RocketFrenchReview.com

Rocket French changed when they added an audio course to the whole package a while ago.

I think this makes the course vastly superior to the previous version which only allowed you to click on a word or sentence to hear the pronunciation.

The new course is 31 lessons of about 20-30 minutes in length.

The basic format of each lesson is a scene involving the narrator of the course and his native French speaking friend.

So for example, they might be in a restaurant and they would have a conversation revolving around things you might say at the restaurant.

After the conversation the lesson would work through the conversation explaining points of grammar, vocabulary and, most importantly, pronunciation.

The narrator is an English speaking person and he will guide the teaching and explain concepts and meaning of French words.

The native French speaker speaks all the French conversations. She will say a sentence and then say each of the words or pronunciation chunks separately so that the listener can repeat the pronunciation after her.

I found this really useful to get good pronunciation and reminded me of the Pimsleur course which uses the same sort of method for pronunciation.

The native French speaker generally says all the sentences once and then pauses allowing the listener to say the sentence out loud. They stress that you have to speak the words out loud to get the pronunciation right.

At the end of each lesson the narrator recaps the points of the lesson. They will run through the conversation again and then he will ask a few questions that try to incorporate what you have just learned into what you learned in previous lessons.

The interactive part of the audio lessons involves speaking the sentences and pronunciation chunks after the native speaker and answering the questions that the narrator might ask. If the narrator asks a question, there will be a pause that allows you to answer, then the native French speaker will give the correct answer.

As I say, I think the audio course, in conjunction with the games, e-book course and flash cards makes the Rocket French course good value for money. It will definitely help you to learn French or improve your French if you have a basic understanding. I think the audio will give you more confidence to speak to real French people, which is half the battle when it comes to becoming fluent in a new language.

For a review of the other components of the Rocket French course see my Rocket French Review .

Go to the Rocket French website for more information.