Two Language Programs, A Lot Of Facts, Just One Choice: Rocket Chinese Or Tell Me More Chinese?

Learning the Chinese language can be tricky, but with the right program, it doesn’t have to be.  However, finding the one that suits you best is another problem.  So here are two language programs that are definitely worth checking out – Rocket Chinese and Tell Me More Chinese. Here is a review and comparison of the two programs.

Rocket Chinese:

The people behind Rocket Chinese have combined the natural, interactive conversational learning approach with tools and features that they claim will have you speaking Mandarin in no time.

The approach that they use has been tried and tested for years.  By who?  By everybody.  This approach is basically an audio course with lots of other features to help motivate and encourage you. The course is a mix of Pimsleur and Michel Thomas in it’s audio content. There are similarities to Rosetta Stone in the Megagames and the testing and motivation are common in most software or computer based learn a second language programs.  So with Rocket Chinese, you will be speaking even at the very first lessons – no matter what level you are. As you go through the course you will develop the other skills needed to master a language.

So let’s take a look at what you get

You will have your very own Chinese host, so to speak, Lin Ping, to help you out and guide you through this course.

To start, Rocket Chinese comes with 31 interactive audio lessons.  With each 20 to 30 minute lesson you will have a modern, casual and useful Chinese conversation that you do not just simply listen to, but you will actually be a part of it.

The basic premise is Lin and her co host David going round China (which is a big place) and experiencing various situations that a typical traveler might experience in China. There are also family and social situations that you might encounter too.

Plus, you can also download these files to your MP3 player and take them along with you and make the best out of your time, like when you are on the road or working out.  With every lesson you will also get a full transcript in Pinyin, in Chinese characters, as well as an English translation.

With this program, you will also have access to 31 language and culture lessons in pdf format if you choose to download them.  These lessons offer over 300 embedded audio clips, tests, quizzes, and various activities.  You will also get writing video clips that teach you how to read and write Chinese characters in an easy to follow process.  Although the main focus of this program is on speaking and listening, having a little background on the written  is a good idea since the characters look nothing like the English alphabet.

MegaChinese integrates fun with learning.  Here you will have two games that are designed to help you with the Chinese language.

MegaVocab, as you can already guess, will help you build up your vocabulary while MegaAudio, which is also pretty obvious, is for your listening improvement.

Rocket Record is aimed at improving your Chinese pronunciation and intonation.  Here you get the chance to record a phrase or sentence then compare it to one recorded by a native Chinese speaker.  With the voice mapping technology, you will be able to try and try and try until the way you say it matches the way the speaker says it perfectly.

To keep track of your progress, you have the Rocket Chinese Rehearsal.  Through the various tests and quizzes, you will be able to see how much you have learned from the previous lessons you have taken.

When all else fails and you still have a question or two about the language or when an area needs just a bit more explaining, you can always contact the online Chinese teacher that is readily available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week or go into the forum and chat to other students of the course.

Tell Me More Chinese:

Tell Me More Chinese stands by what they call the PRIME approach.

P is for Progressive as they claim that no matter what, you are guaranteed to improve your Mandarin.

R is for Real life because the focus is only on parts of the language that you would actually hear and use in everyday scenarios.

I is for Interactive.  This course is filled with tasks and activities.

M is Motivating, because all of these tasks and activities are different so you won’t fell complacent and you will keep on challenging yourself to do better.  Finally,

E is for Effective.

Tell Me More Chinese actually has the bragging rights of a 94% success rate. Whilst I’m not sure what this actually means as many people define success when speaking a foreign language by many different measures. But the point is that they believe their product works.

So here are a couple of things that you actually get with this language program.

With Tell Me More Chinese, you will be able to take part in 18 interactive modern, everyday, Chinese dialogues.  These dialogues are supposed to help you improve your pronunciation and intonation, you will get to learn over 1500 useful phrases and words, plus they are also supplemented by 400 beautiful Chinese photos to help you get the feel of the culture behind this language.

As for Chinese vocabulary and grammar, you will also have a Chinese glossary that has around 3000 recorded words that are most useful in the language.  You will also be able to consult 30 key grammar points when you feel a little lost in this area, all of which are explained and presented in a very simple and clear way.

To further enhance your Chinese skills- writing, reading, listening, vocabulary, and grammar, Tell Me Chinese has over 1500 various activities and exercises.

You will have picture and word association type exercises, word association between Chinese and Pinyin, Chinese and English, and Chinese and Chinese.

You also have the right word, fill in the blanks, and mystery phrase.

Dictation, word order, and crossword puzzles just to name a few more that you will also get with the package.

In fact, there are heaps of exercises and word games that can take plenty of time to work through.

One thing that sets Tell Me More Chinese aside from other language learning programs is the high technology that they use.  For your pronunciation and intonation, the innovative speech recognition technology can actually recognize the four distinctive Chinese tones and is able to evaluate the way you say certain Chinese words and phrases.

The Spoken Error Tracking System, or S.E.T.S., can automatically detect when you are not exactly saying something correctly and then correct your mistakes. They also produce diagrams of how the tongue and lips should move when pronouncing certain words. Not many other courses do this and I actually think this is a better system than just mapping your voice to a bar graph.

The thing that immediately strikes you about all Tell Me More language courses is the size of them . Most are huge and Tell Me More Chinese is no exception. Whilst this is a good thing to some extent, some comments and feedback suggest that the course can be hard to follow and it becomes easy to lose your focus.

There is so much going on that you drift from one thing to the next. I think Tell Me More are trying to create an immersion environment where you can simply immerse yourself in all thing Mandarin and come out a few hours later and slightly more wiser.

This works for kids that have time and even in a home schooling environment where learning is part of a curriculum but I would suggest it is a bit too vague for an adult wanting to learn the language. Or rather, the adult should be prepared to spend a lot of time using the program. One thing that was pointed out by users of the program was that documentation on setting up the software and using it was not adequate and this was a justifiable problem for many people.

To Sum Up:

Tell Me More Chinese has a lot of content and many tried and tested tools to help you learn the language. General usability and documentation could be improved if you wanted to get full value out of the program. At about twice the price of Rocket Chinese that might not be the one to go for.

>>> Check out more on Tell Me More Chinese here <<<

Rocket Chinese doesn’t have the depth of content as Tell Me More in my opinion. They are improving all the time and adding new features like Rocket Record to the tool set. They also seem to be more focused and made for adults and teenagers. At half the price of Tell Me More they represent better value.

>>> Get your own Rocket Chinese site here <<<

So here are two language programs, Rocket Chinese and Tell Me More Chinese, complete with all the facts, all that is lacking is your choice.  You decide.