Disappointing change
Babbel used to be a great app for self study. The first version had only vocabulary practice (many years ago) and was divided into lessons by topic. Over the years they started adding content such as grammar and it was great. I loved the spaced repetition idea even though revising sentences without context of what was actually taught i.e whether you should focus on spelling, grammar, meaning often rendered the experience quite confusing. These days Babbel gave in and stopped competing with Duolingo or Rosetta stone and instead opted for blended learning. Which means very little content, no vocab manager nor vocab practice. But they added tutoring over zoom. Personally, I find it of little value and now I need to use a laptop to join. To add insult to injury the app crashes every now and then. I am disappointed that I paid for a subscription only to learn about the change to blended learning model which I do not like. If I wanted to pay for lessons I would find a teacher. Here you have some random encounters, every time with a new teacher and group which is super awkward and does nothing for my learning. I will not be coming back to Babbel after this as Babbel is no longer for me.
