The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours, often referred to as the Divine Office, are the two official prayers of the Church. All other forms of prayer fall under the category of private devotion, which the Church neither requires or regulates.
As noted above, the Rosary has certainly been encouraged by many great saints. However, this does not make it a requirement in anyway for being Catholic, even a very devout one. In fact, many thousands of saints managed to have edifying and meaningful prayer lives well before the Rosary came into being.
Furthermore, while certain private revelations have indeed promised things to those who pray the Rosary, no Catholic is obligated in anyway to accept private revelations of any kind. Private revelation is not part of the deposit of faith and a good Catholic can accept all of them, some of them, or none of them as he/she so desires. Even if a pope accepted it along with every bishop and priest in the world, you could still be a good Catholic if you did not believe in it because again, private revelation is not something which requires assent on the part of the individual Catholic.
The caveat to all of this might be if one joined a particular religious community (
Dominican Laity, Secular Franciscans, Third Order Carmelites, Benedictine Oblates, etc.) which had a certain private devotion as an important part of their spirituality. In that case, one could reasonably be expected to pray a particular private devotion. The Dominicans for example, have a strong devotion to the Blessed Mother, and private revelation suggests the Rosary given to St. Dominic by her. As such, the Dominicans tend to place some emphasis on praying the Rosary. In contrast, the Benedictines have no such tradition. Instead, they focus on the private devotion of Lectio Divina, and monks as well as Oblates to some extent are expected to work that into their private prayer lives outside of Mass and the Divine Office. I know monks who pray the Rosary, and I know monks who do not. They are good monks either way. However, in these examples, one would obviously know these things going in, so one would be making a free and open choice to commit to a particular spiritual approach and its associated forms of prayer.
If you wish to continue to try to pray the Rosary and are looking for a resource to help, I recommend this youtube page. It sets the Rosary and other devotions to music, and provides artwork related to the mystery you are contemplating, which helps one to focus on the contemplation of Christ rather than the words one is speaking, which is pretty much the whole point.
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL784E4033C996322D
But remember though, it is not a requirement, and you are not a good or bad Catholic based upon your like or dislike of the Rosary or any other form of private prayer.
