They sell things that don’t exist…
The app is useful—I won’t argue with that. But the rest, I’ll keep it brief: I have found hundreds and hundreds of incorrect translations from English to Italian, some of them seriously wrong, which make it impossible to use the flashcards effectively and leave the student feeling very insecure. I reported this issue to Babbel several times and even sent them hundreds of examples (as they, perhaps mistakenly, requested). Despite this, after many email exchanges, their latest response basically stated—surprisingly—that they are not required to give any objective feedback.Furthermore, there are no clear and thorough explanations for how to use vocabulary or phrases in the necessary contexts, which in English is absolutely essential and structurally important. For example, regarding translations: according to Babbel, “cattivo” means mischievous, mean, nasty; they fail to explain the differences in usage, which are significant. People (or AI agents) provide very generic responses to problems but never give clear feedback on issues like translations. In the end, they prefer to offer an abatement of the subscription rather than fix structural errors in the app.Babbel is good for many things, but there is absolutely no way to achieve a real C1 level: out of approximately 8,000 items, only about 100 are C1. At best, I reached B2. The grammar, in terms of lessons, is lacking and low quality, while English has an extensive and rich grammar system, like most languages. In short, they sell a service that does not correspond to the description, even encouraging the acquisition of major mistakes. A great disappointment and, at this point, ethically and professionally unacceptable behavior from the staff and management.