Babbel Learn French App Reviews

I bought a 3-month subscription for $19.99. Instead I was charged $19.99/month for three consecutive months. This app is not worth $20 for a year let alone $60!! There are far better apps for free or much less. This app absolutely needs supplemental learning materials or requires using other apps to help you learn fully. Truly a waste of money!! Do NOT buy this!! It is sub-par in all ways!

App works fine but this has auto-renew. You need to cancel at least 2 days before your subscription expires. Very deceptive- and disappointing.

I subscribed to you last year for a six month term and every time I wanted to advance it said I wasn’t subscribed? I emailed you a couple of times and mentioned that my bank acct was charged and wasn’t getting the service. I had issues with my computer as well and to find out this year you charged my bank acct! I don’t know why? I disputed this and it isn’t fair. You took away my motivation to continue with you. That is it! Thank you

Like the app. Feel like I have learned a lot having never before studied French. However, there could be improvements. Too strict on misspelling, can't go back to hear where you went wrong as well as see it, if you want to do that. And sound recognition needs to be less rigid. Also, it would be nice to be able to slow down the spoken word or sentences, just to be able to catch it better, as it may happen in a classroom setting.

Babbel is so greedy. It wants to charge a $10.99 monthly subscription fee. When I heard the ads for it I thought they were going to give 1 -2 hours worth of material for you to determine if it would be worth to pay for the subscription, but no, it took 5 minutes for them to ask for me to unlock the material. One lesson! When I checked all the “courses” in the app, all the first lessons are unlocked. Which is useless! Instead of unlocking 50 hard lessons unlock 10 easy ones for beginners to determine whether your services are going to be worth their time and investment. Do they not know how learning a language works? You don’t jump from easy to hard the day you start learning a language. I was really excited because a lot of my favorite podcasts were advertising it. I gotta delete both apps that I downloaded.

It’s important to get pronunciation and spelling correct and I would like more time to do that and more time to review answers to figure out mistakes. Finally and most irritating, (I’ve been working on French) the app starts in on “Faire” conjugations out of the blue. No time in prep or practice.

Goes too quickly into guessing games instead of practicing

Speech recognition is bad. Finished introductory lesson and they want my money right away. I will stick with Duo.

Requires logging in

I have an iPhone X and the app crashes after answering first question.

Why is the app free if everything else costs money?

I just wanted to move my lessons over from my iPhone to my iPad. I downloaded from the Cloud then the app completely kicked me out of the lessons I was already doing and insisted that I re-log in. It told me my info was incorrect (bull-pucky)! So I reset my password - still didn't work! Now my iPhone has totally reset, I've lost all the previous lessons that I've completed AND there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY to contact the company OR get support on the website. It just takes you through the initial log in sequence of 'what language do you want to learn' and tell us about your skills. It's BULL-PUCKY considering what I paid already. Since I can't log-in and I can't get any help from customer support, I am going to demand a refund and complain to Apple. The lessons were helpful and fun, but not any good if I can't move them between platforms without losing my info nor log-in and access them. Customer support, guys! That's what makes or breaks an app when you take people's money!

I like the Babbel system for teaching language. However, I think the web-based site is much superior to the app. I do not like that I cannot go back and hear the native speakers more than once on the app (you can on the web-based site). I do not like (and this is true of the web-based site, too) that if you don’t pronounce the way the program thinks you should, you know you didn’t do it right but you don’t know what you did wrong. In fairness, I have tried other web-based language learning systems, and I haven’t found one that does any better than Babbel at this point, but still, it is something the Babbel designers could work on. On a more positive note, Babbel does give realistic conversations to practice with, and that helps remember the words. All in all, this is a great way to learn a language (French, in my case). I just hope the developers keep working to make it even better.

I would love to be able to hear the language slow as well as normal. I would also like to stay in any specific question for a longer period of time for more practice. The app in general moves far too quickly. That being said, I am learning to read and write well in my new language, but I'd like to feel more confident to speak it too. Although to be fair I haven't found any app that really helps you practice speech well.

Need to slow down the dialogue, it would be nice to hear it slowly and at regular pace. Also phonetic spelling would be helpful with some of the more difficult pronunciations. Also less spelling. Over all the app is helpful and well designed, just needs some improvements.

I've been looking for a great and adorable application to study French and one day German with. I'm pleased to say that it has everything I want in learning. It lets you choose courses that are different subjects so you can be more widely versed in conversations. Je l’adore!

I’m so sick of developers who conceal the cost and then admit a hefty monthly fee. Another reviewer wrote that there is a monthly fee if you want to study at a higher level. There is also a monthly fee if you want to study at the beginning level. Plus they talk too fast and audibly demonstrate too little. Bye-bye, Babbel.

Most of the bad reviews are saying that they are going to fast, but if you download other french apps like Duolingo and use this as a practice tool it is very cool its more of a flash card game, but that is its main purpose. I already love it and i just got it!

Tis is a good language learning app but I have some wished. The pronunciation evaluation feature is a good idea. My complaint is that when the app judges my pronunciation is bad but when I cannot tell what is wrong, I cannot correct my pronunciation. I wish it gives easy access to conjugation table, number list, etc. I wish the app can stay in the screen and repeat the word or phrase rather than immediately goes to the next screen.

I have only been working on French for about a month and I can speak many simple sentences. One thing that I would like to be added is if there was a section on the main menu bar for all of the tips that they give you but otherwise its great!

I do not like that if you get a pronunciation wrong there is no direct help,

Babbel demands access to Siri in order to work. It's a data mining tool. Is your privacy worth it? Probably not.

Babbel rocks! I am completing the Refresher Course which is bringing me back to my level of comprehension and fluency in French. When I return from my Quebec vacation, I will stay with Babbel so I can further advance my French language speaking, listening, and reading and writing skills. This is my first-ever online review. Thank you Babbel! Oh, this course is fun to use!!

You get the most most rudimentary level for free. Anything beyond that is subscription. Save your money and use Duolingo.

I studied French whilst in college back in the 80s; I now need it at work. I like the fact I can study at my own pace—and I’m listening to French being spoken as a native. Only downside is not getting feedback on my progress from a live person—but other than that, I like the app!

I have used both and learned a lot from both but can actually speak some of the language with Babbel where I was on level 4 of the other and still not really speaking any of the language.

There's no email to say your subscription is going to renew, and there's no visible area to cancel your subscription. I hadn't used the program in months and then I was randomly charged and I can't find anywhere to cancel it.

For the most part, this is a great app and a great way to learn. However, one minor change that must have come with a recent update is very annoying. I used to be able to see on the list of all the courses the number of lessons in the course and the number I've completed, e.g. 2/10. Now there is nothing but an arrow that takes me to the course page. I have to go to every course page to remind myself if I have completed them or not. PLEASE put the numbers back on the main course page!

The lessons were useful but the speech recognition was extremely frustration to use. It said I was wrong about 90% of the time. A friend who is a fluent speaker tried it and it said she was wrong. It didn’t matter how slowly I spoke or how careful I was with pronunciation. It seemed to randomly decide I was correct. I gave up after a month and switched to a different app.

I have been using several apps to learn French and while I am enjoying babble with help in understanding the structure of French, I find it extremely frustrating when I miss the spelling of a word by a letter or a typo. Also, in the beginner level they are focusing on spelling numbers without a lot of explanation. The commercials say that this is how children learn, but I’m pretty sure that children aren’t expected to be able to spell numbers up to a hundred before learning the basics of language.

Babbel has been helpful for practicing advanced French, but I’m not sure the voice recognition interface is accurately interpreting my voice. It could be that my French accent is incorrect, of course, or it could be an issue with the voice recognition software.

Great app! Practicing 1 new word in foreign language a day for reducing sx of dementia!!

Not for beginners! I’m really struggling. I paid a year in advance and I really wish I could either slow down and or review. Not happy. Do t use if you are a true beginner.

It only gives u access to some features. Frustrating because u think it’s free but then suddenly it says unavailable unless u pay. The lessons u ca get free r rly good tho

French is not a phonetic language, Babbel matches every single written word with the right sound. Fantastic!

I’ve been trying for over an hour to cancel my subscription so it won’t automatically renew. I can’t find anywhere I can cancel my subscription. Don’t get s***** into this black hole

More regularly than not speaker doesn’t recognize voice and it keeps the program for moving onto the next lesson. Very disappointing, and I even upgraded to a full membership

I am trying to learn beginning French. This app works well but most of the time does not understand it when I try to speak French into my iPhone. I will try headphone and computer with headphone then update later.

Hard to get along with this app

Nice learning tool that gives you a chance to get instant feedback on what you get right or wrong for each answer as you go. You get a chance to apply your learning immediately instead of at the end of the lesson when you may have applied it incorrectly the entire time without knowing. Each question and answer is repeated in audio so you are exposed to the spoken language. You are asked to answer some questions by spelling. The spelling prompts become harder as you advance.

Great way to learn a new language and it has different ways for your eyes, ears, speech and brain to pick up on things quicker !

This app will rip you off. Be warned!

I'm trying to learn French and babbel is definitely the way to go. Retaining info can be a little difficult but if you apply just a little effort, babbel will take you from there.

Should have known this would be a waste of time when the first thing i had to do when opening the app was create an account with my email, just to be told I can't study at a higher level without paying for a subscription. Wasted so much of my time already on nothing, so now I will waste more of my time writing this review, because if it means someone reads my review and decides not to download this app, it's worth it. Subscription is way too expensive too, not even reasonably priced. Definitely deleting. I'm so disappointed.

Love it! It really teaches you what you need.

There’s only one lesson (after you create an account via your email) that is free. It’s easy to learn and plenty repetitive to retain the information but in order to continue it’s a monthly cost. I don’t believe it’s enough to know if it’s worth the cost before paying monthly for it.

The voice recognition is bad. It would also be helpful for feedback on the pronunciation.

Check out : "apprendre par coeur". Not enough spaces to spell it out correctly. Or, need to add a single space "oe". Anyway, it's a great and fun app.

This application is easy to follow and understand! The convenience of having your lessons right on your phone is a great way to be able practice any moment you are free. This visuals are relevant and really assist your level of retention. It feels like the language is coming to me❣️