Babbel Review: A Look At Price, Languages, and Alternatives (2024)

LANGOLY'S REVIEW 8.9

USER REVIEWS 8.1

PROS

• Easy-to-use and attractive design
  
• Content for everyone: beginner to advanced
  
• Excellent value for money

CONS

• Activities are similar to other apps
  
• Content quality varies between languages

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Babbel Overview

Babbel helps you practice all areas of language: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Its interactive activities will get you conversational in no time. The Babbel language-learning program includes vocabulary drills, reading exercises, and live conversations in lessons that you can repeat anytime you want. The app has an innovative and adaptive algorithm that adjusts the difficulty based on your previous answers to ensure that you are getting the most out of each lesson.

The language experts at Babbel create each course based on your native language to help you learn each language more effectively and efficiently. For example, the Spanish course is different depending on what your first language is. This is because native German speakers will learn Spanish differently than native French speakers.

Here’s a video about the Babbel method of language learning:

Babbel’s price point and content make it one of the most popular language apps available today. In general, the activities and content in the Babbel app are similar to other language apps, like Duolingo, but are generally much higher quality and more extensive. In addition, Babbel offers other interesting features like podcasts, practice games, and even live tutoring sessions, depending on the language you’re studying. The Babbel lessons themselves can seem a little repetitive and slow-paced at times, but they can help you achieve a higher level of fluency in you stick with it.

The structure of Babbel’s courses is logical and easy to follow. Some of the more common languages, like Spanish and French, have lessons for complete newcomers all the way to intermediate and advanced levels. Lesser-studied languages, like Danish and Polish, have a lot less selection and are usually limited to beginner levels only.

While smaller courses for less-spoken languages may seem like a downfall, it’s also understandable – Babbel’s language experts develop each course separately. The courses don’t all contain the same content, which is how some other language apps create their courses.

All in all, Babbel is an excellent place to start. It will help you build a solid foundation, and when you complete the course of your choice, there are other language apps that can pick up where Babbel leaves off (like the Innovative Language courses).

Babbel Price and Cost per Month

Babbel has different subscription options, and the monthly cost decreases based on the length of your subscription. A one-month subscription costs $14.95, a three-month subscription costs $37.95 ($12.65 per month), and a yearly subscription costs $89.40 ($7.45 per month). A lifetime access is a one-time payment of $349.00 and you have access to all languages. Babbel pricing may differ in other countries.

Compared to other language learning apps, Babbel’s price and cost per month is pretty standard. Other apps like Mondly have a similar price, but aren’t as comprehensive as Babbel and won’t teach you as much. Some other language learning programs like FluentU offer a lot more content, but may be out of reach due to their higher monthly cost (a cheaper option is Lingopie).

Babbel Free Trial

If you want to try Babbel before you buy, you can try the first few lessons of each course for free. The free version of Babbel is very limited though. To access all the features, you need a subscription. If you’re not happy, Babbel offers a 20-day money back guarantee.There’s no risk to try it!

Babbel Discounts and Deals

In addition to the standard discounts for longer subscriptions, Babbel also gives discounts to students (in the US only) and military personnel. There are also additional deals available on the Babbel website throughout the year, especially around major holidays.

For students who want to get a Babbel subscription, they can pay $14.99 for a three-month membership as long as they register with their school email address. This price is a 65% discount.

Military personnel or their immediate family members who choose to purchase a Babbel subscription can pay $35.00 for a six-month membership. This is about the same discount as the student price.

Now, Babbel offers a new discount for healthcare workers. Nurses, medical providers, hospital employees, and first responders can get a six-month membership for $35.00.

Babbel Review: Getting Started & Features

When you decide to learn a new language with Babbel, you’ll see that it’s easy to get started. When you sign up for your account, Babbel walks you through choosing a language, determining your level, and the app has a full walkthrough the first time you open it.

It’s worth noting again that each language course Babbel offers is unique. This may not seem like a big deal, but so many apps copy/paste the content of their courses and simply translate them into new languages. They use the same pictures, the same sentences, and the same lessons.

Babbel takes the time to make each course individually. This means that when you study a language with Babbel, you’re learning words native speakers actually use. You’ll also cover topics that you’re more likely to come across when speaking the language. LingoDeer is another app that does this really well.

Babbel Features: Lessons

Babbel’s lessons are the main feature of the app. They follow the same structure throughout the entire course. You learn a few words and phrases, then complete a series of activities to practice using them. The activities aren’t that engaging, but they do help you learn new vocabulary and grammar, which is what’s most important.

Throughout the lessons, you’ll practice reading and writing the words and phrases, as well as listening to them and pronouncing them using Babbel’s speech-recognition technology. As far as speech-recognition technology goes, Babbel’s is mostly accurate. The lessons can become repetitive after a while though, especially when they have multiple parts.

Over time, Babbel will also remind you to review words and phrases from previous lessons. This is called spaced-repetition, and it’s a technology that most language apps use. This feature isn’t unique to Babbel, but it’s an important aspect of language learning and it’s a plus that Babbel uses it.

Babbel Features: Podcasts

For some languages, Babbel offers podcasts to help you improve your listening skills. These podcasts are for beginner, intermediate, and advanced learners. Not all languages have podcasts available, and podcast choices are limited for the languages that do have them.The more common languages have a few options, like Spanish, German, and Italian. Less common languages like Swedish, Turkish, and Dutch don’t have any.

Babbel Features: 2-Minute Stories

Another feature available for some languages is 2-Minute Stories. These stories are short and their purpose is to teach you useful phrases. These are a bit of a missed opportunity in my opinion. The useful phrases are bolded, but the rest of the stories are in English. I think this feature would be much more useful if the stories were in the target language, not my native language.

Babbel Features: Culture Bites

Babbel’s Culture Bites are designed to help you learn cultural aspects of your target language. They’re quick descriptions of unique characteristics of your target language, like how people introduce themselves, different celebrations, and important artists and historical figures. Like the 2-Minute Stories, the Culture Bites are in English. They don’t offer that much value to a Babbel subscription, but they’re available if you’re interested in reading through them.

Babbel Features: Babbel Live

The most interesting and useful feature Babbel offers outside of its courses is Babbel Live. With Babbel Live, you can take 60-minute live classes with experienced language teachers. The classes cover a variety of topics and are available for all levels. Currently, Babbel Live is available for Spanish, French, and German.

Babbel Live is a separate product from the Babbel app and also has its own subscription options. For 5 classes per month, you’ll pay around $100.00 per month. 10 classes per month costs around $175.00 and 20 classes per month will run you around $300.00. The Babbel app is included in all Babbel Live subscriptions, so subscribing to Babbel Live first could save you some money.

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Babbel Review: Overall Learning Experience

Overall, Babbel’s language courses are useful and effective. They help you build a strong foundation in your target language and help you start speaking. You can also learn more about culture and the people who speak your target language, which some apps completely ignore. Another app that does an excellent job of teaching the cultural aspects of a language is LinguaLift.

There’s no substitute for practicing with native speakers though. Despite Babbel’s speech-recognition technology being fairly accurate, finding a live tutor on a site like italki or Preply will help you gain fluency a lot faster. Babbel has realized this, and has started to add features to enhance its core language courses to help you speak better. I’m interested to see how Babbel improves its features over time.

Babbel Review: Languages

Babbel offers 14 language courses: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Polish, Russian, Dutch, Turkish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Indonesian, and English. Even though Babbel offers multiple languages, a regular subscription only gives you access to one language. The quality of the courses varies depending on the language you want to study. Let’s take a look at Babbel’s Spanish, Norwegian, and Polish courses to see how different they are.

Babbel Spanish Review

The Babbel Spanish course is comprehensive and consists of lessons ranging in difficulty from complete newcomer to advanced. You can choose between Mexican Spanish and Castellano (Spanish from Spain). In addition to the core course, Babbel also offers additional refresher courses, grammar lessons, Business Spanish, and other specialized Spanish courses.

Overall, Babbel’s Spanish language course is worth the cost because it offers a lot of additional features. Babbel is a good choice to learn Spanish, but there are also many other Spanish language apps available if you think that Babbel isn’t the right choice for you.

Babbel Norwegian Review

The Babbel Norwegian course is best for beginners because it only includes three levels: Newcomer, Beginner 1, and Beginner 2. There are also additional courses that cover grammar, countries and traditions, and extra words and sentences. The “countries and traditions” course may be of interest to anyone traveling to Norway because they include topics like “Norwegian for Your Vacation” and “A Year in Norway”.

The Babbel Norwegian course can start you off on the right path to learning Norwegian, but it will only cover the basics. If you’re intermediate or advanced, you might need to use a different Norwegian language app.

Babbel Polish Review

Similar to other less-common languages, the Babbel Polish course is quite limited. It can be a great way to start learning the language, but will only take you to an upper-beginner level. It includes Newcomer, Beginner 1, and Beginner 2 levels, as well as additional courses that teach you grammar, the cultures and traditions of Poland, and vocabulary. For Polish specifically, it may be better to seek out other Polish language apps that provide more comprehensive lessons.

Babbel Review: Areas of Improvement

Compared to its competitors, Babbel is one of the best apps available. But it still has some aspects that can be improved. The main one is the range of language courses. Even though Babbel specifically develops each language course individually, which is commendable, there are huge differences in the amount of content offered in each course. Particularly for people who want to learn multiple languages with Babbel, they may be disappointed to find some courses are more developed than others.

Another area of improvement for Babbel is its additional features. While they sound interesting, the actual content in them is lacking and not very helpful. Learners can pick up a few tips and tricks while using them, but overall, they’re not that helpful for learning a language. For this reason, the best way to use Babbel is to stick to its main content: the courses.

Babbel Alternatives and Competitors

Even though Babbel is an established language learning app, there are plenty of competitors and alternatives. In terms of content, Rosetta Stone is the most similar to Babbel. Mondly also has a similar structure, but focuses more on vocabulary and tracking your progress to keep you motivated. Unlike the others, MosaLingua offers more of a self-directed, immersive language learning experience. If you prefer a traditional approach to language learning, you can look into an app like LingoDeer or Lingoda.

Babbel vs Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone, like Babbel, is one of the most well-known language apps. They have similar course and lesson structures and have similar prices. But there are also some notable differences. Rosetta Stone opts for an immersive approach while Babbel uses a gradual process and provides explanations in your native language. You can try them both with the free trials offered or learn more in this Rosetta Stone review.

Babbel vs Mondly

Mondly and Babbel have similar structures, but the content, technology, and general pace of the apps is different. Babbel offers more useful content overall, but keeps some aspects of the language in separate lessons, like grammar. Mondly incorporates grammar into its lessons and has an interactive approach. Both are good apps for beginners, but Babbel offers more content for intermediate and advanced language learners. You can read our full Mondly review or this comprehensive Mondly vs Babbel comparison to learn more.

Babbel vs MosaLingua

MosaLingua and Babbel are designed for different types of learners. Babbel has a more-developed course structure and builds on what you learned in the previous lesson. MosaLingua is a flashcard app that helps you learn vocabulary and phrases, but it also has ebooks, videos, and audio you can use to improve your fluency. It’s completely self-directed, so you can focus on learning what you want to learn. You can read more about it in this complete MosaLingua review.

Babbel vs Duolingo

Babbel and Duolingo are similar in their content, methodology, and user experience. They’re both set up as comprehensive courses, but Babbel offers more flexibility and allows you to choose which lessons you do. Duolingo only lets you move forward after you complete the previous lessons. Babbel far outshines Duolingo in terms of content because it’s truly useful, while Duolingo teaches random words and phrases. More casual learners usually choose Duolingo because it’s free, but if you actually want to learn a language, Babbel is the better choice. You can read more about how Duolingo compares to Babbel or learn more in this Duolingo review.

Babbel Ratings from Around the Web

I’m a fan of Babbel, but don’t just take my word for it. Here are some Babbel ratings from other leading websites. These ratings include a mix of both editor reviews and user reviews. Babbel averages an 8.7/10.0 in its ratings around the web. Here are each site’s independent Babbel rating as of 2023.

• Apple Store: 9.4/10.0
• Google Play Store: 9.2/10.0
• PCMag: 8.0/10.0
• TrustPilot: 8.2/10.0
• G2: 8.6/10.0

Babbel Review FAQ

About This Babbel Review

This is an independent Babbel review, and the company has not sponsored this article. To write this review, I purchased a one-month subscription to the app and used it for a few hours to thoroughly test its content and features. I also found additional information on the Babbel website to verify my findings.