Babbel.com is an educational website that claims to provide the easiest and fastest tools for learning foreign languages. It’s an interactive learning system, and according to its users it’s both simple and effective.
Launched in 2008, this website is owned by Lesson Nine, a company based in Germany. It’s available in 8 common languages, which makes it easy to use by people located all around the world. The language of the speaker is also very important in the educational process, as the courses are adapted accordingly. The native language determines how foreign notions are processed and understood, and uses the differences in the favor of its users. This feature is what sets this website apart from other educational platforms, and apparently it works just as expected.
At the moment, users can choose to view and use the website in German, American English, British English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Swedish; all the courses are adapted for these languages, and the users can learn 14 different languages that are foreign to them. These are English, German, Dutch, Danish, French, Italian, Indonesian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. For each language, students can take beginner, intermediate or specialized classes. The specialized classes focus on grammar, listening, vocabulary, traditions and even speaking One of the features of Babbel is speech recognition, which analyses pronunciation. This in another uncommon and highly useful feature, and users can access it both through the website and the Babbel app.
The app is available for Android and iOS devices, and offers virtually the same experience as the website. The courses are divided in short lessons, which only take a few minutes to complete. They use text, grammar hints, writing exercises, images, voice and speech recognition to help the students gain a real understanding of the languages. And because the entire process is interactive, students start learning immediately. The courses don’t waste time giving large pieces of information that the students might not remember, and start testing them right from the start. It’s a fun way to learn, and because the lessons can be downloaded for offline use, they can be accessed anywhere and at anytime.
Babbel is a subscription-based service, and it would appear that the subscribers can only study one language at a time. This is because new users are asked to choose the language that they’re interested in even before creating an account. The choices seem very limited before all the registration steps are completed. But that’s not really the case, because the language can be changed at any time. Users can take whatever course they feel like, and their profiles will show their progress for each language and even lesson. But to create a profile, the user has to take a short “interview” first.
Also, it seems like a great way to pick up some basic notions before traveling to foreign locations. In fact, that’s why many of the clients use it, and they claim to have obtained some very good results. On top of that, it seems that there are no complaints regarding customer service. This can only mean that the company is easy to contact, with representatives offering good support and issuing refunds as expected. And finally, both the iOS and Android versions of the Babbel app are well rated on their respective markets. Accessing the courses on the go is just as easy as using a computer, so Babbel is altogether very user friendly.
While Babbel.com seems to have virtually no flaws, some more experienced users state that the courses are not exactly perfect. Small mistakes can be noticed occasionally, but that shouldn’t really be a problem. This is an online service after all, and expectations should be reasonable. No one can really become proficient in a language by using this type of tool alone, which is why Babbel doesn’t offer any courses for advanced levels. Some users see this as a flaw, but advanced expertise requires professional courses that involve one-on-one preparation. It simply can’t be achieved online, so Babel.com is as good as it can be.
Babbel.com and the accompanying app are user friendly, affordable, and more importantly, very efficient. Users of all ages can learn new languages while having fun, so Babbel is by far one of the best online educational resources. We would recommend it to anyone interested in picking up a foreign language, as almost all current users are very satisfied with their progress.