Babbel vs Rosetta Stone: Which One Helps Speak Fluently?

Quality of Courses

Babbel is the first of the many learning tools out there to use high-quality content that is developed by top language experts specializing in world-class didactic methods. Features of this app include learning processes based on communicative didactics, cognitivism, behaviorism and constructivism.

Babbel ensures its users that they will reach the goal of fluently speaking a foreign language through the tool’s use of:  

•  Real-life dialogues

•  Customized courses to suit each individual user based on their personal interests and native language 

• Human voices and speech recognition technologies, and

• Advanced didactic research to stay on top of global language developments and trends

This language-learning tool likes to start users at a beginner’s stage and build them up to a more advanced level of dialogue. For instance, the app starts with common statements like, “Hello, how are you,” and gradually advances the user to learning phrases like, “How can I book a single room?”. Babbel uses cognitive psychology and high-quality services to meet the visual and auditory needs of every individual user. The Babbel team takes pride in having been part of more than one million customers’ language learning journeys since 2016.

Rosetta Stone, on the other hand, allows you to choose topics that you want to build your vocabulary on, like travel, work, family, basics and beyond, the latter topic covering everyday items, colors, sizes and slang. This learning app is unique in that it uses a “drill-and-kill” approach to learning. “Drill-and-kill” teaching is a tedious, yet effective method that makes new material stay fresh in your mind. Users hear a word, say it, write it and choose it among other words provided on the screen.

Rosetta Stone prides itself in using pictures to make associations with the meaning of a word in order to make little room for translation-dependency. This learning service has been around for decades, booming globally in 2003, and helping individuals of all ages around the world.

Read relevant Do Language Learning Apps Truly work? 

Number of Languages and Price

On the Babbel app, users can find 13 languages, with English used as the assumed language of instruction. Languages include Danish, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. Only one language is available to be taught at a time, unless users opt-in for the Babbel Complete experience, which offers access to all languages, for an extra cost.

On a general note, there is a fee required to be paid to use Babbel. Users have options to subscribe either every month, 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months, with the prices corresponding to $20 USD, $15 USD, $13 USD, or $10 USD respectively.

Rosetta Stone on the other hand offers 25 languages and allows users to learn any number of languages at the same time. There is a cost associated with using any Rosetta Stone services, the lowest starting at $12 USD with a $35 fee for 3 months, and the highest being $250 USD for a lifetime, plus the first 3 months of Live Group Coaching for free.

What do People Say? Which is Best?

Various review blogs like Crashed Culture and Rype have compared the features of Babbel and Rosetta Stone, and we have gathered user reviews from app stores to see which tool is better from a customer perspective.

Let’s look at each app individually. Users that have either reviewed Babbel or Rosetta Stone share nothing but positive experiences. They are typically happy with the variety of ways the tools provide content and practices. Babbel’s review by CNN recommends this learning tool to their readers and the author claims that they received a seamless experience. While CNN Underscored has not reviewed Rosetta Stone, PC Editors’ Choice has. The author, Jill Duffy, describes Rosetta Stone as the “best premium software for building a foundation in a foreign language”.

The reviews seem all around positive, however, when it comes to comparing the two services side-by-side, reviewers mentioned that while Rosetta Stone does cost more, it throws a “beginner straight into an immersion-style course”. The review from PC Editors’ Choice believes that no other language learning tool provides all the language skills like Rosetta Stone.

If cost is not an issue, Rosetta Stone seems like the better choice compared to Babbel if users are looking for a more professional learning experience. If not, Babbel reviews have not indicated any reason to avoid using that learning tool to learn a new language.

For a more customer-based perspective of the tools themselves, we took a look at the reviews for Babbel and Rosetta Stone from the Android Play Store. Babbel scored 4.5/5 stars, with over 500, 000 reviews and more than 10 million downloads. One of the lowest reviews stated frustrations with the development of the app due to technical problems, yet one of the more content customers stated that, “Babbel offers much more variety and [the user] feels like it helps more conversationally”.

Rosetta Stone on the other hand, has received a 4.6/5 stars on Android’s Play Store with more than 10 million downloads. One of the lower reviews stated that the user faced a lot of frustrations with the app’s font size, reporting that the words cannot be read properly without magnifying the app. A user who rated the app 5/5 stars stated that they use this app with their kids to teach them primary-level English, and the user themselves are learning their 5th language!

There is quite a variety going on between Babbel and Rosetta Stone. It is safe to conclude that both apps are worth the hype, yet it depends on the user’s needs and budget on which experience to take on.