Learn Japanese with Rocket Japanese - Scam? Anyone tried it?

[Insomnia]

Has anyone tried this before?

http://www.tubeurl.com/learn-japanese

I found it while googling, it's quite expensive, so just asking if anyone
here has tried the above program and had any success with learning
Japanese?

I am really keen on learning Japanese.

[Yudan Taiteki]

I'm automatically suspicious of any Japanese language instruction packages that promise FAST results or to eliminate the difficulty of studying.

[chikara]

There wasn't a lot of response the last time that question was asked.

[two_heads_talking]

Bonobono supposedly tried it a year ago and was going to post up their results.. I am imagining they must have fallen flat as nothing was ever posted up after that.

[furrykef]

I'm automatically suspicious of any Japanese language instruction packages that promise FAST results or to eliminate the difficulty of studying.

I dunno. Of course no package can live up to such promises, but I'd have figured it's fairly standard marketing puffery. It's rather unscrupulous to try to take advantage of other people's misconceptions about language learning, but at least we know better and can make the purchase with a clear head about that side of things.

Anyway, it does strike me as rather expensive at its full price, despite claiming to be cheap: $299.95 divided by 14.5 hours is $20 per hour. An hour is a little less than the maximum capacity of a CD, so a 4 CD set at that price would cost $80, and that doesn't seem right, even with their comparisons to their competitors (which are suspiciously unnamed; how can you even verify the claims?).

At the special download price of $99.95, it does sound OK. Going by our analogy, a 4 CD set at that price would be $27.56, which might be a good deal. What sounds a little suspicious is such a huge discount, though. I mean... why? And the deadline for the bargain is suspiciously close to now, which of course would encourage a lot of impulse buys. (I'd probably buy it myself if I could afford it.)

I'm googling and it looks like they're a legitimate business, though. This page suggests that the money-back guarantee is very likely to be honored, which is really all the assurance you need -- if you don't like it, return it. So we don't really know how good it is, but that doesn't matter as long as you can determine if you like the product within 8 weeks, which should be ample time.

- Kef

[Yudan Taiteki]

I'm automatically suspicious of any Japanese language instruction packages that promise FAST results or to eliminate the difficulty of studying.

I dunno. Of course no package can live up to such promises, but I'd have figured it's fairly standard marketing puffery.

If you can find ads for Genki, Japanese: The Spoken Language, or even Heisig that make those kinds of claims I might agree, but in my experience, the type of learning materials that even have advertisements at all are ones aimed at people looking for magic bullets or one-month cures.

[furrykef]

I don't think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. A resource can be good for people hoping for a miracle cure (although of course it won't be a miracle cure) as well as serious learners. Of course, it could also be terrible for both, like the Instant Immersion series of software usually is. (Maybe the Instant Immersion audio CDs are better; I haven't used them.)

I think 14.5 hours of audio instruction can't be that bad. Audio's definitely a good thing... you can't learn a spoken language without it, of course. That's why I still can't watch TV in Spanish, even though I know most of the words...

- Kef

[Sairana]

I just listened to their example audio from track 11 (lesson 3.5).

I gotta say, it doesn't seem like it does any more than say, Jpod101, and you can listen to Jpod101 for free. For a very tiny fee, you also get access to transcripts, additional exercises, etc. The only thing Jpod doesn't have is the game for reinforcement.

So I dunno.. that's a lot of money to fork over when I could get a similar experience for free.

Although, the Rocket Japanese guy does have a dreamy British accent.

[Dustin]

I have seen many advertisements for this program and cannot seem to find any legitimate product reviews at all.
I searched for MANY MANY hours personally and most of the sites that say how great this product is seem to be shell sites that only talk about it, simply marketing by this company.
I haven't found anyone that has used it, I'd love input as well, see if they can in fact live up to their claims.

In the meantime I will use my pimsleur mp3's on my ipod, and the vast array of materials I have amassed from my local bookshops as well as TheJapanShop.

****EDIT****

I just did a little more digging and they have an affiliate program that offers a 70% profit payout for anyone you can get to purchase this $99 set. That makes it really like a $30 set from the creators and while I am not against people making a dollar, that seems awfully high.
Also, being able to take advantage of their games to learn and recognize by sound a THOUSAND VOCABULARY WORDS really.. does not sell me at all, looking at JLPT specs alone, this won't get you very far.
The only reading I saw them advertise as well seemed to be Hiragana, don't get me on that.
I can't say much about audio as they didn't speak much about it, other than saying you can take part in saying greetings etc. for the intro.
Not where I would spend my money, but that's me.

-Dustin Quigley

[SKushner]

I've tried it for the $99 download price. It's not too bad, although certainly not overwhelming. Audio lessons are always worthwhile, good for listening while in the car, and the dialogs are mildly amusing. It's true that there's no serious attempt to teach Kanji. Overall, I would say that it's very basic.

I've just tried JapanesePod 101 which seems much better, far more comprehensive, and offers 3 different subscriptions ranging from "free" to "premium". The premium is an annual subscription for $180, although I get the impression they frequently offer discounts.........they provide a great deal of material, audio, pdfs, reviews, grammar, Kanji, etc..much more than Rocket Japanese......so far it seems legit, and probably worth the investment. I've just tried it for one month (which I got for $15) so I'll see how it works out.
Has anybody out there tried this one??

Stuart

[AJBryant]

I wouldn't trust it at all.

After all, as anyone would attest, learning a language *ISN'T* rocket science.


Tony

[two_heads_talking]

I
I just did a little more digging and they have an affiliate program that offers a 70% profit payout for anyone you can get to purchase this $99 set.

That right there should tell you what's up.. they are trying to get others to sell it for them. reselling, etc .. so all those shell sites, are just resellers trying to make a buck..

[furrykef]

70%! Wow, I should get in on that action.

[Dustin]

Haha yeah, let me know how that goes for you, there are a lot of positive "reviews" out there for it.

I couldn't sleep at night if I had done it....

[furrykef]

Well, of course there's the money-back guarantee if you don't like it.