Monday, March 16, 2009

Proven Techniques Help You Speak French - Guaranteed!

By James Redder

Learning to speak a second language is one of the most rewarding challenges that you can undertake. Learning the native tongue of the countries you travel adds wonders to an already thrilling experience.

You will find many courses to choose from if you are looking for a course that will teach you a foreign language. How do you know which courses excel at their job and which ones fail to make the grade? You certainly do not want to waste your money on an imperfect course! This site has been erected in order to share our experience with anyone who wants to learn how to speak French.

I have chosen to review Rocket French which has been produced by a company called Rocket Language Ltd. Marie-Claire Rivire wrote the course who is a native to France. This company prides itself for producing high quality language learning courses which include Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, German, French and the American Sign Language.

The first module contains 31 audio tracks that will have you speaking some basic words after your first lesson. The course instructs conversational French which means you will be able to converse with native French speakers in your travels. You will feel comfortable speaking with the locals, asking for directions, ordering in restaurants etc.

The package includes the actual transcripts of the audios and I found that particularly helpful in following along. Each audio is about 20 minutes long which means the full module is about 11 hours of content. The methods used within this content will allow you to absorb and speak modern French quickly. Eleven hours seems like a lot I know, but with the use of the audio tracks the time goes by very quickly and effortlessly.

This program includes software which not only makes learning fun but easy as well. MegaVocab is the title of the first software application.

This is a vocabulary recognition tool. I found this very helpful in the beginning especially. You basically run through a series of words and you learn the words through repetition, and an association with a picture. It's sort of like the flashcards you used to learn with when you were a kid.

The software has 1000 words and pictures built into it, but it also allows you to add more words and pictures of your choice as you advance with the language.

Once I began to learn the vocabulary, the next step was to go on to the MegaAudio software. I then began to feel self-confident with all I had learned.

Exercises are provided that both test and improve your recognition of the spoken French words. You will always have a unit of measure for your progress as the system will provide a score with each exercise.

For me, this software was very enjoyable to use. It is one thing to learn the vocabulary of a language and quite another to understand it when it is spoken. In my opinion, this is where the Rocket French program excels and leaves the other programs falling short.

Another sweet aspect of the Rocket French program is that it is not considered to be just an introductory course. It was designed assuming that the student has no knowledge in the language when just beginning. This course goes on to an advanced level as well. This increased the value of the program because I would not have to go out and buy a more advanced course as I made progress with the language.

One very impressive part of this course is that of the 'members only forum'. It is here where you can not only get your questions answered but you can converse with other students as well as the Rocket language online instructors. In my opinion, the forum made the cost of the Rocket French program a real bargain. If you happen to get stumped by something, you will be able to find lots of help on the forum.

My closing comment involves the pricing of this course. I wanted to get started straight away so I was delighted to find that they offered a download option which means they don't have to ship out CD's, software and printed material. They offer a two hundred dollar discount if you choose the download option (which is what I did). I was then able to listen on my computer, burn the material to a CD, and even load audio onto my ipod. By purchasing the downloaded course I was able to save myself two hundred dollars and I picked the course up for just under $100.

There is also another benefit that the people at Rocket offer. The course comes with a 60 day money back guarantee with no questions asked. When considering the quality of the material, the software, the bargain price, the forum participation and the guarantee, I can only bestow upon the Rocket French program the highest rating of 5 stars. If you want to learn a second language, you will have a difficult time beating this program's quality.

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