I figure this is an important question to ask up front. So what other options are there besides Rocket Russian? Rocket’s also available in the following languages: French, Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, Arabic (Egyptian), Italian, Hindi, German, Chinese (Mandarin), Sign Language (American) and English (for Spanish speakers). Rocket Russian is basically the same except that it includes some extensive reading and writing lessons in Cyrillic. This makes learning more enjoyable and far less stressful (and a more natural way to learn!). Rocket Russian makes use of what I named the ‘chunking approach’ (my own developed language learning method) which means that lessons are delivered in bite-size pieces/chunks rather than explicit grammar rules. Lessons are presented as podcasts but also accompanied by audio dialogues and vocabulary which suits those of us who don’t like long English explanations.
There is only one level aimed at total beginners (although the material takes you through to a good lower-intermediate level if you use the Travelogue). Unlike some of the other editions offered by Rocket Languages however, it doesn’t have all 3 levels and therefore it’s not quite as useful for higher-level learners. Rocket Russian is a very comprehensive audio course for learning the Russian language. Well I wish I’d known about Rocket Russian at the time. They were extremely helpful tools but weren’t courses. When I lived in Russia recently doing my Russian immersion in Kazan (see here), I almost exclusively relied on Earworms MBT Russian and Glossika to get me started but there just wasn’t much else beyond that (apart from a few textbooks!). There are very few good choices when it comes to online courses for learning Russian.