Babbel - Learn Languages

a step up from the owl, but similar to other language learning platforms, you can mostly click through it and progress in lessons without having to demonstrate much recall or application. Still, there are many more voice tracks in normal adult voices, and every lesson has a longer dialog section that puts together the elements of the lesson. The audio tracks seem higher quality, as slow playback is smoother.

When I first started it had some AMAZING features! I loved that I had a variety of ways to learn - flashcards, live classes, games, podcasts, lessons... But they seem to be getting rid of features. I'm really tempted to find another app. Please bring back your variety!

Bought full version so I could use it offline. Does work offline, but only certain modules, which you have to navigate to by ignoring error messages. Not appealing experience. Phone home button overlaps the app and to click "agree" on Babbel you end up clicking the home button instead. So the program minimizes. Try clicking disagree instead, and it crashes. White screen of death. The regular content isn't worth all this. I got a refund. Mango works nicer offline and the library pays for it.

I changed my lanquage from Spanish to Portugese because I'll be traveling to Portugal in October. Unfortunately the app is only for Brazilian Portugese, but big the problem I am having is that it provides no information about the Portugese alphabet or how certain letters of the alphabet are pronounced. When I practice saying the vocabulary, most of the time I get the word or phrase wrong and I have to listen to voice several times to try and understand how to pronounce certain word or phrases.

I greatly prefer this method of learning where grammar is part of the learning process instead of trying to sort out why parts of speech are in a specific order. I find the incorporation of speaking, spelling and selecting the option to be well balanced and most suitable to my learning style. I used another, game like, language tool that was helpful, but was not meeting my learning needs. I have progressed much faster in my goal of becoming fluent in another language with Babbel..

Speech recognition is incredibly frustrating. I also use Duolingo, which picks up my voice without issue. Babble struggles if there is even a fan on in the room (it won't recognize my voice unless it's perfectly silent in the room) and with single words or short phrases (it will flag something incorrect unless I press the button to talk, pause a couple seconds, then say the word slowly).

I like that the sub-lessons are broken into different units, but the speech portions can get a little tricky. In some languages, you can speak and it'll register with no problems. In other languages, it has a hard time accepting what you say even if you've said it correctly. Has a lag issue as well when waiting for it to accept your speech when you recite their words/phrases. Also when sentences are said to you, the speaker goes faster than lesson levels speed should be at

I wanted to give this 5 stars because the AI conversations are an awesome idea, but the thing that kills it for me is the voice recognition is terrible! Everytime I have an exercise that requires me to speak it never recognizes what I'm saying. I am definitely saying it correctly. The problem is it can't deal with even the slightest amount of background noise. In a quiet room it's ok, but if someone is talking or I'm walking outside it can't handle it. Fix this problem and this is 5 stars easy.

Navigation in the app is terribly confusing. Lessons are organized by Topics or Courses, but the lessons seem to overlap, and the organization is awful. I tried keeping an outside list of topics I wanted to revisit, but with inconsistent labeling of units, lessons, and parts of lessons, I'm just lost. I like the way it teaches the reasoning behind the grammar, but if I can't find my way back to the lessons, the app is infuriating.

I love the customer service! (which was literally NON existent in ANOTHER language app). I would like if they could have a ✔️ when a section is completed. I lose my place, when there's so many options (off-shoots) to take. I'm afraid, I'm missing parts of lessons. When repeating a phrase, I want the ability to click on individual words, many times its spoken too fast for me. (I do realize that some phrases have words "run together,") but I need to know how pronounce an individual word.

So far, I like it better than Duolingo. However, I came here to complain that the app says I made a typo every time that I use the French keyboard's accent key, instead of choosing the accented letter by holding the letter key. Also, there is no place for me to report these kinds of issues except for reviews. Otherwise, I am enjoying it quite a bit

The app itself works well and has some solid exercises. However, there have been multiple instances where I've completed the lesson, have seen my steak updated, then logged in the next day only to be shown that my steak has either been ended or saved by a steak-freeze. I will update my review to 5 stars once this bug has been fixed

I wish I'd know, from the app store that this was a totally paid experience. I wanted to see if it was better than others I tried or if my learning would progress more quickly and fully. But before I could see if it was useful or if I wanted to subscribe, I had answered a zillion questions and was hit with an "Okay agree to pay and then you can see if you want it." And it's expensive.

I would love the ability to pause during "listen to dialogue" playback, as well as the ability to control playback speed. if I take too long trying to remember a certain word, then that ruins the rest of the dialogue playback because now I've missed an entire sentence or more. it gets overwhelming. also, after hitting pause, the option to either continue where I left off, or start over from the beginning.

Im enjoying the app so far. I do like how it breaks things down, gives you easy to understand explanations, and all the extra study material you get. An issue I have is when they are trying to give single letter pronunciations it is hard to understand. It's like the sound files are cut too short and you can't understand. However, I have enjoyed it better than other language apps.

I'm conflicted on how to rate Babbel. I'm using Babbel to learn French. For the first several months I was very happy with the app. The lessons were excellent and did a great job of explaining verb conjugation and grammar concepts. However, once I finished the B1 level lessons, it just dropped off. There were only three B2 level units and then that was the end of it. Luckily there's other subject specific lessons I can use to keep expanding my vocabulary but it's still disappointing.

horrible app. the speech feature only works about a third of the time, the rest of the time you can't even press it. I joined mostly for the live classes and they took those away. the lessons offer no cohesion and I felt more lost on this app than any other approach I've used. frustrating and not fun, which is the complete opposite of what should happen during learning a language. they did refund me, hence the 3 stars.

It's okay. I like that it explains more than Duolingo, but the lessons can get pretty repetitive, not to mention stuff that just isn't relevant. There were multiple lessons on talking about environmental pollution yet no lesson on animal names or buying groceries. Also, not happy that I have to use Spain Spanish instead of Latin American because the latter only had two levels to go through. I'm glad I didn't buy the lifetime subscription. Just a year then I'll probably drop it.

Babbel, unlike other language learning options, ACTUALLY teaches you the language rather than having you memorize words. It teaches you the diffrent concepts, and why diffrent letters make that particular sound. It teaches grammatical concepts early on and makes sure you understand everything. It does cost money, but the first lesson is free so you can test it out. I dont normally spend money on these types of things but it is 100% WORTH IT!!

Switched over to Babbel since other language learning apps were starting to make their lessons with AI and it showed. So far, I really like the lesson structure! It feels more in-depth and the pop-up tips have been very helpful. Lifetime membership was kind of costly, but since it cost me about as much as a couple years of the competition and I can see getting more use out of it than that, was a good deal for a good learning program!

**Lowered to two stars because after a year the problem with speech recognition persists.** Now I can say something clearly as possible and it still says I'm not getting it right. I am having a lot of issues with the speech recognition bugging out on me. Other than that it's great, but the app gets stuck trying to recognize my pronunciation and I can't do anything about it.

I've lowered my rating because the speech recognition is absolutely atrocious for single words, to the point it completely halts the pace of the practice session. For example if I say sechzehn (zeck-tsayn) the app repeatedly will hear it as, of all things, Ladegerät (la-deh-ger-eht). This applies to nearly every time a word is spoken on its own and not in a sentence. Everything else is great but speaking practice becomes a gamble between infuriating and productive.

App is serving its' purpose: teaching a language. Vocabulary is okay, except some random things (paragliding, really?) are emphasized to the neglect of more useful, everyday words. Grammar lessons are opaque, not intuitive. Voice recognition is essentially non-functional (Android) despite adjusting phone settings. All that said, it is better than alternatives I've tried. Edit: Also, skipping through some dialogue lessons now, not particularly useful or relevant.

The babbel specific keyboard - which you have to use for answers - is often unresponsive and misses key presses, which causes wrong answers. Trying to learn more than one language at a time using this app is a real pain, as you need to go into nested settings to switch languages. These are not huge problems, but the fact that I pay for this service makes them less acceptable. If it were completely free, I would give it four stars.

A couple things, the UI isnt intuitive at all, and the phone app isnt the same as desktop, i got it because they had an app. Once you answer a question it quickly moves to the next. So, if you get it wrong, you dont get time to review it. You get a quick glance and its gone. You can't go back to look at it unless you redo the section, but the same thing will happen when you do. So it's impossible to review a question unless you take a screenshot

Overall I like the app. It has taught me things I didn’t know before and I continue to learn from it. I’ve been learning German every day for two years now and started this a few months ago. I like the speaking part, though I’m not sure why I have to hold my finger on the screen the whole time I’m talking. The word and phrase reviews are helpful. I’m not sure I’m a fan but the word scramble is OK. I love the stories. What frustrates me the most is that I am expected to remember perfect spelling of words I just learned and there is no room for any sort of mistake. Imagine visiting the home of someone that speaks a foreign language and you missed the slightest thing and get slapped with a ruler. Wrong. Any wonder why you might want to stop talking? I mean I spelled Waschmaschine as Waschmachine. Wrong? Yes. And the app is happy to tell you that. Pretty discouraging. I also don’t know that I agree with them using a non-Apple keyboard input because many mistakes I find are due to that keyboard versus Apple’s. I like the app and continue to use it. I just disagree with the beat down and I am frustrated enough to write about it. Babel tells me I’m supposed to go to Babbel wish board for any suggestions yet clicking on go to wish board does nothing. Makes sense. Hi there! Thank you for your message. We are really glad to read that you have had a good time with Babbel and that our app has helped you in your path. Remember we are here to assist you, keep up the good work and have a Happy Learning!

First off, this language app is far superior to any other language app out there. I used it for three years while living in Germany and had a yearly plan for German. I just moved back to the states and hadn’t been using the app for awhile due to the move preparations and process. Today I tried to use the app and consider switching to Spanish but all my German data was gone and it said my access was only limited. However, when I look at my subscriptions in my phone settings, I still have my annual German language subscription; yet when I go into the app and try to restore purchases there are none to be found. Tried to find a way to contact a human through the app and their website, but couldn’t find anything. I suspect the problem lay in the fact when I moved back to the States and got a new phone and US number it messed with my subscription somehow. But if I am unable to contact a customer service person, how am I able to troubleshoot on my own. My annual subscription was set to renew in 3 days so there’s not much time to figure it out before I get hit with another annual charge for something that doesn’t work. So i cancelled my (non-functioning) subscription via Apple, deleted the app and came straight here to review. So take my fresh emotions tirade for what it’s worth. This app was great while it worked, but todays prices for the subscription I already had is now twice the price. Hi there, we apologise for the time taken in this matter. Our support team is receiving an important amount of messages at the moment, delaying our response times. We appreciate your patience in this matter, you will receive the attention and solution that you deserve. Please, make sure you have send us an email to [email protected], we will be shortly with you solving this. Kind regards

I’ve been using Babbel for about a year now, solely studying French, and I’ve been doing trés bien. The spacing of each review is effective, memorable, and helpful for communicating generally. I feel efficient speaking the language while also being able to confidently pronounce my words correctly. Many of the leçons are unique and I personally find them to be funny from time to time. Some few problems I have with the app include; being taught phrases that wouldn’t be used in the day to day conversation(even in depth)-the app having occasional listening problems despite my voice being clear(whether that might be my accent I don’t no)-finding myself doing the same set of words for a review back to back-& glitches that will cause me to close out the app and restart from the beginning of the lesson. It’s just a shame I wasn’t able to revisit France due to the World’s pandemic or I would’ve been able to really enjoy the experience. Besides, it’s a splendid effort

rHi everyone at Babbel. I think that this is really a great app to help people learn Spanish. But the one issue that I have is that I am a black African American woman and I am a native English speaker. I have spoken English for most of my life, no other languages. But now I have just met a guy that I am seeing and he speaks Spanish, he knows English but he does not know a lot of English. So I have to learn his language so that he and I can be able to talk to each other and get to know each other. But it’s alittle difficult with this app because they teach you basic phrases but not enough to have a full everyday conversation and form sentences. Also some of the phrases that they teach are Stuff that you wouldn’t use in regular conversation. Like people being from Germany or France. I understand they are trying to make sure we get a well rounded education and that’s good. But I don’t want to be a pro at Spanish, I want to be fluent enough so that I can talk to my guy. I know i just started a few days ago and I know I am not gonna be fluent fast. But I am just saying teach me how to form sentences with the phrases I am learning. Other than this, I think Babbel is a great app for people who already know the language and just need to brush up on their skills, not really for a beginner. Hello Dacia, thanks for your review. We're always working to improve our user experience, and really appreciate you taking the time to share your comments. Learning a new language is a subjective procedure, and different methods work for each person. Please submit your idea on our Wishboard: wishboard.babbel.com

I finished the first lesson and learned a few words! I am doing french just to pass the time, its not like i am going to france or anything and need to learn it. Since there is no true NEED for me to learn french and i was just doing it for fun, my mom would not let me pay for lessons. In ads or commercials i have seen, it says it is free. I did the first lesson, didn't have any problem with anything, and I really love the way it teaches you! The only thing is I wont be able to learn anything beside, hello, goodbye, and how are you? Since im not aloud to buy anything. At first i thought it was an add, but then i clicked away from it and tried to re enter the lesson, and it still didnt work! It really is a great app, but maybe you could give like the first tenn lessons free or something, and then you can give the option to buy the next ten lessons with money, and every time you get a question right you could get like stars or something and buy a lesson with stars. Im just saying this for people like me who dont want to spend their money on this app if they are not using it for anything, they should still have the option to learn! Also, you should add a few more languages. I was signing up and noticed thst there was only like six. The real reason I downloaded it was so i could learn greek. Definetly would be the best app ive ever tried to learn a language with if not for the price! God bless! Hello, thanks for your message. We are dedicated to keeping education accessible, which is why Babbel offers free and paid lessons and free podcasts. You can do 20 - 60 lessons for free in 14 languages (each first one of every course). So, there’s a lot to explore! You only pay for full access.