Babbel - Language Learning Reviews

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 Babbel 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!

I’ve been using this app 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 Babbel include; being taught phrases that wouldn’t be used in the day to day conversation(even in depth)-Babbel 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 Babbel 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)

rHi everyone at this app. 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 Babbel 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 this app 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.

Overall I like Babbel . 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 Babbel 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 Babbel 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 this app wish board for any suggestions yet clicking on go to wish board does nothing. Makes sense.

I’ve updated my review to five stars. I had an issue getting the store and Babbel 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 Babbel 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. Babbel 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 Babbel 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.

Hi to the developer but I love this idea and I love Babbel. 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 Babbel 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 Babbel that’s why I’m giving it the rating that it has so anybody if you are reading this Babbel cost money I mean if you read the description on Babbel 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.

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!

Through 16 lessons at this point, and overall enjoying this app. I formerly used Duolingo, which seemed too vocabulary based. I'm happy I switched to this app 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 Babbel 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 this app 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.

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.

So far I’ve been using this app for a few months. It’s a nice addition to Duolingo but I have a few complaints. One is Babbel ’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 this app’s. this app 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!

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 Babbel consistently for an entire month and I couldn’t make it a week with this app. 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 this app, 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, this app audio started giving me problems when my phone volume was turned down, this app audio was loud and I even reset my phone thrice. Hopefully they fix it because it’s annoying.

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.

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 Babbel 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!

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 Babbel 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.

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. this app 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 this app, 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😘

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 Babbel, 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 Babbel 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!

So, I know passable french, but I wanted to improve more. I thought to myself “oh every ad is pretty much this app and I have nothing to lose” so I downloaded Babbel . I was so excited to learn more french. I opened Babbel , 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 Babbel 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 Babbel 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

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 Babbel . 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 Babbel. I have previously taken Spanish classes but haven’t used it much for years, and wanted to brush up. Babbel 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’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 Babbel! Or rather...Gracias por todo su arduo trabajo!

I am using this app 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 this app.

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 Babbel very simple as I knew a good amount right off the bat, but Babbel 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 Babbel out! It’s fun and refreshing!

I seriously love Babbel! 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 Babbel. this app 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 this app 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, this app immediately tells me the answer and corrects me. In my opinion, I feel like this app 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 this app downloaders, I HIGHLY recommend. Take this from the person who has learned more with 2 days of Babbel than they have almost 3 years.

Babbel 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 Babbel 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 Babbel to really get the hang of speaking, but overall Babbel 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).

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 Babbel 100%!!

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 Babbel 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.

this app 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 this app. As with any language learning regimen, Babbel 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 this app, I just wish it wasn't so similar to the structure I was used to from the classroom, it doesn't feel very useful!

I’ve loved this app ever since I saw how many freakin’ lessons they have! It really does a good job of teaching grammer, vocab and rules, plus some of the differences in Spanish in all the countries that speak it. My favorite feature would have to be simulated conversations. It gets you started listening to Spanish and is a GREAT way to practice the grammar you’ve learned. My only critiques would be that I wish there was a better re-cap at the end of each lesson in the Words and Sentences section, such as a simulated conversation that includes all the words/phrases that were covered. I also wish there was a better way to review past material, like better built in flash cards. I find myself using a separate flashcards app to do this. Also the Spanish it teaches in from Spain, and I wish when they taught vocab they’d include the words used in Latin America too. Still, this app is the best language learning app I’ve used so far (I like it way more than Doulingo) and I’d recommend it to anyone.

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 Babbel .

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.

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 this app is the same as the the other versions but doesn’t offer nearly as much instruction as said courses. Furthermore this app 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. this app 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.

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.

I really do like Babbel 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 Babbel 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!