Babbel - useful or no?

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

There's a sale on a lifetime subscription to Babbel. I've been wanting to learn Spanish, and I was considering buying the subscription. Does anyone have any experience with Babbel?

[cangelosibrown]

I haven't personally used babbel, but language learning is one of my hobbies. From what I've heard about babbel, it's probably the best of "the apps," but that's saying almost nothing. If you want to learn a language, you need to get into it and get your hands dirty. You're never going to do it with an app. Now if you're looking for something casual to do for a few minutes a day, there are probably worse things to do with your time than learn a few Spanish phrases on babbel. If you want to actually learn Spanish, check out the language learning subreddit's guide to learning a language. It's unbelievable the amount of free resources available nowadays, especially for Spanish.I think $8 on a textbook is all I have ever spent learning it

[NorthernIkigai]

Another language person here who has used most of the common apps and some less well known ones. For some reason I've never tried Babbel, but I can't remember what put me off trying it. It might have been as simple as it promising way more than an app can ever deliver -- almost all of them do that, and it's so annoying!

What I've learned from using lots of apps is that you can't tell if something is going to work for you personally until you try it. I see that the first lesson is free on Babbel, so I'd suggest registering and just giving it a try to see if it works for you. I've even had the experience of one app (Lingvist) being really good for expanding my French vocabulary and getting me to the level where I could read books (it was sooo exciting to encounter words and expressions I'd learned in the app in real life), but not working for me at all for Russian (I got bogged down in practicing and could never advance to learn new stuff, it was just too hard for me in a way French hadn't been).

It also depends on whether you are learning a language primarily to speak it or not. I'm more interested in understanding speech and text, so all those "we'll get you talking in X weeks" apps are just not what I'm looking for. I'm happy to speak a language later, but I'd like to understand what I'm doing first.

So go ahead an try it, no one else will be able to tell if it's right for you!

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

Thank you both for the input! I'm very rarely swayed by sales, but it definitely would have been an impulse buy because of a sale I saw.

I will be trying out some different options before I spend money on anything. Ironically I have multiple people I interact with weekly if not daily that would proof my Spanish and converse with me. I need to take advantage of it.

[NorthernIkigai]

You're welcome! Those sales come and go... There's always a next one coming up, so it's not a now or never situation.

I spent literally no money for years on language apps (I'm learning several languages, I'm not just slow :-D ), but in the past few years I have had a one-year subscription to one and then to another, crucially apps I've already been familiar with and known I'll stick with. Right now I have a one-year subscription to Memrise, and since they've extended their course during this year it seems I won't be able to finish it within the year. Of no, I might have to spend another 58 € for another year! It's really good value for money if you actually use it, but of course only a source of stress and remorse if you don't.

[KATHM]

I haven't used Babbel but spent many years trying to learn Spanish with other methods.  I recently stumbled upon this website Dreaming Spanish which focuses on comprehensible input and changed my entire relationship to language learning.

[Agnomen]

While I can't speak to Babbel's specific features, it seems designed to be easily digestible and "fun". Which is perfectly fine depending on your goals. But I prefer to be efficient with my time. Especially if you are learning multiple languages at a time, it can be difficult to make progress due to overall less time available per language.

In terms of apps, I only use a flashcard application (Anki). I actually started learning Spanish myself around two years ago from no prior exposure. I started with premade decks with the most frequent words and verb conjugations and now continually add new vocabulary as I encounter it. This is all free. Though it takes a bit of time to become familiar with everything Anki offers, the spaced repetition system helps you memorize words more effectively than traditional methods.

I use it to remember things I have learned in all languages I am learning / using apart from other subjects as well. It has become an invaluable tool for me in almost all my learning. The only downside is that it can feel tedious at times.

Given the time investment during those two years, I am very happy with my current level of comprehension of Spanish. Anki additionally gives you complete control over your learning data, which is a huge plus. You can create your own decks or use community-created ones, making it very flexible.

If you are interested, I could even link to the specific decks I used in my learning process. From my understanding, Memrise is also based on a flashcard system, so the concept should not be entirely novel to you.

[NorthernIkigai]

I haven't used Babbel but spent many years trying to learn Spanish with other methods.  I recently stumbled upon this website Dreaming Spanish which focuses on comprehensible input and changed my entire relationship to language learning.

Damn, I've not been working on my Spanish for a while as I've been prioritizing other languages, but I randomly picked a video from that site and it was fun! It does make me a bit tempted to start using it...

But yeah, @Wolfpack Mustachian , definitely make use of the existing resources you have, such as people around you!

[KATHM]

Yes, I am a long time lurker on the site and never thought my first post would be about language learning but Dreaming Spanish has really opened my eyes to the differences between language acquisition and translation. 

I would always struggle with understanding anything someone speaking Spanish said to me.  I could memorize and translate but I couldn't understand anything.  I am about 300 hours in, and I can understand basic Spanish when people are talking with me exactly as if they were speaking English.

[cangelosibrown]

Dreaming Spanish is an absolutely incredible resource, and I've listened to huge amounts of their contents. I will say though that their promises and their methodology falls well short of ideal if you follow it too far. Comprehensible input is incredible and hugely valuable, but some of their claims are ludicrous (I think some of their documents claim you'll essentially be a native speaker after 1200 hours or something). Doing comprehensible input ~85% of the  time is so far superior to the 100% that they advocate (in my experience).