Frequently Asked Questions
You can begin a new language or freshen up on what you already know. Babbel brings together all aspects of language learning – vocabulary, grammar, comprehension and speaking. Many courses are grouped according to specific themes, such as travel and career, and will help you put everything you learn into practice.
Currently, you can learn the following languages:
- German
- English
- French
- Italian
- Brasilian Portuguese
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Dutch
- Turkish
- Polish
- Indonesian
If you have a question, there are two ways to get in touch with with us:
- Write us an email at support@en.babbel.com. If you have an account with Babbel, please write us from the email address with which you registered for Babbel, or tell us the address in the email.
- Write us through the Feedback form. You'll find the form for example on any of the exercise pages, or on the Messages page.
Our support team will answer your question as soon as possible. We're always happy to help. We apologize that as an online company we are unable to offer telephone support.
Online services that are financed by ads have to adjust everything to the needs of their customers, who are really the advertisement providers. Learning at Babbel, however, should be optimized for our users. That’s why we think of language learners as our customers, not the advertising industry.
Also, from the expert point of view, advertising mixed in with education can be detrimental. You should be able to concentrate on what you’re learning, and advertising is specifically designed to interrupt and distract. Ads and learning don’t work together very well.
Registering with Babbel is free. Then you can choose any course and try out the first lesson for free. Everything in your personal vocabulary can be reviewed with the automatic refresher. Also, all the communication functions at Babbel, like internal messaging, as well as the Board and Live-Chat, are available for free. In order to access the extensive content on Babbel and its efficient organization under the course system, you'll however need full access.
Yes. You can change your learning language at any time. You’ll find the price for full access to each language on the navigation bar. You can always try it out for free without any obligation. If you do switch, all of your settings remain, so you can always change back.
Once you have added a new language, switching is easy: just press the Switch button on the homepage.
English is the only language on Babbel that has monolingual courses. This means that you are able to learn English when English is also set as your interface language. However, you will have access to a far greater range of English courses if you choose one of our other languages as the interface language.
To reset your interface language, go to "Profile" and then to "Settings" where the changes can be made. The "Reference Language" you choose will be the interface language. Don't forget to click on "Save" before exiting the "Settings" page. Having followed this procedure, the complete range of English courses will become available to you.
Even if you don't speak one of our other languages, the benefits of choosing one as the interface language far outweigh the disadvantages simply because of the number of English courses that will then become available to you. You will find that the layout of Babbel remains the same and you shouldn't have any problems navigating within the site. Much of our material is image-based and the meaning will be clear to you despite not understanding the interface language. Though the titles of courses will be in the interface language, you will find that most courses also include a title or description in English.
If ever you have any difficulties, you can always write us a message using the "Feedback" option or by email to support@babbel.com.
When you sign up for Babbel, you also receive information and special offers via email. Sometimes it makes sense to enter Babbel into your contacts to make sure all the information displays correctly and/or to prevent the newsletter emails from ending up in your spam folder. You can do this with a simple two or three mouseclicks. We’ve put together some quick instructions for how to do this with some of the more popular email servers. First open the Babbel newsletter.
With...
Hotmail/Windows Live
On the lower left hand side, click on “Contacts” and then on the top menu click on “New”.
Gmail/Googlemail
To the right of the email, click on the arrow next to the options with icons for emailing or chatting, and then click “Add to Contacts”. Or, in the upper left hand corner, click “Contacts”. Then go under the arrow “Add to ‘My Contacts’ “.
Yahoo
Click on “Show Details” and then click the “+” sign next to the “from” addresses. Or on the top near the left click on “Contacts” and then “Add new contact”.
AIM
Click on “Contacts“ in the left hand side menu.
Mail.com
Click on the “Addresses“ tab on the top left.
Fastmail
On the top menu click on “Address Book” and then “Add New”. Or next to the “from” address, click “Add”.
... and with the email clients...
Thunderbird
Right-click on the highlighted “from” address: Babbel or members@service.babbel.com. Select Add to Address Book... from that menu. On the address card, select OK.
Outlook (Express)
On the top left hand side click on “Address Book” and then “New Contact”.
Apple Mail
Right-click on the “From” address when you receive an email from Babbel.
Babbel runs on all modern computers with Internet connection. Minimum requirements are:
- Computer and Processor: Display: 1024x768 or higher resolution monitor, 1GHz Processor, 1GB RAM
- Operating System: Windows, Mac OS X or Linux
- Internet browser with the current Adobe Flash-Player 10.3 or newer
- Javascript must be enabled
Consequently it is not necessary to install a special program to use Babbel, everything runs directly in your Internet browser.
Your reference language is the language that all the explanations and translations will be given in. So it should be a language that you already speak quite well.
If your native language is English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese or Swedish then choose your native language. If your native language is something more exotic, however, choose that language of those above that you are most skilled in.
You can change your reference language in your Profile.
Courses are at the core of Babbel. They consist of a sequence of 5 to 30 steps. Each step takes 10-15 minutes, making it an ideal daily dose of learning. Every time you open Babbel, you’ll see the next step on your personal homepage. You shouldn’t have to think too much about what’s best to study next – our language teachers have already put together a bunch of suggestions for you.
Of course, you don’t have to take us up on our suggestions, you’re welcome to skip that step if you like. When you finish a course or if you want to change course, it’s easy: the course bar on the bottom of the homepage will take you to a Course Overview. There you can “set” a course. Of course you can also start individual exercises straight from the Course Overview if you want to work on something in between.
Yes. The learning system is based on the idea that you choose a course at the beginning. You can however choose other learning materials and do other exercises that don't necessarily belong to your active course, "a la carte". Or you can simply "set" another course as active. Your homepage will always show you the next step according to the course you've set.
Yes. The course system makes a suggestion for you, but it’s always possible to learn something else. Since all the themes at Babbel are divided into small portions, you can always do an individual exercise without having to do the whole course. You can start any exercise directly from the course overview. Then you’ll come to the course bar on the homepage. However, in order to learn in the easiest and most effective way, we do recommend the courses that our language teachers have developed.
The entire vocabulary consists of 3000 words covering all the essentials, making for a complete, solid foundation for language proficiency. For every word there is an example sentence – including a translation – that shows you the word in context. So that you don’t have to learn everything at once. We’ve also developed handy-sized courses on particular themes of interest.
There are beginner courses, where you will learn the basics of the new language. In numerous grammar units you’ll also find, along with conjugation exercises, important rules for how to put it all into use. Depending on which language you’re learning, there are also listening comprehension exercises or short 10-minute trainers.
Within these extensive offerings there is a lot for both beginners and continuing learners to discover, and even advanced learners will find engaging exercises that speak to their interests.
Your Personal Vocabulary and a sophisticated Review Manager
Words and phrases that you’ve worked on at Babbel go immediately into your Personal Babbel Vocabulary. This is connected to Babbel’s sophisticated Review Manager, which knows when you should best review them. It is intended to help you optimally reach your learning goals.
Learning that sticks
In order to really commit vocabulary to long-term memory, you need to practice it often and at appropriately spaced intervals. Based on the proven method "spaced repetition", the Review Manager reminds you to practice your vocab at certain times. The intervals are assessed individually for each word or phrase, based on how often you’ve reviewed it and how often you get it right.
Only correct answers move up
Every word or phrase in your Personal Vocabulary falls into one of six knowledge levels. Every time you get one right in review, it moves up a level. Likewise, when you get it wrong, it moves down.
This means words and phrases that come easily to you will end up at a higher level, and consequently will need to be reviewed less. Those you have a harder time with, on the other hand, will have to be reviewed more often until you truly commit them to memory.
Longer intervals after every review
For each level a word or phrase moves up, the longer the interval before it will need to be reviewed is. At the beginning – or after you’ve gotten a word wrong –, the interval is one day. On the second level up, it’s four days, then seven, then 14, and then 60 days. Once a word reaches the sixth level, it will be six months between reviews.
But here’s the good news: you don’t need to worry about how it all works! The Review Manager reminds you automatically to review, and knows exactly what vocabulary to present to you for optimal language learning success.
In the vocabulary trainer you learn individual words, and there will be example sentences to clarify it all.
As far as the order you learn vocabulary is concerned, first of all we present three new words to study with text, images and pronunciation. In the second part we test how well you’ve learned them: you’ll match all the words with their English translation. Afterwards, you’ll immediately have to type the word out. But don’t worry: we show you some letters as a hint. It’s also not a big deal if you have to cheat a little. What’s most important is that you’ve written out the new word yourself.
Finally, we’ll show you an example sentence for all the vocabulary words and their translations. You'll have to choose which of three new words fits in the sentence. Then come the next three words. At the end you see all six words again in an overview in order to make it all clear.
Yes. With Babbel you can learn set phrases for specific situations – for travel, for the restaurant, for shopping or going out. These types of trainers work entirely independently from vocabulary trainers; words and phrases are not mixed. So you can decide at any given time if you want to build up your vocabulary or if you would rather learn set phrases for specific situations. In some courses these two kinds of Trainers might be combined - but only when it makes sense to do so.
You’ll learn phrases with fun multimedia exercises. First of all the phrase will be spoken aloud and shown to you. There will always be a corresponding image and English translation. Then you can test yourself to see if you can match the words with their translation. For the third step, we’ll show you the individual words, and you’ll have to build the sentence yourself. Then three more phrases come along. At the end you’ll play a little memory game to make your learning more practical.
Babbel offers many different kinds of exercises that are combined in our courses for optimal effect. There are vocabulary trainers with different kinds of exercises and sentence trainers in four different forms. These exercises are accordingly integrated with multi-leveled units so that you won’t see new content only once, but repeat it several times.
Then there is conjugation training, grammar exercises, listening comprehension units and writing exercises. All the different kinds of exercises use multimedia material together with the text. In contrast with learning systems that try to teach all different kinds of content using very few, uniform types of exercises, Babbel presents a richly diverse programme of activities strategically designed for where you are in your learning process. This makes for learning techniques that are especially varied – and thereby effective.
All the content at Babbel is developed by our team of foreign language teachers and native speakers. Experienced language teaching experts design the exercises and content. In places, there is also content based on learning material we have licensed from renowned (print) publishers.
Afterwards the material is reviewed several times and optimized.
Our team's biggest job, however, is adapting often complex didactic material to make it understandable and interactive for online learning.
The basic and advanced vocabulary on Babbel contains around 3000 words and about the same number of example sentences. Every word has a corresponding image to help you memorize it. Our native speakers add their voices to the entire vocabulary along with all the phrases.
There are numerous conjugation exercises for regular and irregular verbs, as well as tutorials on grammar-related topics. Those who are just starting out will find grammar embedded in our integrated beginner courses.
All the words and phrases that you learned in the former version of Babbel are saved in your personal vocabulary. You can access them anytime using the refresher tool.
Babbel is professionally produced by foreign language experts. A team of more than 30 people make sure that you have access to the highest quality material and that the system works as easily and smoothly as possible. Babbel is completely ad-free, and your personal data or user habits will never be used for profit.
In order to maintain this high standard of security and quality of the learning experience, Babbel has to charge for use.
You pay a small monthly price and you will get access to all courses of your chosen learning language. The price depends for how many months you join. The longer the period you join for, the cheaper the monthly price will be. You can take a look at the details at any time in the price overview.
At the beginning, you'll decide the amount of time you'd like to join for, as well as give your payment details. You'll pay at the beginning of the term and will have immediate, unlimited access to all content in your learning language. Your access will renew itself automatically at the end of term, and the same package will be charged again. Of course you can simply email at any time to sales@en.babbel.com to cancel within that term, in which case your access will simply expire at the end of the term.
You can pay with your credit card (Mastercard, Visa, American Express).
The payment will be transacted by our partner Adyen B.V., offering the highest standard of online payment security.
Payment transactions on Babbel adhere to the highest security standards. The connection to the server and the data processing are protected with up to date encryption methods. Our European partner Ayden BV will perform the transaction. You can find further information on security measures at: http://www.adyen.com/about/adyen-certifications
You can simply cancel your membership by email at any time by writing to sales@en.babbel.com or by sending us a short message using the "Feedback" option on the message page in Babbel itself;
When you subscribe to Babbel, your subscription will be automatically renewed until you choose to cancel. To cancel a paid subscription, you need only send us a short message using the "Feedback" option within Babbel itself, or an email. The important thing to remember is that this should be done before the date when the next payment is due. You will, of course, continue to have access to the learning packages until the period already paid for expires.
The money-back guarantee can be claimed at any time within the first twenty days of a new subscription. If the product isn't what you expected, or if for other reasons you'd rather not take part, you can simply cancel your subscription with an email message to sales@en.babbel.com. We'll send you a confirmation at once and credit the full price back to you.
You will have access until the end of the term that you purchased. Then the access will simply expire. You can continue to use the communication functions and the refresher with your personal vocabulary.
If you currently have a subscription with Babbel and choose to upgrade to Language Flex, the old subscription is automatically cancelled and the time already paid for is added on to the first payment period of Language Flex. What's more, we round up the time added on to complete months and you gain immediate access to all seven languages.
Here's an example:
- You currently have a three-monthly subscription and the next payment is due in five weeks time.
- You choose to upgrade to Language Flex.
- We turn the five weeks already paid for into two months and add these on to the first payment period of Language Flex.
You now have 14 months of access to all seven languages before the next payment is due. - You needn't worry about your old three-monthly subscription as this is cancelled automatically.
Please note that upgrades only works for subscriptions, not for vouchers or coupons
Presumption: You are not yet registered with Babbel.
1. Go to the following page to redeem your voucher:
http://www.babbel.com/go/coupon
2. Register an account with Babbel. You need it to be able to enter the voucher code and then get access to the courses.
- Later you will always log in with your email address.
- Once you are logged in you will always be addressed by your first name.
- You need your password each time you log in.
- Choose the language you want to learn
- Choose a course to match your ability (This can be changed at any time)
- Choose the country you live in
- Read and confirm the Terms and Conditions
- Click "Continue"
You will now be forwarded to the next page.
3. Now a page will appear where you can enter your voucher code.
4. On the next screen you will be offered the chance to upgrade to 'Multiflat'. This can be added on for an additional fee and will give you access to all 11 languages on just the one subscription.
If you do not want this option then simply click on "Only French".
5. Now all that remains is for you to check your emails and verify your email address in order to gain access to the complete package. For this you will receive a verification email to the address that you registered with.
That's it - you can now get started!
Presumption: You have already registered with Babbel.
1. Go to www.babbel.com and log in with the email address you used to register with us.
2. On your Babbel homepage click Prices in the menu bar.
3. On the Prices page,
- Make sure that the learning language shown is correct. It can be changed using the "Change learning language" option at top left.
- Click on Would you like to redeem a voucher? at bottom left under the payment options.
N.B. The "Prices" page for our four most recently added languages (Turkish, Dutch, Polish and Indonesian) looks slightly different but also has the "Would you like to redeem a voucher?" option.
4. You will now see the voucher redemption page. Wait until the page has finished loading and ensure that correct learning language shows on the page. Please note that you will not be able to change this after having entered your Voucher code.
5. Now the voucher redemption page will appear. Wait until the page has finished loading.
- Enter the voucher code
- Take care that you have chosen the correct learning language, it can't be changed later! (You can also find out the way to choose a different learning language in FAQs)
- Click on Redeem voucher
5. You will receive a message that the voucher was redeemed successfully.
No. Unlike our regular subscriptions, a voucher simply expires without the need for cancelation.
N.B. After redeeming some vouchers you may have the option to upgrade to "All languages" or to add "Business English". If you choose to do this, you will be taking out a subscription which will renew at our standard rates. To avoid any further payments, simply cancel by sending a short message to our sales@en.babbel.com address. The important thing to remember is that this must be done before the date when the next payment is due.
As with our subscriptions, your learning progress is retained after the expiry of a voucher. If at a later date you purchase further access, you can continue learning exactly where you left off.
1. Go to the following page http://www.babbel.com/go/coupon-einloesen
2. If you already have a Babbel account (accessed with your email address and a password), then log in to your account (may happen automatically). If you don't have one yet, then first of all set up a user account below (register your email address and password).
After logging in or registering, you will come to the page where you can enter your voucher code:
3. Select the correct learning language, enter your code and click on 'Redeem Voucher'.
4. On the next page you have the option to get an upgrade to all languages:
You can book an upgrade to all languages. With the upgrade you can get access to all 11 languages offered by Babbel in a single subscription: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, German, English as a foreign language, Turkish, Polish, Indonesian and Dutch. You can cancel the subscription at any time.
If you don't want an upgrade at all, simply click on 'Just French' (or whatever your chosen language is). Then you are taken to your home page and you can get straight on with learning, or take a look at the large selection of courses that are on offer.
5. Now all that remains is for you to check your emails and verify your email address in order to gain access to the complete package. For this you will receive a verification email to the address that you registered with.
That's it - you can now get started!
Yes. Every completed language course is awarded with a Babbel certificate. In the course overview next to every completed course you will find an icon with a link to your certificate — which you can directly download and print out. You don’t need to pass any exam to be awarded a certificate; your knowledge is continually evaluated during our interactive exercises. The certificate includes information about the content and level of the course and proves what you’ve learned at Babbel.
