Rocket Japanese bills itself as Japanese learning software when in reality it is a complete audio and text learning course with a few flashcard programs tacked on. Rocket Japanese is still a useful, even effective, way to learn Japanese; just don’t be fooled into thinking that you’ll be getting an interactive learning experience like the ones that are in our top 3. And just because Rocket Japanese ranks lower than them doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not effective at teaching Japanese; it just means that it doesn’t stack up well when classified as Japanese teaching software.

Disregarding the ebooks and audio lessons and focusing solely on the software, Rocket Japanese is simply a flashcard program. There are three separate programs, all focusing on vocabulary. With MegaVocab and MegaAudio you can work on retention and word recognition through images and sound clips that illustrate vocabulary. The most useful program in Rocket Japanese, however, is MegaHiragana. This program allows you to learn and memorize the hiragana characters and the sounds they represent. Unfortunately, Rocket Japanese doesn’t provide any help with the other two major Japanese alphabets.

One of the benefits of having such a simple set of programs is that they are easy to use. The audio lessons and ebooks make the entire Rocket Japanese curriculum easy to use, whether you use a computer or a mobile device. Ultimately, the Rocket Japanese suite is well thought-out and covers all the fundamentals, but it is light on interactivity. If you want a traditional Japanese curriculum with some supplemental software, Rocket Japanese is top of the line. If you want a complete interactive software program, try one of our top 3 programs.