Babbel Review: A Rigorous and Effective Language Learning Platform

Babbel teaches listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Most of the exercises have you practice by filling in missing words from sentences, repeating words and phrases aloud, spelling words and short phrases, and translating.

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I’ve never studied Polish before, so I started at the beginning. When I tested the German course a few years ago, I took the placement test and got bumped up only a tiny bit, enough to skip the Newcomer material that teaches new sounds and letters, which seemed appropriate considering I had very little self-taught German.

Remembering my prior experiences with Babbel, I grabbed a notebook and pen before I got started. In the past, I failed exercises because I couldn’t remember how to spell a long word exactly right, so I decided to take notes. As mentioned, Babbel is challenging. It doesn’t try to be an “on-the-go” app you can pick up on a whim, like Duolingo. You need to sit with Babbel and take notes.

First, the app introduces a small set of words and phrases, and you repeat them or choose them based on a prompt. The same words and phrases appear with images, and you have to match the right word to its picture. Next up is spelling. After you see a picture and hear a word, you must then spell it using a bank of letters. In this exercise, you can either type or select the letters by clicking or tapping on them. That’s helpful when it comes to special characters, like letters with diacritical marks. A little later, Babbel asks you to type words, eventually in the context of a sentence. Sometimes, you see English translations, too.

The exercises are a little dull, but at least they’re hard. Babbel doesn’t simplify sentences and often exposes you to a lot of new words and grammar. If you pick up languages quickly, this type of word exposure is probably beneficial. If you get frustrated easily, Babbel might be too intense.

(Credit: Babbel/PCMag)

A Review section encourages you to do space-repetition learning. In other words, it tailors a review session to you based on what you learned and when. I still found it helpful to have my notes by my side for this part, but overall, it’s a great feature.

While I was testing, I dipped into the Spanish program since it’s a language I already know. Similar to the Polish course, the beginner content has explainers that actually teach you about the language, as well as truly useful words and phrases. In the more advanced areas, you get longer passages to read, though you still have to write words into blank spaces fairly often. You also get audio segments with multiple speakers who go at a natural pace. When you finish listening, you answer a question about what you heard. It’s great content, especially for people who are ready to figure out words from context rather than learning them all through direct translation.