Babbel - Language Learning 12+

It’s not Babel’s fault that I didn’t get a chance to use the app properly. My experience on the trial was good. In fact so good I wanted to do a full course and duly went ahead with looking for a suitable subscription. Here is where the issues starts. I opted for a year subscription plan in 12 monthly instalments. Unfortunately Apple took the full year, in one big hit. Now did I press the wrong option or was there an error in their process? I can’t be 100% sure but within minutes I was on the phone asking to cancel the order so I could reorder the subscription. Did I have joy? No. I was told it was going to take up to TWO months for any cancellation refund to reach me. After a lengthy discussion I managed to get it down to one month. Now I won’t know if this was successful or not for 30 days or so, we’ll see. All in all it means that Babel have lost a customer (potentially more as all my family are moving abroad with me and will need courses too), because at the end of the day the ‘front of house’ is how the service is initially how most services are reviewed. I know it’s not Babel’s fault, but unfortunately it’s them they gets judged in this instance. Perhaps they should talk to the greedy corporations they use as middlemen, I don’t know. So for me I’ll get down the car boot find a cassette language course I want I learn the old school way. Hey tapes are back in any way. Aren’t they?

Hello there, we need to have a look into this situation. Could you please send us a message to support@babbel.com with your email address linked to your Babbel account? Once we have this information, we will be able to assist you further. Additionally, we would like to take advantage of the communication to kindly ask you to reconsider your grading as this does not involve Babbel or its courses. e hope we can help you further once you contact us :) Thank you for getting in touch.

I started to learn Italian during COVID with Duolingo. Upon finishing the course there, I didn’t know what else to do, how to continue learning. I needed something well structured, planned and guide me throughout the learning process. So I researched a bit and decided to give Babbel a go. And that was a great choice.
For Italian learners, there course is well thought, there are multiple levels of where you start. I started from the bottom, A1 which then quite quickly moved on to A2. I learnt a lot of vocabulary, situations, there are dialogues, grammar well explained, constant reminders and refreshers to help stick what you’ve learnt. There are a lot of podcasts, situations, travel phrases etc. A really well built course. I’m not yet even in half but I’m enjoying it a lot.
I have the chance to speak a bit with my Italian partner or friends and they say the vocabulary I learnt from this app is not a banal one (comparing to Duolingo).

I know the app offers also classes to help you speak, you get 2 free of charge but I haven’t used it yet.

Hello Leon, 

Thanks for sharing your amazing review.

We're happy to hear that our courses suit your learning style. 

It's fantastic that you've had so much fun and success learning Italian with Babbel. Be proud of your achievements! 🧡️

Best wishes
The Babbel Team

I really want to love Babbel and don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I signed up to learn Swedish but I think it can do better. For a start, the voice recognition is inconsistent. For example, it frequently tells me I’ve got en ett or att wrong. It often sees att as @ or not at all, it also often misses the en and with ett, it either doesn’t hear it or it thinks I’ve said en ett when I haven’t. Reading numbers can be haphazard so that you might say elva and it will put 11 (which is right) but it will see it as wrong. These are so frustrating and reduce my enjoyment of the app when you get stuck on it. And then, you’ll mispronounce a long word and it will say you were right! At least get that bit right.

My second issue is that the last levels learning vocabulary are very boring because they are very repetitive and some words will appear in 2 or 3 lessons, Also, each lesson in these levels is the same and there are no little extra asides like in the lower courses. And there are hundreds of these lessons. Some thought needs to be given to variety and spend less time on words that are identical in both languages (I already know how to say t shirt and flip flops thanks, I don’t need to learn this 4 times over. )

Fix these things and it will be an ace app.

Hi Kate, thank you for your message. We are sorry to read that your experience with Babbel was not as expected. We have noted your comments and will take this feedback into account to be a better app in the future. Kind regards.