We have tried to build it in to our learning method by using the Review Manager. In your Review Manager you will find all the vocabulary you have learned in your lessons, and you will be prompted to review according to our method of 'spaced repetition'. We suggest doing 1-2 short review sessions a day to keep on top of this. Happy learning!
Learn German with these German courses:
Babbel offers various German courses according to your level and interests. Choose and let Babbel guide you through one or many of the following: Grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, advanced courses.
Newcomer
An easy introduction to German: basic vocab, grammar, and pronunciation.
Beginner I
Learn the most important expressions for everyday life and the basics of German grammar and pronunciation.
Beginner II
Discover more words and expressions for many different life situations.
Pre-intermediate
Consolidate what you've learnt and start expressing yourself in a more nuanced way.
Intermediate
Improve your skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing at an intermediate level.
Independent
Continue reinforcing your skills: practice listening, speaking, reading, and writing at an independent level.
Refresher
![Babbel german app Babbel german app](/uploads/1/2/4/7/124794771/602117048.jpg)
Ideal for anyone who studied German a long time ago or wants to test their knowledge.
Grammar
Grammar practice in easy, understandable steps. Drills and exercises with clear and concrete examples.
Listening and Speaking
Here you'll find courses which will help you to focus on your listening and speaking skills.
Business German
Here you'll learn how to write an official email, how to answer the phone at your workplace and how to plan business travel. Practice a professional interview and learn how to make small talk with your colleagues.
Reading and Writing
These courses have a special focus on reading and writing.
Countries and Traditions
In these courses, you won't just learn the language. You'll also gain useful knowledge about Germany.
Specials
![Babbel German Review Babbel German Review](http://www.learnlanguageszone.com/images/articles/babbel-banner.gif)
Here you'll find courses in which you can refresh your memory and learn idioms.
Words and Sentences
Improve and train your vocabulary with over 3000 words and example sentences you can use in everyday life.
German pronunciation
With the integrated speech recognition tool you can test and practice your pronunciation. It works directly in the browser. You will only need a microphone and the latest Flash-Player.
Learn German Vocabulary
Learn online grammar, vocabulary and phrases, practice in optimal intervals: At Babbel, you’ll get the basic and advanced vocabulary for German. The Review Manager makes sure that you’ll exercise the vocabulary and grammar rules that were hard for you.
iPhone app
You can use the German iPhone app together with the Babbel website. Your learning progress will be synchronized between them, so you can learn and review anywhere, anytime.
Learn Languages Online:
This page in other languages:
About Babbel
$12.95
- ProsWell-structured courses. High quality materials unique to each language. Inexpensive.
- ConsNot highly engaging. Little exercise variety. Content quantity varies by language.
- Bottom LineLanguage-learning app Babbel teaches phrases and vocabulary you'll actually use. While the exercises can get dull, a low subscription price makes up for it.
With a low price for membership and truly useful content, Babbel is one of the best language-learning programs that you can buy from the comfort of your home and do while in your pajamas. Babbel has a web app and mobile apps where you can log in to learn and practice a new language at your own pace. The exercises can feel tedious at times, as they don't offer the greatest variety, but at least you learn concepts, words, and phrases that are unique to the language at hand.
- $179.00
- $0.00
- $199.95
- $119.95
- $150.00
- $9.95
- $149.95
- $187.00
- $0.00
Babbel Languages
Babbel has lessons for learning 13 languages (counting programs where the language of instruction is English). You can learn Danish, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
There's also a course for learning English, with instruction available in seven languages: French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.
Babbel Pricing
Babbel sells subscription memberships for one year ($83.40), six months ($44.70), three months ($26.85), and one month ($12.95). A paid membership gives you unlimited access to the language program you choose on both the website and mobile apps.
The prices are competitive, especially the six-month and one-year plans. With most language-learning apps, you can expect to pay around $10 per month, and somewhere in the range of $100-$200 per year. For traditional language-learning programs that you buy once and own forever, the cost can be anywhere from about $130 to nearly $500, depending on the program and how many lessons come with it.
Before you buy a Babbel membership, you can try a small portion of the program for free, but you don't get enough lessons to keep you learning for long.
Getting Started With Babbel
To test Babbel, I signed up for its Dutch course, a language I've never studied before. I have used Babbel before, but with different languages (German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, and Swedish, and I poked around at Russian once). This time, I wanted to take a fresh look at the program from the beginning.
You wouldn't know it from trying just one of Babbel's courses, but the material is unique for each language. For example, in the Dutch program, there's an exercise that involves a French woman speaking, and another person responds to her in Dutch, 'I don't speak any French.' In The Netherlands and Belgium, that's a phrase you might actually have to use. The Dutch lessons also expose you to the name of cities in The Netherlands and teach you their local pronunciation. In the Russian program, however, the early lessons focus a lot on helping you learn Cyrillic, and rest assured you don't encounter any French.
The fact that each program is unique boosts my confidence in them. Some other language-learning programs use the same images and the core vocabulary no matter what language you're learning, Rosetta Stone being a prime example. Do enough Rosetta Stone, and you'll be able to say 'the dog eats rice' in 20 languages. But you might never learn how to pronounce Groningen like a local.
Structure
Babbel has a clear structure. There are courses that contain lessons, and unless you have prior experience with the language and want to jump ahead, you're meant to do them in order.
The Dutch program has five courses, all labeled Beginner. Each course has around 20 lessons, although the last course has only nine.
You can jump ahead at will or repeat lessons at any time. If you work consecutively, the app always shows you the next course in your program when you log in.
Interface and Variety
Babbel's content is great, but its interface isn't very cutting edge, and there's minimal variety among the exercises. Get ready to spend a lot of time spelling single words and short phrases, either from memory or by choosing letters in the correct order from a bank.
If you aren't hung up on the way an app looks, you'll have no problem with Babbel. It's clear and straightforward, just not especially pretty.
Learning With Babbel
Babbel teaches reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Most of the exercises have you practice by filling in missing words from sentences, translating, sorting words into groups, and repeating words and phrases aloud.
While the exercises can get dull quickly, the program's early stages are challenging. I'd be exposed to new Dutch words and then have to spell them a few moments later, and I got a lot of them wrong. I tried to complete at least two lessons per day, but at that pace, I worried I was getting ahead of myself.
By day four or five, however, the program still had me practicing the same vocabulary from the first day, which suddenly made the language feel within reach again. Still, I wanted more instruction and practice with sounds because maybe it would have helped me sound out words that I learned to say but struggled to spell.
When you complete a lesson, Babbel gives you the opportunity to go back and re-do any exercises you got wrong the first time around. I like that option, but better might be to use adaptive learning and have Babbel automatically reintroduce exercises you've gotten wrong in the past, sprinkling them into your current lesson.
I dipped into the Spanish program to see what's in the advanced lessons for languages that have them. There, you get longer passages to read, though you still have to write words into blanks 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.
As far as I got with any of Babbel's programs, I never had to generate language. When you generate language, you decide what you want to say, and then say it in the language you're practicing. It's completely different from translating text that's presented to you or parroting back sounds. Outside of classroom experiences and conversational practice, you'll rarely find opportunities for language generation. In the more advanced Pimsleur lessons, for example, a narrator sometimes sets you up in a scenario and then plays an audio clip of someone speaking to you. Then the narrator asks you how you would respond, given the words and phrases you've been practicing.
Learn Something Useful With Babbel
The minds behind Babbel have clearly spent time crafting a language-learning program that's unique to each language. When you learn with Babbel, you learn words and phrases you'll actually use as a beginner in your new tongue. Some of the exercises can get boring or feel repetitive at times, but the content is solid and the low price makes up for it.
Babbel
Bottom Line: Language-learning app Babbel teaches phrases and vocabulary you'll actually use. While the exercises can get dull, a low subscription price makes up for it.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.blog comments powered by Disqus