The hardest part of learning a new language? Finding the confidence to speak it. Out loud. In front of other people. If just reading this makes your heart race and your palms get sweaty, take a breath. We’re here to help.
A global survey found that 73 percent of Babbel users say they can speak a new language after just five hours of using our app. And the participants in our Spanish Challenge (see video above) were able to have full conversations after only 15 hours with Babbel. So there’s no need to panic. All you have to do is choose a language to learn and start studying. You’ll have the confidence to speak before you know it! Here’s how you’ll learn:
Listen And Repeat
You can’t speak a new language correctly without first knowing how it’s supposed to sound. That’s why watching movies and listening to music in another language is a useful method to supplement your studies with. It’s also why native speakers voice all of the examples and dialogues in our lessons. The more you hear the language spoken, the more confident you’ll become when it’s your turn to speak.
Once you’ve listened to native speakers and have the cadence of the language down, the next step is to practice speaking it. Our speech recognition feature will analyze how you speak and give feedback, and pretty soon your pronunciation will be almost flawless.
Face The Real World
Let’s be honest: most people don’t care how to say “the cat is wearing a blue shirt.” That might make an adorable photo for a greeting card, but it’s not useful in your everyday life. Babbel knows what you actually want to learn: how to order food or a drink at the bar, how to meet new people, how to navigate a foreign city, how to talk business. Our goal is to prepare you for real-life conversations that are practical. When you learn with us, we’ll put you in realistic situations and teach you the skills to converse with ease.
Actually Remember It
You may have taken a language class or dabbled in another app at some point in your life, but how much of the language do you actually remember? In our experience, people often remember very little of what they’ve learned, which generally means they didn’t get the right teaching methods to facilitate retention.
Babbel’s lessons are not based on an algorithm or outdated, grammar-obsessed teaching styles. Every lesson in every course is designed by our team of language-learning experts and incorporates the latest and most effective learning methodologies. So, let’s say you learn some food vocab (who doesn’t want to talk about food?) and a little basic grammar to help you discuss it. As you continue with Babbel, you’ll be given review sessions in which that same food vocab and grammar is reintroduced in new contexts. This reinforces what you’re learning and sends it to your long-term memory. What’s the point in picking up a new skill if you aren’t going to remember it down the road?
Too Convenient To Ignore
Getting into a new routine, and having the discipline to stick with it, is hard. We all know this. And we make excuses like, I can’t go to the gym today because it’s raining, or I don’t have time, or I need to walk my cat. With Babbel, these excuses don’t exactly work. Let’s go through them:
- It’s raining — Babbel is available across all of your devices, so you can use it wherever you go … even on your couch during a torrential downpour. Your learning progress is synced, so if it stops raining and you decide to venture out and switch from your laptop to your phone, you can pick up right where you left off.
- I don’t have time — Finding the time to learn a language is actually much easier than you think. We even have a comprehensive list of moments in daily life when you could be using our app. And our short lessons — about 10-15 minutes each — can easily fit into your busy schedule.
- I have to walk my cat — Nope. Not touching that one.
Gaining the ability to speak a language in five hours may sound too good to be true, but it is possible. Download Babbel and give it a try.