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Babbel was the world’s first language-learning app and is also the best-selling. Its intuitive lessons, which have led to over 10 million subscriptions being sold, center on learning a language through real-life conversations.

But before we get into why that works so well, let’s go back to how things started.

In the beginning, there were none

In 2007 Markus Witte, Thomas Holl, and two friends (later, the four co-founders), who met at a Berlin-based software company, were building an online collaboration platform for musicians. One day one of them expressed interest in learning Spanish. To his surprise he only found CD-ROMs and textbooks. There were almost no online options. They decided to refocus and create their own online language learning solution. And Babbel was born.

Today, Babbel’s offices in Berlin and New York City create app-based lessons — as well as podcasts, games, videos, content about culture, and even live, online classes — to help everyone around the world learn languages.

Meet the team

Creating understanding through language

The Babbel method uses the empirically-proven techniques created by curriculum experts. They’ve created 13,000 hours of content and more than 50,000 lessons across 14 languages.

Babbel builds new language grammar and vocabulary on the foundation of the language you already know. In fact, no two Babbel courses are the same. They are all unique, taking into account the similarities and differences between “language pairs” – your native language and the one you are learning.

The Babbel method trains your brain to learn constantly. It takes as few as 10 minutes a day, and you can continue to learn outside of the app “hands-free” through our 20+ podcasts.

Like a local

Babbel also utilizes audio dialogue examples recorded with native speakers, so the language you learn is more accurate and at times, even colloquial.

In addition to speaking and reading your new language, you’ll also learn about that language’s history, discover recipes, songs, and even meet new people along the way.

Subscriptions over distractions

Babbel’s app uses a subscription-based model, because we want to work directly with each language learner — without interruption by a third party. Ads are distracting, and working on a subscription model means learning in a more focused and effective way. When learners win, Babbel wins.

73% of users indicated that they would be able to have a short, simple conversation in their new language within 5 hours of using Babbel. To go further, explore why Babbel works.

Learn Live

An app alone is not enough to make you fluent, which is why many users are turning to Babbel’s new live, virtual classes to accelerate their learning. There are hundreds of classes offered each week, making it easy to find a time and lesson topic that work best for you.

Meet the Babbel Live teachers and find out more.