Babbel - Language Learning Ratings and Reviews

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)

Hello, thanks for your great ⭐️⭐️️️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️ feedback. We are really pleased that you are enjoying learning French with Babbel and we'd love to add Irish one day. Could you please send us a message to support@babbel.com with your email address linked to Babbel, so we can have more details about this? We'd love to help you with the voice recognition!

First off, this language app is far superior to any other language app out there. I used it for three years while living in Germany and had a yearly plan for German.

I just moved back to the states and hadn’t been using the app for awhile due to the move preparations and process. Today I tried to use the app and consider switching to Spanish but all my German data was gone and it said my access was only limited. However, when I look at my subscriptions in my phone settings, I still have my annual German language subscription; yet when I go into the app and try to restore purchases there are none to be found.

Tried to find a way to contact a human through the app and their website, but couldn’t find anything. I suspect the problem lay in the fact when I moved back to the States and got a new phone and US number it messed with my subscription somehow. But if I am unable to contact a customer service person, how am I able to troubleshoot on my own. My annual subscription was set to renew in 3 days so there’s not much time to figure it out before I get hit with another annual charge for something that doesn’t work. So i cancelled my (non-functioning) subscription via Apple, deleted the app and came straight here to review. So take my fresh emotions tirade for what it’s worth. This app was great while it worked, but todays prices for the subscription I already had is now twice the price.

Hi there, we apologise for the time taken in this matter. Our support team is receiving an important amount of messages at the moment, delaying our response times. We appreciate your patience in this matter, you will receive the attention and solution that you deserve. Please, make sure you have send us an email to support@babbel.com, we will be shortly with you solving this. Kind regards 🧡

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

Hello, thanks for your message. We are dedicated to keeping education accessible, which is why Babbel offers free and paid lessons and free podcasts. You can do 20 - 60 lessons for free in 14 languages (each first one of every course). So, there’s a lot to explore! You only pay for full access. 😉

This app uses a very traditional teaching model. Grammatical rules followed by exercises. It is more or less like a digital text book. I much prefer and believe that intuitive learning through immersion is much better. Here there is far too much explanation and technical grammar. If that is your thing, great, you will love this. But, if you are like me and find this far too boring and confusing because you don’t even know the nomenclature for grammatical concepts in your native language - and most people who have learned just by speaking don’t know the nomenclature - you will not like doing these exercises. Do you know what the subjunctive is? I don’t and I have a law degree and a masters in education. Consequently, I think a more intuitive, immersive, non-explanatory, game like system will do a better job of teaching you a language. If you are a grammar nerd, go for it. On the good side, I do like the Babbel podcast and stories. They are great for listening and assimilating the language. The speaking and listening practice are decent but too limited in that they do not involve dialogue. All in all, for what you get, this app is way too expensive. I unless there are major improvement to make it engaging and fun, I will be dropping it when my subscription expires. Instead, I will be talking to my Chat GPT friend and using the competing D app. Sorry, I really wanted to like it.

Hi there! Thank you for your message. We have noted your remarks and will definitely have a closer look to improve your general experience. Remember we are here to help you, keep up the good work and have a Happy Learning!

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.

Hi there, 

Thanks for sharing your review. If you book a subscription directly on our website, we are able to help you switch your learning language. If you need any futher help, please feel free to contact us at support@babbel.com with your Babbel email.

I’m editing my review since I felt I was a bit too harsh the first time. I purchased a lifetime subscription and I’m a little let down that more effort hasn’t been put into the Babbel app. Their UI is a little clunky making it confusing to navigate. Your progress and the next lesson is presented in a way that’s kind of confusing and doesn’t make me feel accomplished. I moved to Babble from Duolingo and I really like that it has toned down gamification- especially that guilt tripping green owl. But I want some of that polish and well thought out UX back. Babble’s widget is boring on my Home Screen. The lessons could use more engaging mechanics and I feel the bland stock photography inserted to “help you remember” plays heavily into my aversion; stock photos aren’t effective and actually comes off as low effort and frustrating as it never relates well in the lesson. Overall, I think the groundwork is solid, it’s no frills which may be effective for some people, and you will learn a language doing the lessons while using other learning sources. I have ADHD and want to be engaged a bit more to keep me coming back. I think adding more/ better learning mechanisms would help the repetitiveness. Video, animations, back and forth conversation talking rather than just writing in answers. I’m glad I have babble to use as an extra tool for learning.

Hi Ben! As stated before, we are sorry that your experience was not as you expected. We appreciate your review and every single detail you added. We will forward this to the different teams involved. We are truly grateful for your feedback, and we wish we could have a second chance to show you that we are indeed an app that cares about your learning progress. Thank you for reaching out to us 😌

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

Hi there! Thank you for your message. We are really glad to read that you have had a good time with Babbel and that our app has helped you in your path. Remember we are here to assist you, keep up the good work and have a Happy Learning!

rHi everyone at Babbel. I think that this is really a great app to help people learn Spanish. But the one issue that I have is that I am a black African American woman and I am a native English speaker. I have spoken English for most of my life, no other languages. But now I have just met a guy that I am seeing and he speaks Spanish, he knows English but he does not know a lot of English. So I have to learn his language so that he and I can be able to talk to each other and get to know each other. But it’s alittle difficult with this app because they teach you basic phrases but not enough to have a full everyday conversation and form sentences. Also some of the phrases that they teach are Stuff that you wouldn’t use in regular conversation. Like people being from Germany or France. I understand they are trying to make sure we get a well rounded education and that’s good. But I don’t want to be a pro at Spanish, I want to be fluent enough so that I can talk to my guy. I know i just started a few days ago and I know I am not gonna be fluent fast. But I am just saying teach me how to form sentences with the phrases I am learning. Other than this, I think Babbel is a great app for people who already know the language and just need to brush up on their skills, not really for a beginner.

Hello Dacia, thanks for your review. We're always working to improve our user experience, and really appreciate you taking the time to share your comments. Learning a new language is a subjective procedure, and different methods work for each person. Please submit your idea on our Wishboard: wishboard.babbel.com 🙂 Thank you!

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.

Hello there, thank you for your kind feedback. We are glad you have enjoyed our Spanish courses and we are sure you will do great as you progress with the lessons. Regarding your remarks, we have noted your comments about the possible warnings we could add in terms of misspellings. Secondly, we do appreciate your feedback in the general design and customer experience, this can help us to be able to offer you a better app overall. Once again, we truly appreciate your time in letting us know all these details. Kind regards from the Babbel team.

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!

Thanks for getting in touch and bringing this to our attention. There is a variety of lessons (each first one of every course), that you can enjoy for free. You only pay for full access! We're sorry, to hear about the technical problems. We would appreciate if you would contact us at support@babbel.com for more info, so we can help you out!