The Babbel Method

Every language learner needs a great teacher to pave the way in mastering a new language. This is why Babbel has a world-class didactic method at its core. Our experts obsessed over the strongest academic learning practices and cherry-picked empirically proven, time-tested strategies to teach languages. They then successfully translated a rich didactic encyclopedia into the digital world, and the result is a powerful curriculum available at the tip of your fingers — wherever you may be and whenever you want to learn.

The shortest path to a real-life conversation

Babbel was among the first to pioneer online language learning, creating a powerful app that combines communicative didactics, cognitivism, behaviorism and constructivism. Progressive lessons are connected together as an interlinking framework, with each step building towards the next. This guarantees learners the shortest path to real-life conversations by:

  • Immersing you in a new language through real-life dialogues that will get you speaking right away
  • Employing proven cognitive techniques that move new vocab to your long-term memory
  • Using human voices and speech recognition to get you speaking confidently
  • Building each course based on your native language and personal interests

Speak instantly with confidence

Employing the latest didactic research, Babbel gives you skills to use right away, enabling learners to immerse in a new language like a native. Instead of drilling abstract sentences, vocabulary or grammar rules, the app teaches through real-life dialogue. Beginners start with typical greetings like, “Hello, how are you,” and gradually build up to practical dialogues like, “How can I book a single room?” This method of learning through conversation also teaches vocabulary actively and passively. Babbel guides your brain to connect the dots by passively learning new information based on the dialogue’s context. This empowers you to actively use passively learned words, giving you the confidence to start talking right away.

Retain for the long term

Teaching well means understanding and adapting how information is stored in the brain. Cognitive psychology has found that in less than a second, new information sticks to human memory when it is relevant to you. Babbel capitalizes on this by introducing carefully designed sets of content in a way that succeeds to connect. To send information from short-term to long-term memory, Babbel reintroduces words through six memory stages using the technique of spaced repetition. Our data-driven review manager moves these words through different patterns that are spaced out for the brain to optimally save new learnings. Whether you learn best by reading, writing, speaking, seeing or listening, Babbel addresses all individual needs for both visual and auditory learning types.

Learn from humans

Every learner is different. This is why Babbel offers individual paths, looking at where you are coming from and where you want to go. We also know you already learned a language successfully: your native language. And this can help you to unlock your new language even faster. Babbel capitalizes on this by building on grammatical concepts shared with your mother tongue, and skipping over mutual words that you already know. Last but not least, using real voices of native speakers with various accents, Babbel lets you hear how languages truly sound and ensures you speak the same. Speech recognition tools test your pronunciation to make sure you sound like a native and communicate with confidence. Babbel truly understands that authenticity is key to fully exploring a new language.

Awards and Reviews

We are proud to have received the following awards and reviews.

  • Fast Company Magazine

    “The most innovative company in education”

  • Comenius-EduMedia-Award 2016

    Category “Didactic Multimedia Product”

  • Best of Mobile 2014

    Category “Education”

  • The Europas 2014

    Category “Best Education Startup”

  • Microsoft Innovate 4Society Award

    Category “Established Company”

  • Digita 2013 Winner

    Category “Private Learning”

  • Eurelea Winner 2011

    Category “Technical Implementation”