Babbel Review

Saturday, December 14th

2024 Portuguese Lesson Reviews

Babbel

• Starts at $17.95/month
• Offers over 225 hours of Portuguese lessons
• Covers levels A1 to B1
• Includes literal and figurative translations in lessons
• Uses spaced repetition for vocabulary retention
• Offers fun games for learning Portuguese
• Uses the Toucan browser extension for vocabulary building
• Offers a 20-day money-back guarantee

If you listen to the radio or podcasts, you've almost certainly heard an ad for Babbel. This language platform offers you an extensive range of Portuguese lessons, totaling over 225 hours, and has made its mark with over 10 million subscriptions sold. Their methodology, validated by researchers at Yale University, has been proven to assist 75% of Babbel users in reaching their language learning objectives.

Study at your own pace

There are two primary ways to take language lessons on Babbel. First, you can opt for self-study, taking lessons at your own pace. This track is complete with exercises curated by over 150 language experts, real-life language tools, podcasts, videos, games, and progress tracking tools.

Live lessons are great, but not available for Portuguese (yet?)

Alternatively, Babbel Live offers online classes facilitated by real instructors, along with access to all self-study materials. What sets Babbel Live apart is the opportunity to engage in speaking practice with highly rated teachers in small groups, with classes conveniently available throughout the day, allowing last-minute bookings without any hidden fees. Unlike some language learning apps that may not adequately test your speaking skills, Babbel Live gives you real-world experience with your target language. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, even in the years since our last evaluation of Babbel's Portuguese lessons, they still haven't made Live available for anything other than Spanish, German, French, and Italian. *cue sad trumpets*

Lessons cover beginner to upper intermediate fluency

Babbel's self-paced curriculum spans from A1 to B1 proficiency levels, providing structured courses categorized by level or topic. You can embark on your learning journey from A1 (Beginner) and progress to Upper Intermediate (B1), with up to 13 lessons in each course and different numbers of courses in each CEFR level. So, for example, the Newcomer A1 has 4 courses, each with 11-13 lessons. These range in topics like counting to 100, talking about the weather, and vacations. Jump to the A2 to access 7 more courses, and so on. While the final B1 level comprises only two courses with 11 lessons each, it signifies reaching a stage where learners are typically ready to explore additional resources, such as books or engaging in real conversations with Portuguese speakers. Topics at this highest level on Babbel include real estate, rumors, sustainable tourism, and much more.

You choose what to learn and when

Alternatively, you can explore lessons organized by topic, covering Grammar, Listening and Speaking, Culture and Traditions, Idioms, and Everyday Phrases. With Babbel, you're not confined to a rigid lesson progression, allowing you to follow your interests freely.

Start for free and take the quiz to determine your level

Not sure where to start? Take the quiz. As you set up your Babbel profile (for free, at least at first), you'll be asked why you want to study Portuguese (we chose "I like learning new languages”, but you might say it's for business or travel purposes), how much you currently know of the language, and how many minutes you'd like to spend learning each day. You'll be taken to a pricing page (more on that later), but you can always opt to go to the dashboard to try a free lesson. On that same dashboard intro page, you'll see a quiz to help you find the right level. We entered "I know the basics”, to see where our previous studies of Portuguese had landed us, and answered a few questions about our comfort level with some basics like colors, date and time, and ordering food in a restaurant. To our mild chagrin (after spending over 1,000 days on the Bird App), Babbel recommended that we start as a Newcomer.

Uses lots of different native speakers/accents

So, we walked through the first lesson (still for free, of course), which was a little too basic for our taste: obrigado vs. obrigada, oi and tudo bem, and so forth. But, we liked the mix of accents even in the first lesson, though frankly we could have lived without one of the speaker dialogues including an exchange student (whose accent was very obviously non-native and thus not as helpful for our trying to speak like a Brazilian).

Well-rounded lessons with literal and figurative explanations

More broadly speaking, in a typical Babbel lesson, you'll encounter various interactive activities aimed at reinforcing learning. From guessing words based on pictures to completing sentences and practicing spelling, each exercise is designed to enhance comprehension. Notably, Babbel provides both figurative and literal translations, ensuring a thorough understanding of nuances within the language. (As an example, "oi, tudo bem?” would figuratively be "Hello, how are you?” but literally it's "Hey, all well?”) Moreover, Babbel offers diverse review methods, allowing you to choose from flashcards, listening, speaking, or writing, with their spaced repetition technique effective at promoting vocabulary retention.

Plenty of extras to enhance learning

Additionally, Babbel offers supplementary resources like podcasts, games such as "Phrase Maze" and "Word Trax," and a magazine filled with language and cultural articles, fostering an immersive learning experience. You'll find all of that and more under the Explore tab at the top of the site.

Use the extension to take learning into the real world

Babbel's recent acquisition of the Toucan browser extension further enriches your learning journey, enabling you to build and retain new Portuguese vocabulary while browsing the web. This integration helps you to encounter new words in context, enhancing your understanding and retention.

Many pricing options

Babbel's pricing starts at $17.95 per month. If you are willing to pay for several months upfront, you can drop your monthly cost as low as $8.95 (on an annual plan), or make a one-time payment of $349 for lifetime access. Your Babbel subscription gives you immediate access to all languages, making it a smart choice for striving polyglots. You're also protected by a 20-day money-back guarantee, and if you check your email after you've signed up for that free preview, you may get a good deal: we were offered a year-long subscription for the price of 6 months.

Customer service may be a little tricky

The only complaint we can find for Babbel is the difficulty in reaching customer service. A lot of the low-star reviews for this language platform are from those who had their accounts set to auto renew on billing and who had a hard time getting it canceled.

Most learners give it 5 stars

On the other hand, there are tens of thousands of five-star reviews for this language platform. Compared with the Bird App, users say that Babbel helps them learn Portuguese that's actually useful, and without so many hints that they essentially "cheat” and wind up not practicing. They especially like the Review section, where they can choose to use flashcards, write words in Portuguese (rather than just choosing from a wordbank), practice listening, or try their accent while speaking.

#1 option for Portuguese lessons

While there's no one Portuguese lesson platform that can do it all, Babbel comes pretty close. You get easy access to a free trial, lessons spanning a wide range of topics (and fluency levels), a 20-day refund policy and affordable pricing (especially when you wait for one of those offers in your email). We'll keep hoping that Babbel starts offering live lessons for Portuguese, but in the meanwhile we encourage you to put its self-study materials to the test. Babbel continues to be our top pick among Portuguese lessons.