Babbel - Language Learning App Reviews

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Pretty good, happy with it overall. First - frustrating glitches. When you’re in a lesson (ipad app) the “close” button doesn’t work. So there’s no way to leave the lesson without exiting the app. Then, you’re progress doesn’t save, and you have to start the lesson again. Also, why is the speaking and listening so slow?? When you listen to the phrase, and then speak it back, the button doesn’t depress, it starts recording very very slowly, and often comes back incorrect. It makes the verbal practice very annoying. Otherwise, I have mostly enjoyed this app. I have previously taken Spanish classes but haven’t used it much for years, and wanted to brush up. This app is great for that. I’m not sure how I might feel if I had no experience. It doesn’t always feel like the amount of practice is enough. Rather than slowly teach and reinforce a concept, and expose you do different vocabulary, each unit focuses mostly on a handful of key phrases. Sometimes it leaves me feeling like I’m just memorizing the repetitive questions and phrases without really learning to converse. So I’d suggest more varied types of practice, as well as spending more time in each unit.

👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻. I signed up on Monday. Today is Friday. I am still going round and round wasting my time. My initial problem was that the course I was given to start was ridiculously simple. I entered I am a moderate level Spanish speaker. My course started me with simple pronouns and greetings for various times of the day. Wrote to customer service which further wasted my time. I was told to go to the My Profile and switch to Spain Spanish since the Latin American Spanish only has level 1. I wrote back to Babbel saying I only see achievements and activity as options. I finally went to settings and it showed I HAD SIGNED UP FOR SPAIN SPANISH. So my problem was never addressed. The app itself is not friendly enough for someone who doesn't use apps regularly. It appears simple but there is so much hunting around on the site to find simple answers. I still don't know how to get other information I asked about when I wrote to customer service which was never answered. Between the app and the customer service, my take away is the company is not respectful of their customers.

The results speak for themselves. I have tried many language learning apps (Rosetta stone, Duolingo, Memrise, etc). Babbel is the only app that adequately prepared me to begin conversational practice in a completely new language. It is my firm belief that language apps cannot teach you another language to proficiency. The only way to do this is to actually speak with native speakers. Thus, a language app’s primary goal should be to prepare beginners to start having conversations. Babbel does exactly that! Babbel teaches important vocabulary and basic grammar without expecting you to memorize huge amounts of information at once. It taught me grammar, the alphabet, and culture gradually as I learned conversational phrases. When I began conversing with native speakers, I was frequently complimented on my good pronunciation. This is because Babbel incorporates pronunciation practice as a feature and provides helpful pronunciation guides. This is the only language app that has demonstrably improved my progression in a foreign language. I would recommend it above all others, especially considering the relatively low price and the wide variety of languages offered.

I love this app! But I have some opinions. I seriously love this app! I am currently in high school and have taken Spanish for 3 years, I started to fail my Spanish class with a 66 and I was not happy. I didn’t understand conjugating, or pretty much any Spanish. I just didn’t get it, but then I started to use this app. Babbel teaches me Spanish in a completely different style, it makes learning seem super easy and fun. My current Spanish teacher makes everything memory based, remember conjugations, vocabulary, and more. But babbel makes conjugations seem super simple. It only teaches me the conjugations when I get to them. I just have one opinion, when I am supposed to write an answer down and I get it wrong, babbel immediately tells me the answer and corrects me. In my opinion, I feel like babbel should give you at least 2 more chances to write down your answer. If you still don’t get it then it can tell you. Thanks for reading! for future babbel downloaders, I HIGHLY recommend. Take this from the person who has learned more with 2 days of this app than they have almost 3 years.

Love this App. I have been using this for a couple of weeks now to learn Spanish. I know some of the basic language but I really need to dive deeper because my in-laws don’t speak English. So far I love this app, because it focuses on both written and spoken language. The reviews are great, since they focus on your problem areas with repetition at different times. My only issue with it is that there is one person on there who speaks Spanish with very bad American accent, so when I have to repeat his phrases with correct pronunciation, the voice recognition won’t recognize me. Something as simple as “Como estás” will not recognize my repetition to save my life, and I’ve been speaking those phrases for over 20 years. It’s frustrating that it recognizes my pronunciation by any other native speaker on there except his. I don’t want to have to speak with a terrible accent when trying to learn Spanish properly. Other than that one thing, I love this app for learning the language, because it’s pretty comprehensive and easy to follow. I can’t wait to surprise my family with my new skills I’m learning!

Great!! except one small thing... I love this app. I’ve tried others before and still have a few, but Babbel is by far my overall favorite. I also have appreciated the regular and effective updates. The reason for not having 5 stars is because due to my daily schedule, my free time is later in the evening. I’d much appreciate a dark mode. The white screen is difficult to look at even with brightness on the lowest setting. I searched the settings in hopes of finding that option but sadly, it’s not there. I’m sure others would appreciate a black screen to make it easier on the eyes for a last minute lesson before bed! My second suggestion would perhaps be some type of leaderboard? Maybe something to add a little friendly competition with each language community? One can only hope. Everything else I enjoy and look forward to the future of Babbel! Update: Absolutely amazing app for vocabulary, listening, and some speaking. However, some lessons being fully dedicated to grammar, word order, etc.. with some reading material, exercises, quizzes would be nice. I am noticing that even with a decent vocabulary and decent pronunciation, the lack of grammar knowledge in my learning language makes it difficult to actually create my own phrases. Rather than just repeat phrases from the course, it’s nice to better understand how to structure and put things together on your own! I never remember the little grammar notes buried within the normal lessons.

Deutsch ist gut (German is good). I am doing the German language and the thing that bothers me is the grammar of the Germans! I also can’t do “ß” on the app so even when everything is right I can’t do ß which annoys me (I have found out how to do it!!) but everything else is very good and I do recommend. I also have a suggestion: there should be reviews for everything you have done so far, it would help me a lot to go back and do everything in a way that helps me; I also would like to choose learning styles, I learn better when saying and typing the answer (the chats) but everything else either doesn’t help or is hard to understand for me. Danke! Auf Wiedersehen! (Thank you! Goodbye!) Edit: I am doing a speaking review right? Okay and I was doing the speaking I had to say: “Das macht 5 Euro”, right? Right, okay, I was saying it. Though, it counted to wrong and apparently I said: “Das macht fünf Euro”. And you know what? IT’S THE SAME THING! Fünf and 5 are the exact same thing just fünf is word form. This has happened multiple times, it’s really aggravating, honestly.

Best learning experience for me so far. I’ve been trying to learn Swedish for almost 2 years. I live with a native speaker and have picked up a few phrases here and there but was far from fluent. I used Duolingo for about a year off and on but their sentence construction was absolute garbage. Duolingo had me saying things like “Sköldpaddan älskar fålgarna” (the turtle loves the birds). I understand learning basic vocabulary and everything but these sentences got really ridiculous at times; not to mention boring and redundant. Babbel on the other hand provides real examples of phrases one might encounter in Sweden. And I love how they make me work for it. In later lessons, when teaching new words, it will bury the new word in a sentence full of words I’ve never heard or seen. This was confusing at first but really introduces the context of the language as a whole and after a month of this I started picking up whole sentences that my partner would say on the phone to her parents. Well done Babbel, would highly recommend to someone who is actually trying to learn a new language. But just remember you have to be willing to try and fail along the way. My partner makes fun of me all the time😘

Two things to improve it immeasurably. Enjoy the program, however.... First, explain nuances before throwing them into the mix. Many times I’m screaming, “Why, why, why!” and then in a later lesson a modicum of explanation thrown in allowing a frustrated “Ah!” Second, when running through the listening/interpretation portion of a course, there is only one speed...super-rocket fast mumble slur-through. Unless I already know/have read what the mumble-slur is, there’s not the slightest chance of deciphering the blather. I find that, in French, many letters that are in the written words are not pronounced at all, some letter sounds that are no-where found in the written words are pronounced as if they are there, many words are so slurred across that the ending of one word sounds like the beginning of the next or as if two or three separate words are one word. It’s so bad that all “first time through” listening lessons are simply skipped until I can get even an inkling of what is being presented. If there was a “slow it down some” option, like in Duolingo where you can listen both slow and full speed, I’d learn far more.

A little too pedantic when it comes to pronunciations. Overall I think this is a good app and I’m learning Spanish and recognizing new words and phrases. I think I need to immerse myself in the language more for it to really come together in my head, but the app is serving me well. My issue with it, though, is how it handles pronunciation and that it sometimes requires you to mimic the speaker in weird ways. Often it will say I’m not doing it right, but I can pass if I mimic the pitch of the speaker while saying the same phrase. If it’s a woman, I as a man will have to speak in a falsetto and only then will I get the green box and happy chirp saying I correctly pronounced it. The teacher sounds laconic and, yes, a little sleepy? Don’t try to speak it in an upbeat tone. Lean back into your seat, slump into your chair and talk as if roused from slumber. Victory! So, yeah, sometimes it’s frustrating and you have to be more of a mimic than speak in your own tone and cadence—even when your pronunciation is the same. Oh, yeah, and I’ve bobbled some words but, as long as I’m trying to do an impression of the original, I’ll get a passing grade. So, yes, AI has a way to go before it’s ready but, for the price, this is a heck of a lot cheaper than taking a live class and I can go at my own pace.

Italian. Oh my goodness this is my first time to log onto Babel let me tell you there’s no instructions no introduction it’s just go when they ask you questions you don’t know how to log down because the answers are at the bottom of the page if you don’t know how to spell they don’t tell you to click the button to see how it’s pronounced if you want to go back and review your lesson and you’re not allowed to go back and review but it’s OK it’s not history as you go along you start to make sense of their questions like hint I didn’t know that the words were all scrambled like a game and you have to try to make use of the scrambled words to pronounce the right word anyway it’s a learning curve right like learning a new language it’s learning a whole new app I’m just hoping I can repeat it because it goes so fast that I won’t remember it in the three hours that I’ve spent on it already so hopefully I can go back and start the class all over before my trip in six months

Great app but,. My only thing so far is I feel like you should be able to purchase a longer subscription but be able to make monthly payments towards it. For example: someone may want to commit to a year or even two, but it’s much more doable to spend a few dollars monthly, than to pay hundreds at once. I get that you can pay for a monthly subscription that re-ups each month, but that comes a higher rate as well, which in the end really adds up and may make it feel less worth it, especially since you may not know what you’re really getting for that money in the first place. I just feel like this really cuts out a lot of potential customers and is borderline discrimination, financially. I completely understand needing to make a profit, but I think it could be done in a more fair way- and if anything you’d likely be making more money as opposed to losing money over it. But, I just personally believe educational tools should be accessible to everyone. Anyhow, it is a great app from what I’ve seen so far, and seems like it really guides you in how to have real conversation, rather than just being able to pick up on some random vocabulary, which is the case with some of the other tools/apps out there.

Babbel to the rescue…. I have been wanting to be able to speak Spanish fluently for years now. I finally decided to start exploring the manydifferent languages learning programs out there presently, and have decided I think Babbel is the best fit for me… at least so far. I am only a handful of lessons in and am already hooked. I took Spanish in middle school and two years in high school, so I do recall the basics, but starting with the beginner lessons has honestly been a great start. It feels good recognizing much of the language, but I’m already learning new words and phrases. Basically, if you have been wanting to give learning Spanish (or any language courses they offer, really) a try, I encourage you to go for it with Babbel! I was able to get a good deal (50% off) for the first year, and I can cancel anytime if want, should I choose to. I don’t foresee me canceling anytime soon though, and can’t wait to come back here and report I’m able to speak Fluently. Thank you, Babbel! #BabbelForTheWin

Babbel paid version after 6 months. Babbel does cover much more than probably what you’re looking to learn. I chose Mexican Spanish but Babbel forces me to learn Spain Spanish, Chilean food, Argentinian food, and other unrelated topics which you cannot skip over. It also does not properly introduce new words or grammar conjugations in sentences. It will force you to fill in a words in a back and forth dialogue between characters but the dialogue will use words never seen before and you cannot click on the word to find out why it was used or conjugated in a certain way. The inability to skip lessons that don’t relate to what I’m trying to learn is beyond infuriating considering they are 40-80 questions per lesson. There is not enough repetition of words or phrases so lessons are easily forgotten. My wife is a fluent Spanish speaker and agrees not explaining conjugation up front will lead to difficult to overcome mistake corrections later. The lessons are too vague, don’t have deep enough explanation, and there’s zero grammar explanation built in; coupled with lessons I don’t care about, I wish I hadn’t spent the money for this app. There are audio lessons with books which are much more effective in a shorter amount of time.

Hi. Hi to the developer but I love this idea and I love this app. The idea of having no ads in an app is a very smart idea but I honestly think they should not have to pay to get the lessons. Some people may not have the money to be able to buy the lessons that’s very important money that could be going to something else I could just buy a free app but I really do love this app but I say I think you should make lessons that on as advanced as if you pay for them but they’re still good I think you should make free lessons for people who cannot afford buying the lessons this is just my opinion and you don’t have to listen to my opinion but I just think it be a better idea because everybody doesn’t have money to be able to buy these lessons that I could just back download Duolingo or something like that so that’s just my opinion I am very very sorry that I’m complaining to you but I just wish somethings would change about this app that’s why I’m giving it the rating that it has so anybody if you are reading this this app cost money I mean if you read the description on the app then you’re fine but yeah thank you so much for reading this I hope you get to respond to it because it’s very very important to me because I really am trying to learn Spanish because you know it’s really fun and I really wanna learn it but I do not wanna have to pay for education.

I don’t like it very much... A few weeks ago, I downloaded Babbel. I’ve been avoiding using the app. I took the German course in hopes of learning German because I find it a very cool language. The login and setup was perfect and I started to like it because I was excited to learn to fluently speak German. I did ONE lesson. I finished it very quickly and then when I was done, all the other lessons were locked. I clicked on the lesson 2 and it said, “You need to buy a subscription to continue.” And it wouldn’t let me click out of the thing. So I just pressed my phones home button, took it out of my recent tabs, and didn’t play it for a week. I downloaded another language app that my friend recommended, (I’m not gonna say the name of the app) and I have a 14-day streak because I enjoy the course of German and how the subscription is optional. I went back on Babbel a few days ago and I saw the only two things available was buying a subscription or doing a quiz/review. I did the review and the rest of the course was locked. I would love this app if the subscription was optional and offered GOOD features. I’ve deleted the app now. But thank you for reading this and this is just my honest opinion and no hate here was intended.

Good course. Language is Hard. I wish that I had paid more attention in Spanish class. I did not value learning a language as much as I do now. this course is comprehensive and difficult. I think anyone who says learning a language is easy is shining you on. I practice every day and use the app about 30 to 45 minutes, I have been using it for a couple months now and making grinding, slow progress, but progress. My intention is to travel internationally and be able to effectively communicate. As far as other apps go, I think Babbel is among the top five any of these would be subjective and results are definitely determined by how much effort you put in there’s no shortcuts so make commitment and you’ll get something out of it. It is funny to see all these other language learning “shortcuts “being offered and marketed now that I’ve signed up for Babbel. I guess I’ll have to check back in a year in a couple trips to South America to see how I’m doing also, it was suggested to watch Spanish television and movies and music I watch the Spanish with captions on and it is very helpful

Awesome next step in language learning. I downloaded/purchased Babbel after using Duolingo for quite some time and feeling like I had kinda hit a plateau in learning the language. The Babbel app is really nice to use and I find the pacing of lessons to be quite good, though they are definitely longer and more structured than Duolingo. You do get a nice variety of exercises in each lesson and I especially appreciate the realistic conversations and the use of conversational French terms/slang. I do occasionally have issues with the app registering where I click (i.e. I have to tap words in the right order to make a sentence but one of my taps on the screen won’t register so I’ll get it “wrong” and have to redo), so I do wish the app was more… responsive I guess? But honestly it’s not that big of a deal, just a minor annoyance when it happens. I also LOVE the little podcasts they offer! I really wish they had more episodes because there’s only five in my favorite one.

Immediately goes into conversation. Voice recognition is horrible. I am using Babbel to learn conversational Spanish. I can see why this will quickly help you get conversational in a language because it jumps right into it. For someone who is a true beginner, this is too difficult and will make you frustrated because it spends almost no time teaching about things that make Spanish so different from English like sentence structure, word order, verb variations and masculine vs feminine structure, adverbs and adjectives. I should’ve bought this after doing Duolingo for a 3-6 months. That program is pretty elementary but for someone learning a new language for the very first time, you need the elementary lessons first. Also, the voice recognition is absolutely horrendous. I get so frustrated with it that I just skip that part which then just launches the whole learning conversation so I have to go back and review it bit by bit. It truly is that horrible. Even when I say it perfectly, it doesn’t recognize. Overall, yes it’ll help you get conversational quickly. However if you are learning a second language for the very first time, I would suggest a simpler program and then jump into Babbel.

Seems, great but I don't really know. 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!

Great software, not that deep and not much explanation though.. Russian is a rather difficult language, and one that is presumably not nearly as sought after as French, Spanish, or Portuguese. However, the price for the Russian version of Babbel is the same as the the other versions but doesn’t offer nearly as much instruction as said courses. Furthermore Babbel doesn’t always fully explain why things are the way they are. For example, they don’t explain why the name for Germany in Russian is «Германия» (Pronounced “Germania”) but the term for someone who is German is «Немец» (pronounced “Nemetz”). I suppose this isn’t too big of a deal, but language is all about context, and understanding the context and history as to why some words are the way they are is important to understanding the language itself, as well as just interesting. Babbel does a great job of marrying what works from other language softwares, but it doesn’t offer a particularly large amount of content, or grammatical understanding. Nonetheless, in my opinion it is the best language learning software out there for Russian, and I am satisfied with my purchase.

Where’s the customer service.. 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.

I’m sorry what. So, I know passable french, but I wanted to improve more. I thought to myself “oh every ad is pretty much Babbel and I have nothing to lose” so I downloaded the app. I was so excited to learn more french. I opened the app, filled out the beginning question and was presented with a challenge “beginner or advanced”. Now, I know I went to france and did a decent job of understanding and speaking so how hard could it be? Well, I chose advanced. The first question- my mind finds the answer to “what time is it” a phrase I leaned 4 years ago. Perhaps it’s just getting a feel for where I am... I click the right answer. It repeats the phrase in french. This is it, I think, I’m finally going to get another question and go back to learning! So I wait for it to load... and I wait... and I wait some more. Maybe it froze? I closed the app and opened it back up. I went back through the same survey thing and finally back to the question. I have this one under control now. I click the right answer. It doesn’t repeat the phrase. Okay, weird. I go to my home screen, open another app, and come back. I try the question again. It took half an hour and I’m on good wifi and service this is an issue with the app I couldn’t do anything why the hell did I think it would work? Everyone else said you get 6 free words but hey at least you got words all I got was a haunting reminder of the passage of time

Quite Good. I went to France last winter & enjoyed listening to the language and getting a feel for the local culture in Paris. So I decided to get this app and committed to 6 months of full access (probably paid ~$30) After 3 months I have been able to converse and understand fluent/native speakers for the most part. Of course there are many more words and verbs to learn and understand, but it comes with time. I am on beginner course 4 and feel that I have made great practice, the recorded speakers allow you to hear the accents used and are much better than an automated version (computer voice). It is nice to be able to learn a new language on my own time, and even better when I can see the results pay off. I have received compliments on my accent and the amount of vocabulary I have learned in only 3 months. Would recommend for anyone trying to pick up a little French or other languages before a vacation, or just to try something you have never done. It can be frustrating learning very basic phrases at first, but if you practice them and look up words/phrases on your own you may be surprised how much you may learn. Peut-être devriez-vous l’essayer!

Not user friendly. I am a teacher who appreciates learning apps. I have a PhD in psychology and so I can appreciate a good learning app. I really like Duolingo, for example, because they nudge learners using what we know about learning. After using Duolingo for almost 3 years I was ready to try something new. Babbel seemed like the obvious choice. However I’ve been extremely disappointed. I’m an intermediate speaker and I was defaulted to saying hello and goodbye. Twice I took a placement test to be advanced to classes at my level. But the test wasn’t even a real test. Instead of seeing if u could speak Spanish by giving me Spanish to understand or statements to produce Babbel just asked me — in English — how good my Spanish is. That’s ok as a start but it’s ludicrous as a placement test. Making matters worse, the app is hard to navigate and it keeps offering me beginner lessons even after it says it places me at the intermediate level. Finally, so far at least, the content is boring. Duolingo uses humor and has inspiring podcasts with interesting life stories. Babbel has mundane stories that simply don’t engage me. Maybe I need to take a course in how to use Babbel but so far it’s a big disappointment. I’m giving it another week before I cancel. Brett Pelham

Great so far! Would be great for homeschoolers!. I’ve only completed two lessons, but I absolutely love the essential information along the way. I also use another language learning app which does not give such information along the way. This is more straightforward and less game-like, so I feel that I understand more and am learning faster. Yet, don’t think it’s boring or too difficult because of the format. Absolutely the contrary! I am able to respond without having to think about it so much; I just know it better this way. It definitely is intuitive, natural learning! Thanks for such a great app! If this stays available, maybe I can learn another language after Spanish! This is definitely worth the small monthly fee for anyone serious about learning a different language. I wish this had been available when my daughter was learning Spanish as a homeschool course. She didn’t retain anything really from the expensive curriculum with many bulky books, but I really think she would love this and actually learn the language! Thanks for all your hard work put into this app! Or rather...Gracias por todo su arduo trabajo!

Great app But not for conversation in Spanish. 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.

Classroom style learning at home. Babbel offers first and second semester college level language learning. I am trying to become conversational in Spanish after being married to a native speaker for 11 years and taking several college courses in the language. I would give 5 stars, but there is no way to test out of the beginning lessons and focus on what you need to improve on as there is in an app like Duolingo. I find myself using Duolingo more because it is more fun and brings a game like aspect to learning, but when I want to focus on technical details of the language I turn to babbel. As with any language learning regimen, this app must only be part of your learning plan if you wish to be fluent. You must speak with people in the language and immerse yourself In it by reading and listening to it. I get my news from CNN español now, and I listen to Spanish radio and tv whenever I can. Having a native speaker in the house doesn't hurt either! Overall, I am satisfied with babbel, I just wish it wasn't so similar to the structure I was used to from the classroom, it doesn't feel very useful!

For All. This is an app for not just kids, but adults. It started out my mom and I were setting it up, and it only lets me do one lesson and the rest you have to pay for. On the TV we saw the advertisement for it, and it says you don’t have to pay anything! I think they should let people know about that! My friend does it too, and she said it is good but why do they charge you if it says it is COMPLETELY free?!?! I said the same. It is a great app! It just needs some improvements. I think they are going to have a great business over the pandemic and crisis over Coronavirus. No school so kids and adults can have fun! Just be prepared when there might be payments on apps like these. There are greedy people and they do this for money! Not just for the heck of it! I also noticed that it was fun I g slow..... we have good WiFi and service! There was another person saying the same thing! It was on and everything! I got off and back thinking “Well maybe it will work! This has been loading for 30 minutes now!” And get back in..... 😡 FOR REAL PEOPLE WHAT IS WRONG I JUST WANT TO LEARN SPANISH!!! It took a while. Finally loaded. I had this rate at a 5 and..... NO it is going to two! If this doesn’t improve, (NO JOKE) I will delete it and not have anyone in my family get it! I mean this is redic! Well I need a word back from the people sometime! In the meantime, Adios! Keep learning!

Good, but hoping for AI and UX improvements. Through 16 lessons at this point, and overall enjoying Babbel. I formerly used Duolingo, which seemed too vocabulary based. I'm happy I switched to Babbel for building conversational experience. I appreciate the tooltips differentiating European/Spain Spanish and Latin American words. Those are helpful distinctions I didn't get in three years of in-person classes. Also, I appreciate the variation of native speaking voices. It's helpful to hear varying genders, vocal tone/pitch, correct emphasis and pronunciations. My criticisms regarding the app and the experience follow: 1) There's zero forgiveness for slight misspellings/typos. A flag /warning before counting it against the user would be nice. We're learning here. 2) The matching games/exercises have a confusing UX. It's unclear where to drag and drop and the color selections are all gray, which is not helpful in guiding users through the exercise. 3) While I realise Babbel isn't aiming to gamify language learning, it could benefit from incentivizing users somehow. This could be as simple as congratulating or tracking your progress or improvements. It's very boring to see the simple fact I've completed x/100 lessons. Make it a little fun, and I will be more likely to renew my subscription. Without these improvements, I'm likely to head back to Duolingo.

Useful but frustrating at times. 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.

Trying to Learn French. Not really beginner friendly. I’m learning French, with no prior knowledge and I believe It’s best for those already with some knowledge, I found it to be difficult and due to that difficulty, I started lacking the motivation to learn. Unlike Duolingo, where I used the app consistently for an entire month and I couldn’t make it a week with Babbel. Key differences between the two: Duolingo introduces new words and how to pronounce them throughout the lesson, gives you the chance to master those words, how to pronounce the words, what it similar to more accurately, you can individually click on a word for the speaker to repeat. Whereas with Babbel, it starts of with you learning sentences and speaking it with no background which can be frustrating, the speaker repeats the entire sentence, in the middle of the lesson there’s an “school vibe” telling you the different conjugates forms, love the memory page aesthetic and give you different options, there’s no order to learn. It’s just personal preference, I paid for both apps. For some reason, Babbel audio started giving me problems when my phone volume was turned down, Babbel audio was loud and I even reset my phone thrice. Hopefully they fix it because it’s annoying.

Good-but could be better. Here is how.. I’ve been using the Babble app for almost a year now, so my thoughts come with some validity. My thoughts are that generally it is pretty good. There are a few minor improvements that could be made here and there with the user interface but no two designers would agree. Here is my biggest peeve. Babble asks that you listen to the dialogue between two speakers, and then asks you questions regarding the conversation. Fine. But here is the problem. First, Babble introduces new vocabulary in the conversation-not helpful. Second, the speakers are speaking at full speed street level Italian. My brain does not translate Italian that fast Babble! Slow it down. Finally, there is no way that you are able to see the English translation of the conversation. I get it, Babble is testing your comprehension. However, AFTER you answer the questions about the conversation we should be able to display the conversation in English. Some of the Babble exercises do allow the display of English, but not the conversation exercise. I find Babble very frustrating at times and am thinking about ending my subscription to Babble and finding another app that is more to my liking and learning style.

Pretty good!. This app does a pretty good job of building up the difficulty of learning a language. I grew up in a Spanish speaking household, so already had a pretty good basic understanding of the language. What I was hoping to work on with this app were my speaking and grammar skills so that I could speak properly with people at work. Growing up, we would often respond in English or Spanglish so my communication never really advanced. I started on the intermediate section just to ensure I had the grammar basics down correctly. Babble starts off pretty simple and I was concerned it may be too easy, but as you progress the lessons really start to build on themselves. What I find useful is repeating the phrases, words, etc... even if not asked to do so. You should definitely try to practice outside of the app to really get the hang of speaking, but overall this app is pretty good! One thing I wish it offered was to choose the type of Spanish you're learning or at least show the variations throughout the lessons. Sayings are quite different and some I would never use when speaking to family or people at work (at least where I live and the population I work/interact with).

Nice app!. I’ve updated my review to five stars. I had an issue getting the store and the app to talk to each other. Took a bit of chatting with customer support to get full access, but it got sorted. Now that I have full access to the app I am very pleased with how the lessons are structured. I am enjoying the images, the script, but what I like the most are the focus points on how to sound out certain letters and sounds. Other apps don’t have that feature. This app is built like and actual learning course. I tried Duolingo and there was really no structure or explanation of how things worked or why in the other language. I felt like I was just blindly going along. I had lots of questions all the time. In this app they’ve planned ahead and have information points which help greatly. Which really help with not getting frustrated. I’m really happy going along and learning Dutch. I like that there are no “leagues” or races to see who can do the best each week. I can go at my own pace and not feel pressured because I didn’t get enough points a certain week. I would recommend taking screenshots and then making notes to reference later.

Very Good For Learning Several Languages!. 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👍🏾 (Ps. if you could, add Irish as a language as well along with some other one country based languages. Lived there for some years in my childhood so would like to learn some more besides the basics)

The Best Language-Learning App. I have been using this app to learn Italian for just over a year and I can’t recommend it enough! I have tried a few methods to learn Italian over the years, including Duolingo and self-guided workbooks, but neither of those worked for me. The major benefit of Babbel is that you learn by completing lessons, which are structured as if you were doing exercises from a class. This was the biggest help for me because I felt like I was taking a class. Along the way, each lesson offers grammar tips and small snippets on culture, so you’re learning much more than just the language. There many ways to review the vocabulary you’ve learned as well, which is great to test your comprehension in a variety of ways (e.g., writing and listening). Babbel also offers live classes where you can actually sign up for a lesson with an instructor. I have yet to try it, but there are a ton of lessons to choose from depending on your skill level. Overall, Babbel is a standout app that helps you speak and understand a new language very quickly!

It’s ok. Seemed to work great at first, while I was adding more vocabulary regularly. After I had a lot of vocab and didn’t want anymore, and too much time had passed with their spaced interval review regimen, there was no reasonable way to review on the phone app. You can always see the vocab in both languages because it is arranged as one on top of the other rather than side by side. If I didn’t open the app for a few days, I’d open it and sometimes get a hand waving saying “welcome back! Would you like to review?” I’d click a button to review (which was always flash cards, since the other options didn’t work on my phone), and I’d get an error message. I told Babbel support about this and they’d just say “do more lessons” and go on to explain the stages of review, which I already fully understand. Finally I got someone to admit that the error message was something they needed to work on, but it’s still happening. My subscription doesn’t expire until March, so according to Apple I’m stuck paying for it til then. By the way, the speaking feature doesnt work either and never did. Neither do the games. I have an IPhone 12, fully updated, and the Babbel app is also updated.

The voice recognition is too capricious. I went through the first lesson and I mostly enjoyed a different format than Duolingo, however I ran into some issues. Mostly, when it comes to grading the recording of me reading the words, I can’t seem to get it to consistently let me pass. And if I am saying something incorrectly, it’s giving me no feedback on how it’s “wrong.” I really feel though that the problem is with the app. Another issue is when I went to choose my starting place there seems to be no intermediate level between beginner and advanced. I’m a little over a beginning level, but I’m not cocky enough to claim that I’m advanced. Perhaps there is an option for intermediate but I didn’t see it. My final issue is with the number of lessons to which I have access without paying. I went through one buggy lesson for free with no way to advance without giving them money. Really, I wouldn’t mind paying if I could’ve gotten a better taste of the quality. But I didn’t want to pay for something that frustrates me so much. When I would get caught on a finicky voice recording question, I would just eventually skip that garbage and move on. Overall, not worth paying for.

Not for beginners. I’m a native English speaker from America, I don’t know any other languages so I thought it’d be best to learn a mutual language with some of my friends. They are from the Netherlands and Belgium, both speak fluent Dutch so I thought Dutch would be the perfect language to learn. It is similar to English they share the same alphabet and I already know some people who speak it. Going into learning I very clearly and confidently remember the few beginner words like good morning and good bye etc. once I got to around the 10th lesson you just get thrown in head first with no knowledge of sentence structure or grammar. I mean the bare minimum to speak, read and, write a language is just completely missing. I often times found myself confused with the way words were used and how sentences were built and how they changed. For languages like Spanish it’s no problem but for a language with a different grammar it is completely useless to try and learn from this app. I don’t know how any native English speakers with no background in Dutch can become fluent with this app alone there is a massive hole in the teaching process.

Fun Learning Tool. I just bought a Babbel subscription to become fluent in Spanish. I took four semesters of Spanish in high school and in college and I only remember a little bit from that time. My son just started taking Spanish I in school and I realized just how rusty my skills are. I’ve always dreamed of being able to speak another language, so I’m going to give it another shot. I decided to start from the very beginning as if I’ve never spoke the language before to solidify my foundation. Babbel has interesting lessons that make it fun to learn the language. There’s also love classes, podcasts, games, and online magazines. The resources to learn are excellent. I’ve decided to devote at least 30 minutes a day to learning. It’s so convenient that I can pull out my phone and practice anytime I have some time to spare. I would recommend Babbel to anyone interested in learning a new language. I’ll write another update in a few months to see how I’ve improved.

Good format but be VERY sure of lamguage. Be sure what language you would like to practice bc you are locked into that language. I paid for a 1 month subscription and wanted to study 2 languages. You cannot toggle languages and must pay for 1 subscription per language. It’s my own fault for not carefully reading the terms and conditions. Had I done so I would have gone with Rosetta Stone, which offers more flexibility in choosing languages. Its an excellent app otherwise and would have rated it 5 stars had I not been asked to pay for 2 subscriptions. I suggest using Duolingo to try out languages before subscribing to this app, unless you know for sure what language you wish to learn. I must learn French AND German for work and knew this from the get go, but was under the impression I could switch back and forth for my study regimen (MWFSu-Fr, TThSa-Gr). However, on my second day using the app I was prompted to resubscribe. I personally like Rosetta Stone as a viable alternative and would have gone with them, just bc you have more flexibility. Altho, the functionality and quality of the Babbel app is superior, in my opinion. If you need to study one language and are positive on what language you want to commit to, I recommend Babbel. If you aren’t sure or need to study more than one language, I definitely recommend another app, unless you are willing to pay for 2 subscriptions.

Coming from Pimsluer Russian. I studied Pimsluer Russian but the duration of time it took along with the lack of writing and visuals made it easy to speak but difficult to ensure I was saying the right thing, either pronunciation or the right version of the word within the sentence, such as “a” and “и.” I did make it through Stage 1 (of 3) with them and it made the beginning of this app very simple as I knew a good amount right off the bat, but this app ties in visual, auditory, muscle and speach in a way that’s much quicker and easier to understand what you are saying. I also found it really helpful the way they group the language together, and how they explain how and why certain parts of the language are the way they are. These concepts are essential to understanding the language but I was completely missing out with Pimsluer. It’s fast, fun and can be done in my free time. If I take a week off I can be confident to pick it all back up again rather than be faced with the choice to listen to a 45 minute seminar that I’ve already heard or go to the next one and not remember everything from last week. Try the app out! It’s fun and refreshing!

Review. So far I’ve been using Babbel for a few months. It’s a nice addition to Duolingo but I have a few complaints. One is the app’s recognition of pronunciation. If you pause to take a breath between saying the imperfective and perfective form of the verb it doesn’t recognize it as correct. The audio recognition is immensely time sensitive, meaning if you say the word too early or too late it won’t recognize it. For example, you press the voice button, it says the word and if you don’t repeat it in less than a second it marks it as wrong. Duolingo’s voice recognition is better than Babbel’s. Babbel also dumps a ton of vocabulary on you and doesn’t include it in subsequent lessons which even when you’re doing the vocabulary review daily like I am, makes learning new vocabulary difficult. It’s also giving words I wouldn’t normally use in conversation like hexagon and mold, etc. Would like more common language lessons. Update: So I just used the new speaking portion of the vocabulary review and I have to say it is a vast improvement! So congrats to the developers. It makes a lot more sense to hold the mic button while you’re talking and then release it when you’re done. I’m getting almost no answers wrong when I pronounce the word correctly now which is awesome and a whole lot less frustrating. I actually really enjoyed using it!

My favorite way to learn a new language!. I absolutely love the Babbel app! I have tried a few different apps and programs to learn a new language, most of which didn’t work for me. I always grew bored or irritated pretty quickly and stopped. The Babbel app breaks the language down in an easy to absorb way and then reiterates each lesson multiple times and in many different fun ways. The app also tracks all the words you’ve learned and organizes them in your Review module for you. Then it will remind you to review your vocabulary regularly, offer at least four different fun ways to review it, and once you have correctly defined a word so many times, it takes it out of rotation for a while. Also, the different formats they use to reiterate the lesson ensures you can not only Understand the Spoken language but also Speak it well and Read and Write it too! It’s actually Fun learning with Babbel and feels like I’m playing a game! If you learn with Babbel for 15 minutes a day every day, you will be speaking a new language in 6 months! I’m going to try to learn Spanish and French this year. I should be trilingual by the end of 2023!!!

Dit is GOED..... I’ve been studying the Dutch/Flemish language for years, and after using almost useless books, tapes & CDs that evidently don’t teach the way I learn best, I bit the bullet & went with some serious interactive programs. Learning a language by yourself that is not spoken within several thousands of miles of you is challenge enough, but you can do it with the right type of help. I just started using Babble last night, and I’m learning things I did not learn on my expensive Rosetta Stone computer programs. One advantage is that I’m using Babble on my iPad... another is that Babble seems to be a more conversational style of Dutch than Rosetta Stone, and probably closer to what I’ll need the next time I’m in Amsterdam, Bruxelles (they speak Flemish), or CapeTown (Afrikaans is one of the official languages in SA), where different dialects of Nederlands are spoken. While Rosetta Stone provided me with a strong foundation in the language and is making Babbel easier for me, I honestly believe Babbel’s program is making me a better Dutch speaker.

Very bad experience.. I would have reviewed the product negatively if only for the bad user experience of the voice recognition software. But now I’m primarily reviewing it badly because of their ridiculous financial practices. I tried the app for a couple of weeks, but the voice recognition software didn’t work for me. Somehow it couldn’t recognize the way I was saying words in Spanish, so I couldn’t pass those portions of the lessons. And because there was no way to simply skip that portion of the lesson, I was stuck. It rendered the app unusable. I thought that I canceled my subscription, until my wife told me a couple of days ago that I’ve been charged three more times in the last two years. Apparently I didn’t cancel when I thought I did. That’s obviously my fault, and I’m cool not getting a refund for most of that time. But then when I requested a refund for the six months that they just charged me for a week ago, they told me it’s their policy to not refund auto charges. That’s absurd. I haven’t used the app in two years, they can easily refund money to someone who has found no value in their product. I know lots of people have found value in this app. I am not one of them. Update to say that the company offered me a voucher for more of their products rather than refunding me for the next six months that I haven’t used and don’t intend to use.

Great program. I have been wanting to learn Spanish for a very long time but programs were all so expensive and there were limited programs as it was. Well, when I got my iPhone I discovered several great programs at a really great and reasonable price. I tried several of them through their trial periods and decided on this one and Duolingo. Combined I feel like I am learning faster than if I had gone with the one program that’s so popular, I think everyone knows which I’m talking about. I believe I have come a long way in just two weeks. I also paired these programs with a distance education course which make me accountable to actually follow through because I am paying for all of it and do not want my money to go to waste. Aside from all that, this is a great running program. I haven’t encountered any sort of glitch or hang ups yet. It’s pretty close to a perfect app that one could hope for. So here’s to learning, staying committed, and actually having fun while doing all the work! I would most definitely recommend this app 100%!!

Great service, decent app. UPDATE: They’ve just addressed my biggest complaint from below—no more custom keyboard. It switches to the stock keyboard of the language you’re learning, and my frustrating typos are gone. Love it! Updated the design too, and it’s look cleaner and more legible. Nearly perfect now! Five stars for Babbel the service, three stars for the app. I’ve been using Duolingo for a couple years and started Babbel a couple months ago. The lessons feel both more natural and in-depth compared to Duo. They dig deep into the mechanics of the grammar in a super helpful—and approachable—way. And I can’t overstate how much more useful the audio is here, with actual human, natural-sounding voices, in contrast to Duo’s robo voices. The app could use a little love though. My biggest gripe is the custom keyboard. Please just let us use the system keyboard. I’m prone to so many more errors with the custom board, and it leads to incorrect answers due to typos. Less urgently, the design just feels a little dated overall. A dark mode feels overdue as well. But overall, highly, highly recommend Babbel!

Seriously?!?. So, this app used to be awesome and engaging. I missed a day, logged in today and you changed the UI? And screwed it up in the process? Please change it back, or at the least give the option to have the old interface. I don’t have a RUSSIAN KEYBOARD! That’s why I’m trying to LEARN RUSSIAN! There used to be a virtual keyboard which showed up (regardless of if I had my iPad Pro Keyboard attached or not) which would block out the letters/ characters that we haven’t been taught yet. With that gone, I’m now overwhelmed by constantly trying to search for letters even though I haven’t gotten far enough in the lessons to know all the letters. I mean, really?!? Before I felt good about my learning, and now I feel like an idiot, it is no longer fun, and it takes too long to find the letters. Really?!? How do you go from being a great app to a horrible app over night? And I pay money for this? I can’t justify this cost, especially when this is already a supplement to Rosetta Stone for me. Sorry, but if this isn’t addressed, I doubt I’ll do even two more days. I quit halfway through a lesson today because it wasn’t worth the frustration. Please do something about this - in which case I’ll then change my review. This is REALLY FRUSTRATING! Thanks a lot! (For nothing.)

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Need Japanese. I think you guys are missing out on a huge opportunity, everyone wants Japanese on this app, with the country booming with tourism and getting increasingly popular I think your a little mad to not add Japanese to one of your languages, I have not met a single person who has gone to japan who doesn’t go back frequently, it’s an amazing place to visit and with the commonwealth games coming up next year it will only increase more! I think I read it’s not even in the works for you guys at the moment which is insane, not only is it becoming an increasingly popular place for tourism but also people wanting to live and work over there, Japanese is also one of the easiest languages you can learn, honestly total madness!

Great app, but false price tags. Babbel is great at teaching you grammar and the typing aspect (learning Russian) however there wasn’t much topical conversations that I found useful, why would I need to tell jokes when I’m learning a language? There is also the issue of its advertising. Its sometimes posted as 50%,35% off however it’s always $10 for a single one year subscription which doesn’t mean you’re getting the deal you think you are I’d post screenshots but don’t think I can

Great app but needs some small tweaks. I love the conversational approach to learning a language and think you’ve done this really well. There are a few awkward things from a UX perspective. The first and most annoying is the way the users voice is recorded - it’s too sensitive on the pauses and the interaction of speaking straight after listening without first taking an action to record wasn’t intuitive and was a friction point when learning how to use the app. I find the letter scramble questions are helpful for remembering spelling but would honestly prefer to use a normal QWERTY keyboard. Finally, there’s no recognition of typos, which is not a big deal, but slightly annoying as a user - I miss the moment of recognition/delight and get the question wrong because I accidentally typed hablas has halbas. 5 stars if you fix these little things ;)

More languages. Now babble seems like a great app, honestly looks more helpful then duolingo, I like the colour scheme but there’s a problem. Now I’m planning on moving to japan later on in my life but if I go to japan I’m obviously going to at least know the basics of Japanese. It’s going well so far but I think I’m stuck and need help with it if you know what I mean. You need more languages, especially because Japanese is a very popular language and I’m sure that there are other people in the word who are having the same problem as me.

Great content but only in iPad landscape mode. The content and language learning is great, however, for iPad the app only displays in landscape mode and unable to rotate to portrait which is my preferred view. It is very frustrating. I purchased my iPad specifically to level-up my language learning and use Babbel (it is that good!) but found it’s a poor user experience on iPad given it is only available in landscape mode. Babbel, please make your iPad app available in portrait mode.

Great - but - Lack of backup to new phone. Really enjoy using this app, but when I’ve transferred my data to a new phone, everything (account info and subscription, review words etc) transfers across. But what didn’t go across, is what lessons I’ve already done. It follows that the lessons wouldn’t be downloaded automatically, because when restoring from backup on a new phone, downloads don’t occur. But it’d be great to have a function in the app that at least can display what lessons have already been completed or half way through etc.

Detailed and re-enforced learning. Great app with well-structured lessons. Sentence structures are explained much better than in Duolingo and there’s plenty of opportunities to review what you’ve learned in previous lessons. I would recommend paying for a subscription though, when you first sign up you should receive an offer to pay for 6 months for $78 with 6 additional months free, well worth it I think.

DO NOT GET THIS APP. I’ve tried giving this app another go but once again money was taken out of my account without my authorisation !! My billing information on the app was an expired card and and either Babbel or Apple has taken $119 out of my account. The customer service through Babbel to try and fix this issue was unhelpful and didn’t even listen to the issue properly. Basically told me it’s not their problem and to take it up with Apple and that I subscribed on the 19th of September, the day the money was taken out. (Even though I had signed up months ago - not on the 19th of September. It’s honestly extremely annoying and what the app has to offer Isn’t even that good. Not worth your time and will probably rip you off! Day light robbery.

Grammar + Vocabulary Excellence. I am using Babbel for Russian (from French). I also already speak German, Italian and have studied Latin as well. I found the grammar points to be excellent. The acquisition of vocabulary is effective and realistic. My focus is on correct spelling and I am achieving this easily with Babbel. The parallels during the course with the French language are also very relevant. Right now I am reaching the end of the beginners lessons and will continue to use it until I run out of special lessons or vocabulary lessons. I wish there was an "advanced beginner" module available for Russian but understand that the market probably is not there for it.

Issue. So I’m a 14 year old high school student, I’ve always loved foreign languages and I wanted to use this app to learn Russian since it had good reviews. Unfortunately now that I’ve done the first part to the first lesson I have to select a ‘plan’ to keep going, bare in mind I’m not old enough to get a job yet, I have to be 15 and 9 months. I have no way of paying for it which is quite annoying as I’ve tried other apps and this one I was most comfortable with. I’m not sure if there is another way but from what I can tell it’s a play to use app so keep it in mind that if your a student using this you may not be able to do much.

Needs a continue button at every point!. The writing the translation parts need a continue button, not just type in and go straight on to the next one. I want to be able to replay what it is I’ve translated. Also, an option to speed up or slow down the speech so I can get a better grip of what’s being said. Also, putting the full keyboard up is a distraction, instead maybe just the letters like you do with everything else so I can burn it into my brain. That said, I’m having fun with it. Just frustrated that I can’t go back to what I just typed in and reply the speaking of it. I’ll add to this. Make more languages available please. I now run a crew of Korean guys at work but, there’s no option to learn it. I’m playing you to learn it and happy to pay what’s needed. Please open up more languages and an option to slow the speech down. Maybe like a slide scope so we can hear the words properly. Thanks much. ☺️

Excellent app but a word of advice.. At first I thought this app is great and learning the language would be easy. Then it seemed that the difficulty level jumped and I hated the app but after reviewing my approach to learning with the app I came to the conclusion and my advice for anyone new to using the app is to get a pen and a note book and write down everything the app shows you! The whole way through it give great hints and tips to assist you in learning your choice of language and you’ll need those notes later when it revisits grammar from previous lessons.

Comprehensive learning, average application.... Great application. It's a little expensive but it works pretty well. The voice recognition is pretty weak compared to Doulingo and other language learners. The application also skips ahead of its own accord sometimes and sometimes miss-matches reading the text the line below the question. Content wise it's great and the explanations are very detailed however, you are often expected to spell words you have just literally just seen for the first time. Which is challenging for those without prior knowledge of the language or a photographic memory!

Love it!!!. I started using Babbel (French) after my friend recommended it and I just love it! The lessons are the perfect length and I love the way they are set out into 3 parts - introduction, exercises and revision/renforcement. The grammar notes throughout the lessons are also a wonderful way to make things clearer. Personally, I find it easy to learn something if there is a ‘rule’, you know, things like, “ i before e, except after c” (I still recite it when I write the word, ‘receive’) and Babbel’s Little grammar notes during the lesson at the appropriate times are like those little ‘lightbulb moments’ where you just think, “oh, now I get it!” The images help reinforce what you are learning too and the accents are clear. Wish I’d started it earlier! Thanks for an amazing App, Babbel! :)

Great!. This app is great and only gets better with each update. Please release more beginner French podcasts! The only thing I wish the app did is in the latest update it will record your daily streak but this resets each week, I would loooove to have this go for as long as I can go and possibly have shareable milestones.

Subscription. I am only rating this 4 for ppl to see more often tbh I really rate it a 1 stars. My reasons 1. They do let you start the first lesson In each course and you can relearn them but… they do not let you do the other lessons without subscription. Recommend apps Duolingo it may be a green bird teaching you but it is must better then this and they let you do many languages and once.

Really good experience except…. Babbel is a much better experience than a lot of other language apps out there. It provides conversational application to the new words and phrases, rather than just learning by wrote with no context like other apps. However, I have a gripe with the live lessons. I think they are a great idea and classes are small so proper attention can be given to participants. BUT, I tried joining an A1 (beginner) French lesson and the instructor only spoke French! How is a beginner going to learn anything if you only understand every 10th word?!

Just doesn’t work. I’ve had this app for about two years. Every single time I’ve opened the app, I’ve received the message “Unable to connect to Babbel”, with retry icons. Retry never works. Using a newish phone model and keep the app updated in the hope it might finally start working - still doesn’t work. I’ve never been able to so much as look at one course, let alone enjoy the multiple course access I supposedly have. Automatically re-subscribed at full cost in the second year with no email notice ahead of time - I originally purchased when the app was on sale. I’m trying to figure out how to unsubscribe from this thing before it burns me for another year.

Excellent Content, disappointing app experience. The language content on Babbel is great and the feature set with respect to the different learning modalities is excellent. Recently however the iPhone app has been a rubbish experience. Really long load times, delay between button press and action of 10+ seconds while completing course content. Hold to speak button not responding. iPhone 12, iOS 14.3 Switching to web on desktop is a better experience but you need to use Chrome. If you try to use Safari it appears the browser audio api can’t be used but the users isn’t informed so each audio clip simply plays and then continues.

My review. I’ve always wanted to learn French and now I finally can, I love everything about it except that you can’t do much a day and I don’t want to have to pay to unlock all the courses,(I mean I guess you will make more money though) other than that this is the best language learning app I’ve tried! And trust me I’ve tried A LOT. Anyway thanks for making such an amazing, incredible app! One other thing is I wish I could learn multiple languages. Like you could go into your profile once your done the language your on and go onto another language. Thanks for making such an awesome app

Could you add Japanese?. Hi there, I found this app from the YouTuber Ravon. I do Japanese at high school at the moment and thought this would be a helpful app. I downloaded it bit it doesnt have Japanese. I was devastated but tried the Italian because I did that is primary school. It was a great first lesson I got 18/18. Ill keep doing Italian and other languages but I would be glad ti see Japanese up there for me to use. Recommend this app for anyone needing to learn a new language!

Excellent app for learning new languages, but needs some improvements. This is an excellent app, needless to say, as testified by many other users. I just want to ask some new features, some biggish and some smallish: 1) a new setting to have a “Continue” button instead of just move to the next lesson. Sometimes I’d like to study it more and take some notes for each question. 2) the space repetition system seems underdeveloped. Would like to have more reviews. Also, it would be great to choose a range of words and phrases to review instead of waiting for them to show up. Furthermore , would like it to track listening, speaking and reading separately, instead of allowing learners to choose review methods. 3) It would be great to have some optional drill lessons to drill on grammars, like verb conjugation. 4) It would also be great to have some supplementary vocabulary to let learners build up their vocabulary. Needless to say, the words learned should be tracked by space repetition system.

Good content, subscription can be pricey. The content is good, a little better than duolingo I think, but there's not an option to just buy a course for a set amount. It's all $15/mo subscription which might be good if you're young or retired and have lots of free time. However if you work and have kids and just want to learn a language in your free time over a year or two it's mind-numbingly expensive, especially considering for the price of a 3 month sub you can get a very good language course from a bookshop and you own it.

Fun, but buggy at times. I enjoy using Babbel, but the listen and repeat feature is buggy in the latest version. On both my iPad and iPhone, the first question freezes. Tapping mute, then unmute unlocks it, but the next two or three attempts are guaranteed to fail. I hope this feature can be fixed. I also like the the new listen feature in the review section.

A great app to learn a new language! BUT. There’s a bug within the app that needs fixing, please. I’m trying to do the writing review exercise and it keeps freezing at a certain point. I have closed the app and tried again and it’s still doing it. This is the only issue I’ve had so far and I love the app! Thanks!

Starts off well than it gets too hard fast. I know learning a language is hard but with the Russian you went straight into spelling words when I’ve hardly learnt the alphabet. The first course was good but course 2 you aren’t incorporating what was learnt in course 1 so it’s not repetitive enough. Also need more daily reviews to practice what I’ve been learning. I feel like the newbie level went straight to advanced.

It is ok.. The app itself is good to very good. But I have marked it down as every time it’s updated it loses my payment info and I have to go back in a roundabout way to restore it. Now with this latest update, ALL of my progress data is gone and I can not log in no matter what I do - even using earlier babbel recommended ways and the current recommended way. That is seriously annoying hence the savage mark down. Now I am having to cancel my subscriptions, uninstall and reinstall and resubscribe costing me more. And I have no way to contact app support as well. Please do something about this as this is very poor form and other apps keep all my data and log in.

Uses old school techniques that don’t work. Repetition, repetition, repetition... that’s how some of us learn. Particularly the older generation. Telling me a word and how to spell it won’t sink in unless I keep repeating it until I get it right. Waiting a day to test my memory is pointless! If I’m lucky enough to remember the word, it’s unlikely I’ll spell it correctly. Get it wrong...wait another day before I try again. Stuck with Babble for over 2 years but when they unilaterally changed their repeat, repeat system to a wait-and-try-tomorrow approach, I’m making zero progress. Their help desk was less than helpful. Almost indifferent.

Generally good but backwards. As a beginner, one thing I don’t get whatsoever is why the app would teach you selected words and phrases for specific situations and then shortly after that progression the app throws you a test with new words and phrases that you haven’t been taught yet and expects you to just figure it out somehow all the while testing you. So, because you’re a beginner, you fail the tests not having learnt the words and phrases yet and have to go back to get it right. Is this a smart way of teaching someone a new language? To have them fail on tests because they haven’t been taught that content yet, feel miserable that they’re failing from the get go and then get a 100% pass after going back to correct the mistakes. Don’t you teach and then practice and then test? Bizarre approach and it’s a good thing there’s 7 days free trial because now I know this is not the app that’s going to make me feel good and motivated learning a new language so I’ve canceled the 12 month subscription and will look for a teaching app that teaches then tests only what has been taught.

Some recommendations. Is a great idea but needs some improvements. After completing a number of lessons my main criticism is that they speak way too fast. They also introduce words without pronouncing them or explaining the meaning so you have to look them up in other apps to find out their meaning. There also needs to be a back button so you can go back to a previous step and practise it. Finally, there needs to be a way of learning how to pronounce words without having to leave the page. Perhaps if there was an icon that if you click will pronounce the word slowly. But apart from that it is pretty good. Be good to get a discount for my consulting advise too.

Best language app for rounded learning. I have tried a number of language learning apps (Duolingo, Pimsleur, Mondly, Drops) and find this is the best of them. The courses are well-rounded, with grammar, pronunciation and conversation built in. After a week, I feel like I actually could travel to Italy and engage in regular conversation. I especially like the extra courses on particular topics. In comparison, Duolingo doesn’t give you enough grammar or real-life conversation, Pimsleur focuses quite a lot on conversation and is a bit difficult to do on the go while you are in transit, Mondly doesn’t really give you confidence that you are learning practical information in the right sequence, and Drops is fun but too focused on vocab. If you want a good all-rounder, this is the best choice.

Dansk. I am using Babbel to help me learn Danish. I really like how everything is laid out, the length and content of the lessons (fairly practical) and the flash card reviews. This app “teaches” you more than other apps I have tried, which are more like practice tools rather than actual lessons. My only complaint is the voice recognition is really hit and miss. Sometimes my pronunciation is spot on, other times the app just will not recognise the [same] word I am trying to say and I have to press the little skip arrow after many, many attempts. It’s really frustrating and yes, I have tried messing with the microphone levels in Settings. Other apps I have are nowhere near this flakey.

Language range. I love your app and I think it is a great way to learn new languages. It’s good that there are so many different ways of learning styles that are included in this one app, but it would be highly improved if there was a bigger range of languages. I think that languages like Arabic, Japanese, Korean, or even Chinese should definitely be added to this app since it would benefit so many people. The huge amount of learning styles that are included should add up to a larger amount of languages, which right now is not included. I do still like your app and think it is very creative and easy to use but it could be improved by just adding some new languages to explore.

Sehr Gut!. Very impressed by the immersive format and diverse avenues of learning. Having to verbalise, write and construct phrases from the very start was challenging but very effective! Enjoying learning basic German, in an effort to make a pending work trip to Stuttgart less foreign and offer local curtesy. Have already recommended the app to several friends. Only constructive comment would be the addition of some passive learning ‘podcast’ type programs that you could listen to while driving/walking/sleeping to help further familiarity with the language. Chinese is next!

I wanna learn Japanese. 20th May: Please add Japanese. This is a great app and will definitely help but I mainly only want to learn Japanese. p.s I would rate 5 stars if there was Japanese Edit- 3rd September: I'm still waiting for Japanese! Please I need the Japanese language in my life, you guys better add it! 2nd edit- 19th December: With this update I am still waiting for Japanese. I believe you have already added some other languages but currently all I have seen from the reviews are the fact that people want Japanese. Please add Japanese! So far the app has been great I just learnt Italian; planning on going there on day 😊 Love yall

Fantastic and worthwhile investment!. This app is absolutely fantastic! I’ve always had an ear for languages but struggled to apply myself in school and retain/memorise, but Babbel has transformed my learning experience. Very user friendly, and the modules are concise; the content is all relevant from a conversational perspective! I’ve been learning Norwegian, and have tested what I have learnt with people who speak the native tongue and they have commended the pronunciation! This has been such a worthwhile investment, can’t recommend enough for whichever language you need to learn

Worst introductory experience ever!. All the hype was there so I thought I would give this a try. The first lesson whilst learning Italian was to say “ciao”. I made sure everything was set up correctly with my microphone and the app simply could not recognise me saying the word no matter how I tried. Given I am currently in Florence and surrounded by Italians this word is easily said with very little effort yet the app could not recognise and so I literally could not get past the very first step of the very first lesson. I then tried google translate to make sure I was not missing something and to provide a point of reference. It was detected straight away so I know I am saying it correctly. Absolutely terrible for Italian. I will try French but not very hopeful. Weak at best.

The amended version is OK. It’s a great app but a few glitches which spoil it. Whenever I start a session, rather than recommence where I stopped, it always goes to the end of the set of lessons I was studying. Also the marking seems wrong, often I only get one wrong and the result is something like 52 out of 76 rather than 52 out of 53. In general the content is interesting and does test my knowledge, I like the fact that i can record my own voice and then listen to the playback, great for improving my accent and pronunciation. One of the speakers says his V’s like B’s so it’s a bit hard to understand, otherwise good.

Decent. I’ve used Babbel previously for language learning and while it does offer a decent amount of material it’s quite expensive for what you get, it definitely helps and makes it easier but I would probably only recommend Babbel for absolute beginners, maybe just your first month of learning a new language. As there are a lot more cheaper apps that provide more material but in saying that, Babbel does have a unique way of teaching compared to others so it’s best just to give it a go yourself and try the free trial

Great little app. I was a bit apprehensive about this app as I had used other language apps (which failed to really teach anything..) Babble however is a highly informative, clean (in design) and engaging app :) I have used it for Swedish and purchased the 12 month plan, so far I have greatly enjoyed the app and use it for at least 10 minutes everyday. I highly recommend this app to anyone wishing to learn a language.

Engaging and challenging. Great well made app with a nice degree of challenge to each class. It uses multiple methods to teach you the same thing so you are not simply pressing buttons using muscle memory. I do three classes a day, two in the morning and a revision in the afternoon. I find this is perfect and has just the right amount of new information. I would like to see the ability to go back a page during a class, as I have accidentally skipped a few helpful tips, or even a summery of tips at the end. I also agree with another review about adding some passive learning tools like podcasts, etc. i think this would add a bit more diversity and help when walking or driving to maintain practice.

Don’t download unless you want to pay for it forever -Dishonest in-app subscription renewal. This app not only has deceitful app UI that doesn’t give any option in-app to changed subscriptions, they also blame every ‘can’t unsubscribe’ review on the Apple subs process. It isn’t Apple. If you do want to unsubscribe you have to go to the website version and jump through all of the hoops there. If you have difficulty, Babbel support will send a boilerplate reply laying blame on Apple for their ‘difficult’ process to cancel. Rest assured, if you subs was through Apple you wouldn’t have had a problem. Babbel is biting the hand that feeds them by blaming Apple for their deceitful subscription management UI and continue to further upset their already dissatisfied customers. I now will actively tell people to never pay for this app. To my original review, I wanted to cancel my subscription before it renewed but the settings in-app said I didn’t have a subscription. I checked Apple store and no subscription there either. I had a subscription through the app, they just choose to not show any subs details in-app. When I finally found the right rabbit hole to fall down (on the Babbel website) and cancelled future deductions and contacted support, they made the refund after telling me it was my fault I was charged and they were doing so as a show of good faith. Hah. Don’t download this app unless you intend on paying for it forever.

Keep at it with this one.. I use this on the bus or taxi to and from work. My wife is French, but only speaks to me in English!!! So I speak to her in French like a Spanish cow. But I am getting better and better every day, just by persevering ... DL this and do this instead of rotting your brain with social media. This app makes it fun, and if I get stuck or bored, I move to a different stream of learning. Keep at it with this one. It really works, as long as you keep it fun. Five to ten minutes a day all adds up, and after not too long, your speaking will improve immensely. Match that with watching French films and tv and bobs yer uncle.

Love Babbel. I lived in Germany for 3 years over a decade ago and now have a Spanish speaking partner. Babbel is fantastic for keeping my German fresh and has been fundamental in teaching my Spanish to help me communicate with my in-laws. The lesson build incredibly well on each other and being able to pick the way you review is great. I know I struggle to write in the language but recognise the words easily so being able to make h]that choice to either challenge myself or take it easy is great depending on the mood of the day. I really love this app! Can’t wait to keep progressing and see how far it takes me.

Only needs more languages. It is wonderful but it would be awesome if you could add Korean, learning Korean is my top priority and I was so excited to get the app based on your reviews but sadly there were not many languages. It would be sooo helpful if you could add Korean because many people including me are learning languages such as Korean and Japanese. I am aspiring to be a kpop idol (Korean pop) but I don’t know Korean so it would be mean so much to me and others if you added Korean. I understand it is probably really hard and I’m grateful that we have the privilege to use such a helpful app but it very much needs more languages to get more people’s attention. Thank you for listening!

Good, but we need more languages added. Babbel is a good app, I can assure that. But I feel as though, you should put more consideration into the languages you have. Alot of people are wanting to learn languages such as Japanese and Korean. I would Love to have the Languages Japanese and Thai added to Babbel. And I love watching anime, due to that, Ive picked up a few words from It. After a while I wanted to learn Japanese instead of just "Picking up words" and then at some point, I'd perhaps be able to watch anime without subtitles and I was hoping that maybe Babbel would have that. Unfortunately they didn't 😢. And I would Love it if you added The Thai language to this because I also enjoy watching Thai drama's (My favourite is Souts) I would love to learn Thai to be able to watch things with my favourite Thai actor, Without needing the subtitles. Please Just consider this review.

Great app and makes learning Italian grammar easy. I am wanting to refresh my Italian language skills as a basic/intermediate learner. I started with Duo Lingo but it’s too basic and the ads are annoying. Babbel is a far superior language app. It’s easy to use with visual, listening and writing exercises in each lesson. I have always struggled with Italian grammar rules but Babbel makes it easy. Definitely worth paying for this app, if you are serious about learning a language!!

Best app for LEARNING. Simply an amazing language app for learning European languages. It’s structured by lessons and teaches grammar step by step starting from the very basics. I use this to learn the grammar and then use other apps to apply the learning. Also love the tips in the lessons. It’s a simply no fuss learning style app that’ll fill any learning gaps you have. Got the yearly premium for 50% off and it’s worth it. Highly recommend and would’ve been happy with paying full price.

So thorough and well thought out. I have been using Babbel for two years now to learn Italian. The lessons are carefully planned in a logical order. The review options are well thought out and are really useful. They review speaking, writing, spelling and listening, all of which are covered in the lessons. The app covers grammar, vocabulary and useful everyday situations. It’s not a tool to give you instant phrases but instead to really teach you the language. There is also a vocabulary review which builds as you learn. I would love it if there was a shuffle option here but it is also very useful. I have learnt 4 other languages previously through school type learning but this lets you learn at your own space, any time, any where. Highly recommended.

Best Language Learning Tool Out There. I’ve been wanting to learn Italian all my life, because it just seemed like such a fascinating language. I tried some other apps, but they just weren’t really good enough. Babbel is definitely the best option you’ve got if you want to learn. The only issue you might run into would be that Babbel doesn’t have the language you want to learn, but apart from that it’s pretty close to perfect.

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THX. THX so much😁

Stupid App. Duolingo is better app than this. This app has 99.99% stuff paid.

Excellent. Excellent program! It’s very well done, it motivates you to continue learning with this amazing interactive app. Great job!

Not enough language options. So I’m constantly looking for good language learning apps and thought I’d try this one but then deleted shortly after because my target language right now is Korean and it’s not offered on hear, also noticed there’s no Japanese or Chinese languages on here either, the language selection is very limited, i don’t know if the selection is bigger with a subscription but I don’t even want to pay to find out.

Sad. Why is it you only get one lesson for free? People could buy an entire book about the language for a lower price.

Save your money!. I feel like I am guessing my way through everything. No real explanations or lessons and I have almost gone through the whole course and am no further ahead. Maybe a little less confident, and a lot more frustrated

Babble No entiendo. Lately the app does not seem to recognize my verbal responses. Google translate has no issues with each and every word that Babble says is incorrect. It becomes extremely frustrating to repeatedly get, for every word you try, a negative response. If my Spanish tutor can understand me why does Babble fail to do so??

Très difficile d’annuler l’abonnement!. Very difficult to unsubscribe: can’t stop nor have any help to stop my Italian course Really bad

Not worth the money. For what you get it’s not worth the money

Terrible. I wanted to cancel and can’t. It charged me $44 again. This app is awful. I am try to understand a language and it was great lesson one. Taught me 4 words then onto sentences. Like i dont have a clue what’s happening. Ill be calling my credit card to report this.

Dont take it. It is very hard to cancel your membership They make it is very complicated to cancel to make sure they get as much money as they can from you because your membership is renewed automatically. They should be in prison Never take this app !!!!!

Intuitive app. Intermittent issues but the development team is quick to apply patches.

please add this. you guys should add canadian-french because some words are different and i live in canada ahhaha

Dynamique et très efficace. Les leçons sont bien faites et très dynamiques. Des fois faciles et des fois plus complexes mais toujours claires. Merci

Left-Wing Propaganda Lessons Are Offensive!. This is a wretched app that incorporates anti-science, discredited, left-wing talking points into its “lessons,” such as people attending a climate change protest in a dialogue that you’re supposed to complete!! It would be much more intelligent and helpful to users if their dialogues featured people attending anti-abortion protests. 0 stars.

Good app. It’s weird to say it’s a good app, then put three starts. It’s the facts that I must pay to learn a language that is a turn off. I felt it’s worth paying to learn but there’s YouTube and another app that I had called Duolingo where you can learn a language for free. Why did I come here then if I had Duolingo? To make it short I felt Duolingo wasn’t enough to learn. It was often the same basics. (It’s important to repeat but I also took a Spanish class, so I was more advanced on the language) I was recommended Babbel and I saw there is some potential where you can learn any language it’s just I can’t pay. If anyone wants to spend money to learn a language or multiple languages it’s really worth to put your money on Babbel.

annoying bings. It’s like listening to a slot machine every time you select a response it bings. I can’t stand it.

Eh. I absolutely love the app.... if I could do all the lessons. I can do two of the lessons and then I have to pay. All I want is to learn Portuguese to talk to my exchange student friend and it’s trying to make me pay over $20 a month!

Bruh. you can’t learn Finnish on babbel. Get better

Excellent. Très facile d'utilisation. De plus, avec l'appli, on peut pratiquer n'importe où à n'importe quelle heure.

.. I like the methods, but I don’t like how you have to pay to continue getting lessons, since I don’t have enough money for that, and think it’s a lot of money for lessons when you could probably get them for free with other apps like duolingo and likewise, other than that, it’s a pretty nice app, with good methods.

Супер преломление. Отличное предложение

Repeating pronunciation. I'm enjoying this app if it works correctly. Half the time it doesn't because the keyboard covers up the next question. I have already sent a report about this and have not heard anything. If this can't be corrected I will cancel this app and get another program from another source. Previous review that I did not send send this: I am enjoying this app but feel there is not enough chance to imitate the pronunciation after an answer has been completed. It goes right onto the next question after they have said the completed sentence. I would prefer if they would wait longer between exercises so I can hear what they say and repeat it myself, without being interrupted by the next exercise popping up.

SHOCKED BY LANGUAGE CHOICES! THAT’S IT? Countries with predominantly, Caucasian populations?. It is May 2023 and I was totally shocked to see my language choices. I spent so much time and energy comparing Duolingo and Rosetta and Babble and was shocked when Babble was editors choice above all. However, I’ve already learned Spanish, Italian, and French. I think these are probably the most popular languages that people want to learn. I would think that Mandarin (since it’s the number one business language) would’ve been an option. It was extremely shocking to see the options available were Swedish, Polish, Turkish, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian… and then, at the end, a little Indonesia, in there to make it look a little less predominately Caucasian . I mean like come on! Majority of the countries here are predominantly white countries. I have no intention of going to any of those countries… What happened to Punjabi? Or as I mentioned, Mandarin? Korean? Or Thai languages like Siamese or Mon. Wow! I’m just absolutely speechless.

Bien fait mais…. Application très bien faite à un détail près: impossible de changer de niveau si on est plus fort.

Merci!. Loving the simple understanding of words and when to use them I was in France this summer and love it so much. Next time, I’d like to be able to communicate with people I meet who don’t speak English. Also in general, wonderful to have a second language. I look forward to my upcoming lessons

Disappointed. Didn’t realize how expensive it is!!!! With this small of choices you can’t charge 15 bucks a month when duolingo is free and has 100s of languages!

My Amazing Babbel Exp.. This App is so amazing, I couldn’t believe it when I got it. You can set your daily goals, play learning games, and so much more. I highly recommend this app!

Better than DuoLingo, Rosetta. After a year with Babbel I can finally speak (limited, slow) German and write simple emails. It‘s so user-friendly compared to horrible DuoLingo.

Charged after cancelled. I paid for a 1 year subscription and then cancelled it and they still charged me for the second year.

Suggestions d'améliorations. Application sympathique pour apprendre une langue mais quelques aspects pourraient être améliorés : - reconnaissance vocale : si je mâche mes mots de façon incompréhensible mais respecte la bonne intonation, l'application me le valide quand même comme une bonne prononciation - cohérence d'une leçon à l'autre et plus grande souplesse dans la validité des réponses. exemple parmi d'autres : une leçon va m'apprendre à ajouter "years old" pour donner l'âge de quelqu'un. Pourtant, la leçon suivante va considérer faux l'ajout de "years old" après le chiffre et ne pas valider ma réponse tant que je ne l'ai pas effacé. Même chose lorsqu'il s'agit de traduire des verbes, l'utilisation de synonymes est impossible et c'est dommage. L'application nous apprend à penser que c'est la mauvaise traduction alors que la réponse est bonne malgré tout.

Great App. Great App for learning languages. I am impressed with how it is organized to work on different aspect of language learning in a fun way ie, grammar, pronunciation, spelling, usage, etc

Not Very Tempting. I learned “Yes”, “Hello” and “Please” in Turkish in a two minute long exercise. Then I’m pushed to purchase the additional lessons. Can it at least be fun first?

Connexion. J,utilisé Babel depuis plusieurs années sur ma tablette IPad, depuis deux semaines j,ai perdu la connexion et impossible de la ravoir, je viens juste de renouveler mon abonnement à 139.$ pour une année et elle fonctionne seulement sur mon ordinateur, pas sur ma tablette,et je ne trouve aucun numéro de téléphone au Canada. J,ai décidé de me désabonner, c,est devenu trop compliqué.

👎. I can’t learn anything without paying

Doesn’t refund as promised. I signed up with a 20 day free period. I keep messaging them but they haven’t refunded me. I paid via PayPal. I didn’t like the app. Duolingo is better They are crooks as far as I am concerned

Only 3 free lessons in French unlike Dev. response 😡. I read the reviews that said there was only a few free courses, to which a developer responded saying there are “20-60 free lessons”. So I decided to give it a try... we’ll I got 3 lessons in before I had to pay to move any further! Also, I’m a B level French student and was placed in the absolute beginner courses 🙄

Aucun accès et aucun support. Je n’ai toujours pas accès à mon cours d’Espagnol que j’ai payé il y a 2 jours. Aucun support du service à la clientèle après plusieurs tentatives de contact depuis plusieurs moyens d’accès différents. L’application est bien, seulement lorsqu’on a accès à ce pourquoi nous avons payé.

Babbel. Very happy with this App. Easy to use and fun to learn with Babbel

Terrible. I have been paying for doing my courses with babbel and all my historic of Italian and French disappeared. It is like I have not done one single lesson of these courses and the support of babbel did not give me any solution

Riview. So I got this app the other day and I enjoy it and came through to check what the reviews say and everyone says it doesn't teach you it just tests your previous knowledge but what it does is slowly start introducing new things to you then questions you on those new things and then moves onto something else new maybe even continuing on from what you previously learned but it is all through fill in the blanks and small questions and verbal phrases that you can practice and you hear someone else speak the phrases as well, I got this because I want to Learn Spanish and this app is actually making it very easy and convenient should have a wider selection of languages though but does have most of the easy to learn popular languages.

I just wish there was more languages. I understand that multiple people have most likely learned languages like English or Spanish or Italian or Portuguese or Dutch and multiple more on this app. But I’m learning Japanese right now and I downloaded this app so it could help only to realize, there’s no Japanese. There’s no Korean, no Japanese, no Chinese of any kind, no Thai, no Greek or hindi or anything like that. It’s mostly focused on European languages + Indonesian. If there could be more variety, I’m sure it would be more useful.

Speech recognition. My speech recognition isn’t allowing me to say the word. It gives me the example and immediately indicates it was said correctly without me having a chance to say words. Please fix this bug

Best for being taught grammar etc. Been using Duolingo for a few years. Fun for dabbling but I need to actually learn to speak Portuguese proficiently for work and, with my learning style, I want to be taught rules of grammar, pronunciation, conjugation, etc. Duolingo relies on you picking up these things “naturally” like a young child would. Babbel teaches me the language in the way I want to learn it. It’s a bit slow, however. Duolingo’s interface is snappier. That’s the only fault I have with Babble so far.

Caution!!!!!. BE careful!!! You are signing up for a SUBSCRIPTION THAT AUTOMATICALLY RENEWS.

Zero stars would be more accurate!. I stopped using the app 9 months ago and continue to get charged $50 every few months even though I cannot even access the lessons if I wanted to. I canceled my subscription and continue to be billed. Worst App ever, how do I even fix this?!? I can’t stop payment on an app????

Babble. Not worth. I have not been doing only wanted to try it and took money now took another payment with out permission. Very unhappy customer.

I need more languages. I know adding languages is hard, but the main language that would help me day to day is Greek but it’s sadly not here. I might use this for French but otherwise I think I gotta keep it all on Duolingo

Clavier. Les discussions se retrouve sous le clavier donc difficile de lire et répondre.

Niveau. Le niveau pour le moment est basique

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J’adore Babbel!. I’m loving this app! The lessons are plentiful and fun and you can go at your own pace, though challenging yourself becomes rather addictive and makes you want to keep going, one lesson into the next! I am impressed by how many lessons there are and excited by the breadth and variety. In my estimation and considering how many hours of study you receive, Babbel is a real bargain as learning tool. Some a-ha moments happen along the way. Just when you might think you’re not quite getting it, the lesson structure will help things click. The lessons move you along fairly quickly, so I think the lesson reviews are the key (la cle!) to retaining what you have learned. For me personally, I’m glad that I went into this with a public school French class foundation. Remembering and revisiting the basics of what I had studied nearly 40 years ago makes building upon a desired, but latently pursued skill all the more satisfying. A+++!

Struggling. I switched to Babbel from Rosetta Stone, which had quickly become horrid, to again try to learn Spanish. I’m three months into it and supposedly have learned 550+ words, yet I still can’t formulate a substantial statement in the language. I don’t find the app or the online site particularly easy to use. There is no real feedback as to one’s true progress. I haven’t figured out how to repeat past lessons (or even find them). Crucial elements such as conjugations are not adequately covered or revisited, nor is there a way to review them outside of a lesson. Some of the speakers slur statements so badly they sound drunk; they’re completely unintelligible. Others don’t match the written statement. I’m coming across more and more statements with no translation, so I’m increasingly clueless as to what they mean (this was my biggest beef with Rosetta Stone). I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting. Despite what so many people want to say, Spanish is a complex and difficult language to learn. It seemingly has no consistent structure, or if there is it’s lost on Babbel. Maybe my opinion will improve with time, but as of now I’m just lost.

Ok but could do a LOT better 😐😓😬. I like it and I say it’s better than others but it could use a lot of work! I saw this app on ads and commercials on tv and I thought I would give it a try. 1. I first noticed this as soon as I created my account, there weren’t many lessons so you were kinda stuck unless you pay the people who made this app and now I am kinda regretting getting this app 😥. 2. The one thing I like is that it teaches you about getting a reservation for hotels or restaurants, how to pronounce the Mexican dishes, stuff like that instead of just regular standard things that an language learning app would have. They did a 👌🏻 job of making it so yeah. If I would give this app a 1-10 stars, it would be a good 6. I hope the app creators actually read this stuff instead of ignoring the other peoples opinions of there app. And don’t give me the bull of you guys saying “Oh I’m sorry for that. We are constantly improving our app blah blah blah… but oH yA gOtTa StILl bUy pRenIuM!!” BECAUSE THATS JUST HORRIBLE. ACTUALLY IMPROVE YOUR APP AND MAKE IT FREE. PERMANENTLY. INSTEAD OF FORCING PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY WANT TO LEARN A LANGUAGE AND ARE INTERESTED. 😔💔

Best language app I’ve ever used. I took three years of traditional French courses in high school, but still feel somewhat uncomfortable speaking it in a public setting, as well as difficulty understanding native speakers at full speed. I used another app for a while to try and improve my skills, but its scoring system felt unfair and arbitrary. I’ve been taking Babbel courses for a few months in preparation for a move to Berlin, and I can already feel the difference in how I’m learning the language. It feels odd to just continue on when I get something wrong, or even when I have no idea how to respond, but the subtle clues dropped throughout the lessons, plus daily review often result in learning the language subconsciously. I’ve gotten used to getting the right answer immediately, without being able to recall exactly when I learned that word or phrase. Due to the pandemic, I haven’t been able to move yet, but I’m already working with my German colleagues and while I’m not ready to try speaking German myself at work, I can usually understand some of what they’re talking about. I’ve also had some issues with voice recognition telling me my prononciation is incorrect, even though I’m sure I’m closer than other times when it’s marked me as correct. I'm hoping they can add more detailed feedback in the future about what exactly I said incorrectly. I'll admit, sometimes I'm holding the phone in a way that obstructs the mic, so that part is on me.

Poor coaching for pronunciation. When I started using the app I loved it! It’s got a variety of pronunciation, spelling and grammatical exercises. I am using Babbel to attempt to learn some conversational French for a trip to Paris in October- I’m not particularly focused on reading and writing French, but it is nice to see it as it certainly is not a phonetic language! As I am progressing I am becoming increasingly frustrated. The spoken examples are too fast and feel like a very random progression through the language. I feel like I went from basic French to here’s his sentence with only one word that you’ve heard before- better say it right! When your pronunciation is wrong there is no coaching- there is one recording that you can listen to on repeat and that is it. No sentences/statements are broken down into smaller sections, there are no recordings with an alternate voice, nothing. How am I supposed to pick up on the very subtle differences in sounds!? Or find where in the sentence specifically I am struggling. Learning a new language is a challenge- I’m prepared for that, but at this point I’m too frustrated to progress in the modules.

It’s ok. It’s an ok way to learn, it’s saying that I’m on level 3 because I know certain words and phrases but I know that I absolutely couldn’t use them in a conversation right now or even understand if they were spoken to me. So it’s like yes I’m on to the next stage but I’m not confident in any of it. The conversations during the review help, but it’s not something i can go back and listen to and practice and it goes by so fast. I wish it would start you off with very basic sentences and form that into a very beginner, slow conversation, so that you actually UNDERSTAND HOW to have and form sentences and conversate. Then it would stick much better. But coming out of the gate listening to a full conversation is very intimidating, it makes you feel like you don’t know anything, especially when you have to replay it 19x, then forget most of it again once you go to the next section. The methods need to be adjusted to a more realistic way of learning, understanding, and retaining, before going right to conversation mode. The fluent conversations should be something optional to listen to/engage in. It’s just quite overwhelming

Good but... I downloaded babble because Duolingo makes learning Spanish too confusing. It marks me wrong when it has two different meaning for one word and I “use the wrong one” I guess, that and I’ve been seeing the ads everywhere. I begin and it immediately picks beginner Spanish. Which is ok. I did want to learn Spanish but it didn’t even give me a choice but there’s other languages I’d like to learn too. After that I did the first course and it dove me straight into vocab which at first was confusing and I didn’t know hardly any of the words/phrases. Then when it came to speech each time there was a mmm or a ah before the sentence it always marked it wrong but the rest of the phrase right. Not to mention if I slip up once I can’t redo like if I say habla instead of hablo. After finishing I can’t get it 100% because of misspelling or mispronunciation, which is fine but it only lets me do the first round. I can’t do or even try the others without asking for a subscription. I’m not sure if it’s closed because of not finishing 100% or because you only get one free. I’d really like to know because it doesn’t really tell me.

Leaves a Lot to be Desired. I have purchased the Spanish course and it is very disappointing. The selection is miniscule, especially if you are not a complete beginner. And with the few lessons they do have, one of my biggest issues is the voice recognition/pronunciation feature. It doesn’t seem to actually check your pronunciation, but whether you are using the tone and inflection of whatever character they have you mimicking. So even if you say something with perfect accent, if the character dragged a word and you just said it, they will count it as wrong. On one question because the character said bienvenida as bienvendaaaaaaa (for some reason dragging the end), it kept marking me wrong until I pressed continue, heard the voice actor and then understood they wanted me to drag the a. No it wasn’t an issue of the sentence being bienvenida a ____. It was a dragged a at the end. So things like that leave much to be desired, especially when other apps seem to be able to do voice recognition just fine. I won’t be renewing my subscription

Wonderfully designed program, almost. I’ve tried Duolingo for a year and Rosetta Stone for a few months and for organized learning aimed at the adult learner this is head and shoulder above the others (I’ve had high school and college Spanish and no one ever explained color and noun agreement rules until Babbel) There are actual grammar tips that explain correct usage as opposed to imagining that you will just “pick it up” through emersion. The story line is reasonably engaging - I actually did an extra chapter just to see what the big secret is. Where the program falls down completely is the useless voice recognition. BEFORE I even draw a breath to speak it tells me to try again. I’m pretty sure breathing is the same is Spanish as in English. And it can be done better. Rosetta Stone’s voice recognition goes so far as to give you feedback on how close you got to getting it right. So for now I have Babbel to teach me Spanish usage and grammar and Rosetta Stone to teach me how to speak. It would be nice to see both features in one package.

The app has some glitches. So far my husband and I are loving babble. We decided to learn German, if we are god enough we hope to take a trip to Germany in a year! Babble is really cool because it incorporates multiple types of learning which really helps the language stick. There’s some reading, listening, writing, multiple choice, even flash cards. It’s very neat and we are surprised how much of the language is sticking with us in a short time. My only complaint is that there are glitches when you choose the review section and want to go over and review what you have learned. Most of the time it will say an error has occurred and will not let us review the different sections. Which is a bummer because that’s where the flash cards, listening, and writing section is! It does it on my phone and my husbands phone. Babble- please fix this! Otherwise, it would be a 5 star rating.

Really great, could be better. I really like this app. I’m learning Spanish and I am having a much better experience than I did with Duolingo. Things I like are, - It is clear they had language professionals help organize actual lesson plans. -The way it builds is really intuitive and happens at a digestible pace. - the way that new grammar is introduced in a way where it is a question but they provide the answer on the page you just have to look for it. This helps me understand it much better that trying to read a description of how the grammar works. - you learn to read write and speak all at once - vocabulary is added to your study list AS you learn it - there is a review built in Which brings me to, The things It is lacking - I wish the Vocab was available as IN APP FLASH CARDS . Currently they are just listed in a long LONG column, which is not particularly helpful for studying - I wish that there was a reference section that, similar to the Vocab, automatically adds rules that youve learned as you learn them. Specifically, the Verb conjugation tables. And irregular verb conjugation that simply has to be memorized, I wish were added to the flash card section that doesn’t exist. I was confused by the 3 basic kinda of regular verbs but after a 3 min google search found a really nice explanation and was really confused as to why it wasn’t in the lesson I paid for.

Phenomenal learning resource with bad user interface. I’m switched from Duolingo to Babbel because I found that I learned much easier with Babbel. Also the content of Babbel is more relevant to someone like me who is living in a foreign country. I used Babbel about 45 minutes a day for 4 months before moving to Sweden. On my first day here I ordered a custom sandwich from a restaurant in Swedish and had a small conversation with the server. The app’s pedagogy is sound: they use spaced repetition; alternate between listening, speaking, writing, and reading; and have native speakers dictate everything. There are two problems I have with Babbel. 1. Their user interface is horrible. The app looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2014. For example, when you finish a section, the iPad app just says congratulations- it doesn’t automatically take you to the next section. You have to navigate back through their fairly confusing interface to get to the next section. 2. They have put minimal effort into creating a point system. With Duolingo, users compete to get the most points each week and reach different leagues, incentivizing users to spend more time learning. Babbel has an arbitrary point counter, but they don’t tell you what 2000 points mean and there’s never any competition. Even with these two faults, I believe that Babbel is the most cost effective and efficient way to learn a foreign language with an app and I would highly recommend it.

Well...We need to talk. I have been wanting to learn German for a while now. I am very disappointed that the lessons aren’t free. I can’t afford the subscriptions and I’d like to learn more German. Others could easily afford it but I don’t have the money to which is why I looked to this app. I also have dyslexia which doesn’t help with my spelling, since the pictures looked like they provided everything I needed, I went for it. I really want some more free lessons, at least 3 free lessons per corse would give me more motivation to learn. I don’t understand why I one corse leads to another by it costs money. So I’m stuck in an awkward place right now. I understand if you can’t make the lessons free then I’m forced to move to another app. Since I’m Not able to move on, it would be my only choice. I do understand you need to make some money but you can’t get any from me since I don’t have any. Please just consider this because I know for a fact I’m not the only person who wants to learn another language but can’t afford it. Thank you for reading, goodbye.

Nice experience.. I’m on lesson 9 doing Spanish and I am really enjoying Babbel. It’s super fun, makes learning different languages fun and effective. There’s just one thing with me, but it might just be me. I sometimes take a little while to come back to my newest lessons, and as time goes on like maybe a week or 2 I come back, get a lesson done or 2, but I forget some of the past words I learned. I don't know, I’ll just start doing my lessons daily and that will probably solve the problem. But my only suggestion is for there to be live talking lessons with people for kids, because I’m 14 and I tried joining a lesson but I had to leave because I wasn’t a adult. I was a little upset but I understand why they would make live meetings for adults and not kids. But love babbel, thank you so much for the fun experience, and I will continue progressing in the language as I have many friends that speak Spanish and I feel left out. Thanks - Devin 👍🏽

Ok... for now. This app works for me… For now. I want to learn Haitian Creole, but because it isn’t available I’m learning French in the meantime. I like that there are speaking, matching, and writing activities all mixed up. There’s also visual photograph each phrase, sometimes appropriate for the new vocab and sometimes not. Regardless, the visual helps with recall. There are some screens were you can press repeat to hear the new vocabulary again and there are some screens where once you respond the new vocabulary goes away. I think that the app should allow for you to listen to each and every word/phrase in the language you are learning as many times as you would like to listen to it. There should be a repeat button on every single page. I’m also not quite sure about the order of lessons. The first lesson seemed appropriate with “yes, no, thank you, good” etc. However the order of lessons after that was confusing. I started to learn sentences like “she’s a thin woman“ and “ he loves giving complements”. Maybe there’s a method to the madness… I’ll continue.

Good, but not great. The iPhone app seems to force the proprietary keyboard which is, in short, abysmal. I get questions “wrong” frequently because it’s cumbersome to type with, and not forgiving like Duolingo’s system. For example, “bleiben” was typed “bleibn” because the “e” didn’t register on the Babbel keyboard. This is frustrating as the app’s design is actively misinterpreting my knowledge. Inputs can’t be as fast as they are with the standard iOS keyboard, and for some reason, the iPad app allows the built-in keyboard. Not sure why iPhone is different. Another thing—capital letters are very important in German. Without the ability to input capital letters, my brain doesn’t have to actively memorize that function of the language. Duolingo indicates when a user has omitted a capital. Babbel just does it for you, with no option for the user to show their knowledge. I want to love this service more than Duolingo, because there are some great features, especially the Flashcards. Please give me a reason to not go back.

Mostly satisfied. Microphone problems. This app is structured great. Lesson plans and courses are inclusive to all learning types and I feel I will learn very well on the app. There is some issues with the speaking exercises. When you are using the option to learn through speech and not only writing you have to speak into the microphone of your phone and say what the app is prompting you to say and it will accept your speech as passable or it will tell you to try again. Well I have the same issue over and over again where I will be saying the sentence or phrase perfectly. And I know because it lets you compare it to how it wants you to say it. Yet it will continue to tell me to try again. Sometimes the microphone will stop recording in the middle of me saying the phrase even if I’m holding the button down, and it will do this over and over. Sometimes it will do both at the same time. This is extremely frustrating but it’s the only complaint I have. Other than that the app is easy to navigate; it’s fun and interactive and I am happy with it

Somewhat frustrating. I am working on learning Norwegian. I am very much a beginner having just studied the language for a short time. The occasional grammar rules that pop up are truly helpful. But new vocabulary, which I have never seen, also pops up and of course without getting a dictionary and looking up each word, I am left with just wild guessing of how to use it in a sentence. Secondly, I cannot back up and listen to a segment or phrase again. Small typo kind of errors also cause problems. There just doesn’t seem to be enough variety of practice between new words or phrases and having to hear and write them independently especially when so many unknown words are thrown in. Video would help too. I cannot figure out how some of the words get pronounced as they do because I cannot see the face of the speaker. I have been frustrated enough with unknown words that cause me to get everything wrong that I often find myself exiting the program in before a lesson is done. So, there are some good things. But there are areas that need to be improved. Hope Babble works on the latter.

Speech recognition is awful!. I've been learning Spanish through Babbel for a few weeks. I like the variety of exercises and order of material that is presented, but the speech recognition exercises simply don't work. I know I'm using the app correctly, as I am able to get about 1/4 of these challenges in the first try. But for the others, I fail no matter what I try - I even recorded the demo audio on another device, played it back, and still failed! I practice in a silent room and have tried different microphones to no avail. Since the speech recognition is the main selling point of the app for me (otherwise, I'd be just as well off with books and pre-recorded lessons), I have to give it a low rating. I occasionally have encountered other small glitches where the interface will not scroll, will misalign elements in a matching exercise, or just freeze and require me to restart the app. But none of these are as frustrating or frequent as the speech recognition problems. As above, I have otherwise enjoyed learning with Babbel. *Addendum: I keep the app up-to-date and have observed this on the latest version at time of writing.

Great for daily conversations!. I seldem use apps to learn languages since I think many of them are not deep enough for a serious language lerner. Babbel is very different and I love it because in each lesson, it combines new words/grammar with daily conversations. Many other language learning apps just focus on teaching new words, phrases or simple sentences without any contexts. Through Babbel, I can get fully charged when I apply what I’ve learned in real conversations. There are many specific topics to learn like traveling. I can get refreshed before a trip to the foreign country where I’ll use the new language. I also love the way Babbel certificates my language level according to CEFR. I’m currently learning German at B1 (intermediate) level and its aptitude test perfectly put me in the right level before I started to learn. Highly recommend this app to the people who’d like to learn a language in more depth!!

Very Impressed So Far. My husband is from Italy and his parents do not speak any English, so I decided to finally bite the bullet and see how much Italian I could learn. I got the six month subscription as a Christmas present and so far I’m very impressed. The lessons do a great job of not overwhelming me while still teaching me a great deal of information. I am still at a very basic level, but my husband is very impressed with my progress so far. I like how tips pop up throughout the lessons and they mix multiple relevant topics within each lesson. My only critique is that I wish there were more features in the review section other than just flashcards. When I studied Spanish in school I loved having a running list of the verbs we’ve learned and their conjugations. This would be super helpful to look back at. Also including some review games would be beneficial. Overall a great app and something I would recommend to any beginners!

Fantastic app…. I had purchased a subscription for this app and was learning Turkish but later I wanted to switch to German but I couldn’t. I wasn’t aware that I couldn’t explore other languages with my subscription. I then purchased a subscription with Duolingo and really liked the game like style but didn’t like how they don’t explain anything like Babbel does as you learn. Being irritated by Babbel not allowing language change I left a critical review for Babbel and I immediately received a response. I contacted customer service and Lothia quickly changed my subscription to German. I wish I had contacted Babbel sooner and wouldn’t have had to buy a Duolingo subscription, but it’s okay because I like using both. Overall I think Babbel is more serious and better for mature learners although Duolingo isn’t bad either. Both are excellent apps but in my opinion Babbel gets the #1 spot. Customer service is also great with Babbel.

Reviewing system. I have been learning German off of Babbel and I love it the app is amazing. I have progressed through a lot of lessons and had a great time doing it. Although in the beginner 1 for German the speaking speed increased and I was having a harder time understanding what was going on in the mini conversations. So I was hoping the review tool would allow me to go over everything in that lesson since I was having a hard time with it. But you can only review certain things and you can’t pick what to review. This made it pretty hard to keep up during the lessons and I can’t bring myself to learn German as much as I used too since I can’t review what I want to. I need a an addition on to the review where I can select terms and put them into a test where I can see if I can remember each of the terms in German. So even if the lessons are very fast I can have a good idea of what is happening.

Babbel wasn’t helpful with my language learning style. I’ve tried a few language courses to learn Spanish. I had some success with them but their exercises started to become predictable. I did some research from independent sources for a new course that led me to Babbel. Overall it was a disappointing experience. Babbel’s exercises while less predictable did not provide a logical way to learn the language. I found I made much less progress than I had with other programs. In these other programs they would teach pronouns I, he/she, you and their impact on verb conjugations. It was really helpful for me to see the differences and understand them which enabled me to remember them. With Babbel I used it for a month with some previous Spanish language training but struggled with their random conversational style of training. The app was also on the slower side and very unforgiving on misspellings. I would be VERY careful about signing up for the less expensive annual plan but go with one month plan to see if their style works for you. I personally would not recommend Babbel for learning Spanish.

It's pricy but that's the cost of progress. I'm typing this with my thumbs on an iPhone 5 so my words cannot come close to the praise I want to levy on this project. I'm the kid who kind of kept his Junior High level Spanish through college. I've sounded like a five year old in Spanish for decades. I decided to start at absolute beginner with Babbel six months ago and now I'm at their independent level. It been a pleasure. I FEEL like I know a lot more Spanish but now I need to work up the courage to talk to someone. The app has this -- I still haven't worked up courage to try the scheduled live courses. But this is a positive review because the app keeps me doing it on a daily basis -- never frustrates me too much and often amuses me. I say go for it and take it seriously. Later edit on Sept. 2022: So… I made a great deal of progress and then… I abandoned all my work. I was in Spain for a great deal of that time so my backslide was probably not a huge backslide, but still, I found it hard to return to the app, despite the subscription was active (audios dinero), but I refused to stop the subscription despite the expense because it sad there nagging like a rotting tooth I needed to take to the dentist, or on this case, I knew I couldn’t let my progress with Spanish rot. Long story short — I made it back and many positive changes make the process even more elegant. Five stars!

Good but speech recognition is terrible. I’ve been learning Spanish for years now. I decided to start paying for a Spanish learning app, and decide to go with Babel over Rosetta Stone after trying out the free lessons. I like a lot of the features they offer and the app is easy to use. However, the speech recognition is absolutely horrendous. When I was doing the free lessons it seemed like it worked better, now it’s hit or miss. I know my pronunciation isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good. I’ll slow things down, but it’ll still say I’m saying it incorrectly. If that’s the case, I wish the app would tell me what exactly I’m saying wrong so I can improve it. I think the software itself is defective because the other day while practicing, I didn’t realize the app was recording. I didn’t say anything, but it accepted the background noise as correct. It’s a shame the voice recognition isn’t better because it’s a great app and speaking is usually the most difficult aspect of learning another language. Would bump up the rating if it was more consistent.

They get you with the free lesson. The paid lesson changes drastically.. I liked the free portion of the app. It was presented in a way that I liked and helped me learn. Then they apparently let my 6th grade English teacher get her grubby little mitts on it. Now I feel robbed, and foolish, as if their marketing team knew the rest of their learning method wouldn’t appeal to everyone. The old “ you know what you did” thing. It became more about a test on sentence structure, and started boring me to tears. I’m sure some people learn this way, but I become bored with minor details and sentence structuring details and HOW something is written. One of the early question was, which way the accent marks slanted.I just want to speak some Spanish and learn enough to have a somewhat decent conversation. I learned English as a child before I ever knew anything about writing it. Doesn’t everyone? Stop trying to teach me to write it and teach me to speak it. Once I can somewhat speak it, learning to write it is far easier for me personally. I got this to learn to SPEAK conversational Spanish, not how to WRITE conversational spanish. Their approach is not a good universal fit, since we all learn differently.

Would change a few things. I really do like this app a lot. However, I would change a few things about it. I am using it for Spanish I wish that you could test out of them early lessons so that the app could figure out where your fluency level really is and the lessons could be cured more specifically toward your learning. It feels like torture going through the early lessons when I have had some Spanish. I also really wish that I could choose Latin Spanish versus Spain Spanish. I don’t want to include the VOSOTROS but it makes me! A couple of other things, sometimes it wants you to include the pronouns and sometimes it doesn’t but it’s not always clear. So I get some wrong because those instructions arent specific. What I really wish is that it included more activities that forced you to translate what you hear. I feel like this is the hardest part of learning a language. Is making sure that what you hear from a Foreign language speaker is what you think you hear. So I’m still on the hunt for the best app that will give me that!

Decent app for learning a new language but….. The Babble app works well for learning a new language but you have to march to Babble’s drum and learning agenda. It may or may not cover specific phrases that you want to learn. I wish it would support more “self guidance” over what to cover and let me define or select phrases I might use. I’m going to Italy for a two week vacation and wanted to learn some greetings and phrases, but Babble decides what you get to learn and how. The app is making me spell out Italian phrases that Babble chooses and which have no relevance to me. I’m not looking to write a novel in Italian, just speak some common phrases, so it feels like I’m wasting time trying to spell-out Italian words I will not use like spelling out the phrase that is asking for directions to the “Tobacco Shop”. I don’t smoke. I am more interested in asking for “directions to a public restroom” or “directions to a restaurant or hotel or museum” and I want to say these phrases, not write about them.

so much better than the bird app. tl;dr: get this app, it will actually teach you the language you want to speak i started learning swedish because my long-term girlfriend and her family speak swedish frequently in their home and i wanted to be able to join in their conversations (this was encouraged by her whole family). i started with duolingo and got nowhere - i was bored and stopped frequently using the app because of how repetitive and drab it was. i picked up babbel as a last hope to learn swedish and was overwhelmingly surprised with the results. i’m still in the beginner courses and i am already able to comprehend the understanding of most real life conversations in my girlfriend’s household. babbel is so much more tailored to your individual needs and wants in learning a language. this app allows you to have real experience pronouncing and experiencing realistic conversations! the pace can be at whatever speed you like, but legitimately will allow you to have fast-paced learning and allow you to throw yourself in the deep end while still learning a language. vowel sounds and basic structures of the language you’re learning are explained early on and let you learn how to truly understand how a language is spoken rather than simple sentence structure and vocabulary. i cannot recommend this app more for truly learning to speak, read, write, and comprehend a language.

Great instructor but a poor listener. I have been learning Spanish with Babbel for about three months now and feel like I’m making good progress toward fluency. Almost all features in the app work perfectly for me, and I especially like the way it teaches new vocabulary and reinforces it through multiple modalities (listening, reading, writing, and speaking). The reviews between lessons help the content stick in my brain, but reviewing by speaking has been frequently frustrating. It counts about 80% of my recordings as right but randomly refuses to accept at least two or three every review session, no matter how slowly I enunciate the word/phrase. Even when I listen to the recorded speaker and pronounce the terms in exactly the same way, with identical cadence, Babbel still occasionally rejects it. Reviewing by speaking to practice my pronunciation seems like the best way to learn and retain the content, so I hope Babbel can fix this small issue. Overall though, I highly recommend this app.

Excellent. I’ve always loved learning other languages (Graduated Spanish V in HS, picked up Japanese until Kanji got overwhelming) and my brother showed me this app and I decided it was time to learn German since his girlfriend of 3 years lives in Hamburg and is always visiting (she’s insanely fluent in English you wouldn’t guess she is a native German if she didn’t have an accent) But i think it’s neat to be able to speak with her in her Native language and also to be able to speak to her family which feels like part of my family at this point. Backstory aside/TLDR is this app is honestly pretty great at teaching you what you should start with, building from there, making sure you understand why the language does something a certain way etc. and the review features and scheduling and everything just is the cherry on top honestly. Definitely recommend and no i’m not being paid to say any of this lol

Ok app but auto renews without a reminder. I paid for one year and when it automatically renewed I was caught by surprise. I understand how these subscriptions work, as I have several recurring accounts, but the difference is that the others all send a message to remind me that a payment will be deducted. I cannot keep track of everything a year away and expected a notice as a courtesy. I honestly thought I cancelled it too. Lately Babbel has been sending me a lot of sale offers, which tells me they want my money and have my email address, and also made me think they knew i wasn’t continuing. It feels like it’s easier for them to just take the debit and have people stuck in an old agreement than to be truly supportive of their customers. I haven’t heard back from my emails and find contact is not so easy which also gives me a bad feeling. I can’t afford to learn the hard way for an app I never use anymore. Makes me so upset because times are truly hard enough right now.

SCAM - Save your money. I couldn’t remember why I previously canceled my subscription to Babble. Then I remembered, after studying Italian for three or four weeks, they con you into believing or lure you’re learning a new language. Then, one day, they randomly task you with learning the days of the week. Little do you know, later in the same lesson, you will be tasked with regurgitating the exact spelling of these new words. Literally, with only one viewing. This is how they get you. How they complete the con and take your money. One day, you are slowly making progress, the next day, you are literally tasked with memorizing and spelling every single word. Word, after word. There are no other lessons. There are no other playful games, just spelling compete words you have only seen one before. If you don't memorize it that one time? Your score dramatically drops. One day, 30 out of 30, the next 30 out of 50. You learn nothing and your moral drops. This app is a scam. They took my money and destroyed my interest in learning. Killing my momentum. Get any other language app and/or save your money. This app is a disgrace and shouldbe banned. I'll leave it to AMEX to secure my refund. Such a scam, disappointing.

App feedback. I found this app to be useless. I haven’t learnt anything more than I already knew in Spanish. The microphone is not configured properly and it doesn’t understand me. Next there is so much typing and writing required and click this and click that, making it so hard and frustrating. Even the keyboard is. It configured where I can speak to it. You have to type and type and type. Perhaps the thing which annoyed me the most was that there is no streamlining in learning the process. I felt like I was jumping from one place to another. The gradual steps are not present. One minute it goes to basic and then jumps to an advance chapter with rapid conversations that I couldn’t understand. Then there is all this unnecessary information being taught like what’s specific fruits are called in specific regions, what excursions or historical sites are and how to pronounce them. What’s traditional food in certain areas are. This is like advance stuff, right now I just need to focus on the language and it’s basics. Nouns, conjugation of verbs, tenses etc. I wasted a whole year with Babbel. And they have the audacity to say “ learn a language as little as in 3 weeks”. what a boatload of crap. Tsk tsk tsk

Great app!! Wish it had a few more features.. I’ll start by saying this app has been my favorite among the language learning apps overall. I’m currently taking the Portuguese course. Babbel does a great job pacing the curriculum by teaching phrases and vocabulary while they teach you the grammar. The only downside is that they don’t have a feature that allows me to drill my already learned vocabulary. There is a review tool that gives you a few words and phrases to revisit each day through listening, speaking, writing, or flashcards. I would love if they implemented a feature that allows me to drill vocabulary on my own with those same options available. There is the “my vocabulary” section where I can look and listen to my already learned phrases, but the translation is directly below. So I usually see the translation before I can think about it. All in all, love the app, but wish it had a bit more review options.

Deutsch und Portuguese. Their Deutsch language learning software has been top-notch. Their speech recognition software has also really improved from when I first started using it back in 2016. Their Portuguese has been subpar so far. Some of the apps grammar and verbage is off. Often times there will be a word translation exchange such as: Tipo Filme-Film kind…🙄 come on gang! The obvious English translation there should be type should it not? It is beginning to affect my recall to the point I struggle with words as I am a visual learner. Other issues are the pronunciation and recognition of the voices (which I understand is a cultural thing of Brazil). but my wife tells me their are some inconsistencies (or perhaps just poorly worded explanations) across the different topics, and I myself have found the pronunciation of the man and women to be different dialects At times. Which brings me another idea for your language learning programs in this regard. One of my suggestions would be for the software to accept a gender for languages that have gender norms. The other would be regional pronunciation. I am looking to move to the South so I would like to speak Southern Portuguese, not Rionese (sorry I made that up). This way I’m not practicing a feminine response with me being a male, or being dinged for my pronunciation of “r” vs the “h” Tchüss , und tchau! R. K. D.

Need to buy a new subscription for each language. Huge disappointment! I originally started using Babbel to learn German for my news resolution to learn a new language and possibly immigrate to Germany one day. I bought a years subscription up front for about $100 for 1 year. I had been taking the German lessons for about a month when I decided I wanted to switch my language lessons to Spanish as I had booked a vacation in the Dominican Republic in about 3 months & the native language there is Spanish. But when I changed my language to Spanish on the Babbel app, I was able to take 1 lesson and then it prompted me to buy another subscription in order to continue my lessons in Spanish!!!!! I’m very bummed that they’d have the nerve to charge another subscription for a new language. I’m better off using Duolingo which is free and can proceed to different levels for free as long as you don’t make too many mistakes or you can practice everyday as your “hearts” will reset. I have been able to practice on Duolingo for free in German and Spanish! I only subscribed to Babbel because of all the stars it received! Maybe that was misleading? Such a Shame.

Great basics, lacking after that. The lessons are mostly good. However, the Latin American Spanish track is a total joke. About halfway through, the lessons just start to repeat the same concepts, and don’t progress past A1 level. To get more advanced you have to switch to Spanish Spanish. You lose your progress, the courses and reviews don’t map 1 to 1, and the pronunciations are not on-target. Very disappointing experience. The app also frequently bugs out in offline mode. Lessons and reviews will just become unavailable. And there’s no way to see an overview of what’s been downloaded, how much space it is taking, etc. Spanish Spanish teaches you a lot of generally useless vocab, instead of emphasizing conversational Spanish. That might be good if you’re planning to live there and want to have a convo about “theater companies and their directors”, but if you’re trying to not sound dumb while ordering bus tickets, or chatting with a stranger on the street, it is less than ideal. Also, app is a total battery hog. Might be mining bitcoins or something. It uses more battery than video apps do! My iPad gets noticeably hot using Babbel.

Poor speech recognition. OK app so far, but the speech recognition is not good at all when it is a phrase of multiple words or multiple forms of a word (nosotros, nosotras). Also very strange that the text input lacks the ability to input accent marks, which are an important part of the language, when even the default keyboard on a phone allows. Why create your own keyboard that’s less functional? Also turns out that customer service is very much lacking. Despite the number of complaints here about speech recognition problems, all I get is generic responses about changing settings or blaming the issue on poor signal (sometimes repeating the same response I’ve already gotten), and takes several days to get each one so no progress has been made since I wrote my original review about a month ago. Updated to remove another star. (Another update...developer responded here saying you can access special characters by holding the base letter, but that does not work. That’s how it works on the base iPhone keyboard but it does not work with the keyboard built into the app. Another unhelpful response)

Very useful with exceptions. As a person who works with Spanish speakers daily I find this app to be extremely useful. However, the Spanish in this app focuses on Spanish from Spain and does not include a more specific Spanish speaking countries like Mexico. Perhaps in the future this could be an upgrade? Learn Spain Spanish or Mexican Spanish? Since in Mexico, they do not use some of the same vocabulary as hey do in Spain. Also, some of the audio fill in the blanks do not enunciate well enough for a student to understand what they are saying. I understand dialect is important, but and Spanish is a quick language, but some of the beginner lessons should have slower speaking audio. (Granted it is one voice in particular, but often I do not know what is being said.) The voice recognition is extremely particular in enunciation I opted to do writing answers vs speaking them. Overall, I have learned more in 2 weeks using this app than 2 years of classes in high school.

Great, BUT for conversational Spanish…. Love the app, and it’s multiple techniques for really hammering the language into your brain (flash cards, speaking into mic, listening, pronunciation, writing, etc). So you really can’t just skate-by, clicking the right answers and moving along without a real comprehension. That said, I am so frustrated that I paid for a subscription for a language app (yet again) that claims to teach conversational Mexican Spanish but instead is the more formal version you’d use in Spain. I am half-Mexican but never fully learned the language at home for cultural reasons. Here in Texas, I am exposed to, and speak, at least a little Spanish everyday. I know quite a bit of vocab and phrases already. Fifty years of hearing Spanish, and I’m telling you, NO ONE says “uve” for the letter “V.” No one says “eastadounidense” for “American.” ?!? Please, for the love of all that is Mexican, use real MEXICAN verbiage and pronunciations (none of this Portuguese “th” for the letter “s”).

Issue With Speaking Option to Review. This app is an overall plus, I would recommend it fo anyone who is interested in learning Spanish, Portuguese, And French. It’s repetition-based, meaning you can always review what you learned before, this is especially good for someone like myself who doesn’t retain what is learned easily. The only problem I have is with the speaking tool, where you speak what is supposed to be said in the language you are learning (e.g. words or phrases such “hello” and “thank you”). The problem with this tool is that for some reason it doesn’t catch what I say even if I say it correctly (mind you I grew up in a Spanish/English-speaking household, I am just relearning Spanish to become more fluent). I don’t know why but I hope the developers can see this problem and fix it as soon as possible. As mentioned before, this app is a really good asset to language learning and I recommend it, it just has a few bugs that need to be fixed.

I am having diffulties learning with Babbel. I've been studying Italian for 10 months using Duolingo and Rocket Languages but am always looking for another way to acquire vocabulary and experience so decided to try Babbel. I find the audio lags and will start talking even though I go on to the next exercise and the blanks you fill in are very small so it seems confusing what is wanted. I don't feel there's enough repetition during the lesson before you are expected to spell or speak a word or phrase. I may be wrong but I couldn't find a way to review a lesson's grammar unless you repeat the whole lesson. I know it's not just about rules, but I don't want to memorize phrases either. It's not always apparent what gender or number you are supposed to respond with so I find myself getting frustrated. Unlike the other programs, I am having problems retaining the information. To their credit, Babbel helped clear up some confusion I had with some grammar usage but for the most part, I find Babbel's interface and teaching style isn't working for me.

Great, but not the best (Updated). I’m updating this because I’ve used Babbel for awhile now, and these are some things I would fix for my learning experience. 1. I wish there was a better way to customise notifications, because I would love to be reminded to do it because I don’t want to lose my streak or something like that, or perhaps even an option where I get more than one notification a day. I’m often busy when I have my notifications scheduled, and I often ignore it because of that. 2. I would love to see a more customised reviewing experience. When I review my words, I want to review the ones I don’t remember or barely remember at all. I would love a way to be able to pick what lesson I want with what words I want reviewed, because I know how to count to 20 in German but I don’t quite remember how to order something, and I wish there was a way to tailor it to my needs. All that said, Babbel is a really great learning experience.

Disappointing. I’m bilingual & understand quite a bit in languages that I don’t ‘speak.’ My daughter and I we’re going to take a trip to France. I purchased Babel more than eight weeks prior to departure. I didn’t expect to become fluent, I did expect to learn key words and phrases. After only a few basic words the program suddenly put out rapidly spoken, advanced conversations. I was completely lost, and found it frustrating. It was difficult, when possible, to figure out the content. I found two free apps that were more useful. One provided progressive steps and was fun. I’m still using both to learn French. My next language will be German. During my trip, I learned that the free apps had provided a much broader knowledge base and understanding of the language. Though far from fluent, I was able to understand, and often respond despite my minimal knowledge of the language. I’m going to cancel the last month of my subscription today. I would not recommend this app.

Very Impressed. I studied French when I was younger, spoke it well enough to get by when I went to France (in those days many French refused to speak English). Now I am using Babbel to refresh my memory and to be able to use it in some of my travels. I am very impressed with Babbel so far. I take exception to some of the more negative reviews. Babbel may be a more fun way to learn, but learning a language is still hard work, it takes some discipline. And if some of the phrases we are learning seem unuseful they may be there to serve as a foundation to build on. Also, while it helps to be around people who speak the language, if those very people don’t speak it correctly, you only learn to speak it incorrectly—sure there are regional variations but those are not an official language. As to the French course (and I would think the other language lessons follow the same teaching method), I think it is marvelous the way the lessons are structured and the program is worth every penny.

Decent. I’ve been trying to improve my Spanish skills and have tried a few different apps. I like that this one starts you off right away with some simple usable phrases, but I think if I was completely new to Spanish I would become easily frustrated as you definitely seem to need some type of background in the language to even do the first few lessons. A big down side to this app is that for some phrases you can speak perfectly and clearly and you get marked wrong, no matter how many times you try and no matter how closely you think you’re speaking to the way the example is. That part can be very frustrating. Also, if you type too quickly or make a spelling error your answer is marked completely wrong. This is frustrating as a learner. Some will even mark you wrong if you don’t add punctuation like a period at the end, even though most of the time you don’t have to do this. That is not very consistent. I’m not sure how long before I decide to go back to Duolingo.

Disappointed. The ads state that you will be speaking another language in 3 weeks. Well, I didn’t expect to do that but in reality it is a LOT longer to break ground in the language because of what I wanted to accomplish. I do not want to learn both European Spanish and Latin American Spanish. I just want to have simple conversational Mexico Spanish for every day conversations. You cannot customize this program to focus on conversational, every day Spanish as they take you through how to talk at a construction site, how to do email and a lot of unnecessary steps when the goal is to just talk to people. It started out well in talking about counting, days of the week, and other basics but then it went off into these various situations that have no bearing on what I want. I would like to customize the learning to just everyday talk when you shop, site see or other simple things. At the rate they put you through all the scenarios, you definitely cannot “speak another language in 3 weeks”. Be real with setting expectations.

Worth the money. I have used several different programs to teach myself Swedish over the years. The vocabulary in Rosetta Stone was outdated, making me sound like an eighty year old woman; and the microphone would never accept anything I said (or anything my husband, a native speaker, said, either). Duolingo was better, but the the vocabulary felt really limited to more formal conversation, and the microphone was still finicky. Babel is the first language program that not only has a microphone that doesn’t make me want to pull my hair out, but also teaches helpful, practical vocabulary and phrases in a memorable way that is more about storytelling and less about rote memorization. It includes lessons such as “Mumbling,” and a whole series of lessons on Swedish idioms. The class is thorough. I finally feel like I’m going to not just be able to speak Swedish, but really communicate. Worth the money.