, though Pimsleur will give you stronger speaking skills where Rocket Korean will give you a better base in grammar and the written language.

I liked the way that the hosts explained the grammar throughout. They also did a nice job of adding in interesting cultural elements along the way.

Following the audio lesson, there’s the Play It! section in which you can practice the dialogue by speaking the role of either host. Here, the host you didn’t select will have their lines played automatically, and you’re meant to fill in as conversation partner.

In this section, and throughout Rocket Korean, you’ll record yourself speaking Korean. Their voice recognition software will give you a grade based on how well you were able to say the lines.

It’s a nice way to encourage you to speak more Korean, but, just like the voice recognition software for any language-learning resource, it’s not all that great. Although you can adjust how strictly it grades you, I didn’t notice too much of a difference between the easy, medium, or hard levels.

I definitely wouldn’t want to trust it as my sole source of feedback. You’d be much better off finding a tutor from italki to work with for this.

The Korean hosts also speak more Korean than just what’s included in the main dialogue. While it’s definitely hard to understand for beginners, this will get easier; plus, you can see and re-listen to the extra stuff that was spoken in the Extra Vocabulary section below.

Again, you can record yourself speaking these lines and receive a score based on how accurate you are.

After reviewing the extra vocabulary section, you’ll find the Rocket Reinforcement activities.

Rocket Reinforcement

The Rocket Reinforcement is a major part of the interactive audio lessons, language and culture lessons, and survival kit lessons. This is likely to be the part of Rocket Korean where you spend the majority of your time.

Unfortunately, it’s not especially good.

You’ll review what you had learned previously by completing numerous exercises. But, they’re all rather dull and basically amount to rote memorization.

The Rocket Reinforcement includes the following components…

  • Flashcards
  • Hear it! Say it!
  • Know it!
  • Quiz
  • Play it!

Now we’ll look at each of these, one by one.

Flashcards

Although there are a few different options for how you utilize their flashcards, they’re not particularly exciting. Basically, you’re just given a word and need to think of the translation. You’ll then flip the card and give yourself a grade.

The fact that the cards are so ugly doesn’t help, but it’s not even my biggest issue here. I think flashcards are really useful for studying, but most people would be better off using a platform like Memrise or Anki instead.

Those platforms are much “smarter” than Rocket Korean. Instead of just using brute force and repetition to memorize things, as Rocket Korean does, those other platforms utilize a spaced repetition system (SRS). That basically means that the more often you remember a card correctly, the longer the interval before you see it again. Likewise, if you make a mistake on a certain card, that card will show up more often.

This can save you a lot of time and help you study more efficiently.

Hear it! Say it!

First, you’ll listen to a word or phrase in Korean and then record yourself saying the same thing. Again, you’ll receive a grade based on how accurate your pronunciation is. Additionally, you’ll also grade yourself — hard, good, or easy, based on how difficult you found it.

Know It!

In the next type of exercise, you’ll practice your ability to produce Korean from English. Simply enough, you’re given a word or phrase in English and then have to say it in Korean.

Quiz

Next, you’ll have a five-question quiz. Again, it’s pretty simple, but it’s actually pretty well done. Most of the questions will have a few different answers that could be easily mistaken for the correct one if you hadn’t completed the lessons.

These activities really work to give you plenty of practice with the material in the lesson, but it’d be nice if Rocket Korean made reviewing older material a bit more natural. There is a custom flashcards feature that you could theoretically use to this end (without SRS), but it’s not available yet.

Extra Testing

After the Rocket Reinforcement activities, some lessons include an Extra Testing section with a Hangeul practice exercise.

Sort it! Hangeul

It’s nice that there’s an extra option for practicing Hangeul, but it isn’t sufficient for learning how to read on its own. I can only really see it being valuable if you were to be studying Hangeul outside of Rocket Korean as well; this is acknowledged in the instructions.

Language and Culture Lessons

This section is split into two parts. The first part teaches the Korean language — things like pronunciation, the past tense, or prepositions. The second part highlights some interesting aspects of Korean culture.

Both sections are pretty well done.

First, the language part is pretty similar to what you might find in a textbook. There are lots of grammar points that are explained clearly. In addition, there are lots of examples with audio that you can play and practice speaking yourself.

Just like before, you’ll have all of the Rocket Reinforcement activities that we talked about earlier. These get tiring and probably aren’t the most effective way to learn Korean.

There are a lot of words and phrases you drill in this manner, but at this point, you still haven’t learned much about Hangeul, so reading and recognizing the Korean is nearly impossible.

Moving on to the culture section, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality and depth they offered.

While trying other Rocket Languages’ courses, I was really disappointed with how short and uninteresting the culture lessons were. The Korean course does far better than the other languages. Here, the culture lessons are very detailed and interesting.

Writing Lessons

The next type of lesson you’ll find in Rocket Korean teaches writing. In part, I’m happy that they’ve included a writing portion, but I don’t think it’s terribly well done or structured in a way that’s particularly helpful.

In these lessons, you’ll look at two characters at a time. The lessons are disappointingly basic. You’ll learn the name for each of the letters, some advice on how to pronounce it, watch a short video showing how to write it, and are given some example words containing that character.

Perhaps my biggest point of frustration with these lessons, and Rocket Korean in general, is that it doesn’t teach you how to read Korean. It’s also a bit strange the way that you’re only taught two characters per lesson.

This doesn’t make much sense to me. I understand wanting to go somewhat slowly as to not stress students out, but compared with the audio lessons, these are far too simple.

A major issue I have is that you’re simply taught each of these characters and then given some words that contain them, without ever being taught to read Korean.

It’d be like being taught the name for the letter ‘n’, shown how to write it, taught the sound it makes, and are then given the following words as examples:

  • Necklace
  • Nose
  • Never

You never learn how to actually read any of these words. So basically, you can look at each of these words and notice it has an ‘n’ and that there’s probably an /n/ sound. But, how helpful is this really?

This is perhaps my least favorite part about Rocket Korean. Because you never learn to read Hangeul, Korean words remain these confusing and complicated mysteries, making them that much harder to remember.

The sad part is that learning to read Korean is a pretty easy thing to do. I felt like 90 Day Korean did an awesome job with this part, which made each subsequent step feel that much easier. I didn’t have the same feeling with Rocket Korean. It just always felt like an important part was missing.

Survival Kit Lessons

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The final type of lesson is also pretty uninspiring. In these lessons, you’ll basically just be given lists of words and phrases and then memorize them through the Rocket Reinforcement exercises.

I feel like Rocket Korean is a bit old-school in this regard. It’s sort of like if you were to just find a list of words related to whatever topic and then try to memorize them all. Sure, it may work, but it’ll be boring, and they’ll be easier to forget if you don’t have strong associations in your mind.

I think you’d be much better off learning words from context, whether that’s from textbook dialogues, reading on an app like LingQ, or audio lessons from somewhere like KoreanClass101. It’s much more effective and enjoyable to learn words in the context of a sentence and not just in isolation.

How much does Rocket Korean cost and is it worth paying for?

Rocket Korean seems to constantly be on sale. Although the original price is listed as $149.95, I’ve never seen it cost more than $99.95. You could also choose to pay as a monthly plan, which costs $19 per month.

Since this is a one-off purchase and not a subscription, you’ll get access to the materials forever.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t recommend buying Rocket Korean.

Alternatives

If there were no other options, then sure, Rocket Korean would be fine and you could learn a great deal from it. I just like other Korean courses much more.

90 Day Korean is an excellent course and one that I prefer by a large margin. It made me feel like I was making much quicker progress with Korean and building a much sturdier foundation. And although it starts at the absolute beginner level, there are actually four 90-day modules, meaning you’ll be able to stick with it even as your Korean level gets higher. Read our full review.

KoreanClass101 is another good resource for learning Korean. They have tons of audio lessons with accompanying study materials for all levels. I personally find their lessons much more enjoyable to work through. Better still, the basic plan starts at only $8 per month, making it very affordable. Here’s our review.

Finally, the Teuida app is a unique option that could be worth checking out. It supplies learners with shockingly immersive virtual conversation practice and teaches the language through engaging video lessons. We wrote a review of the app here, and you can get the 3-month subscription for a discounted $18.99 by using coupon code, ‘ALR003‘.

Final Thoughts

I’m disappointed that I can’t really recommend Rocket Korean. Although the interactive audio lessons and language and culture lessons are pretty solid, the other sections of Rocket Korean fell short.

I think they struggled largely because of how different the Korean writing system is compared to English. By not teaching you how to read Korean, you’re left in an awkward situation where you may recognize parts of words, but aren’t able to read anything. This just makes everything much harder than it needs to be.

Another issue is that the Rocket Reinforcement exercises are just too repetitive. I could see a lot of learners getting bored and losing motivation. I also think that their brute-force method of memorizing words wouldn’t be a very effective or efficient way to study.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is that the quality of a course can’t be measured in isolation. In a world where there aren’t other options, then Rocket Korean is amazing. But, fortunately, there are better courses available, my favorite of them being 90 Day Korean.

Still, if you’d like to try Rocket Korean, you can get a free trial without needing to give them any payment information.

Still looking for more resources to help you study Korean? Check out these podcasts or these apps.