Babbel vs Rosetta Stone: Is Babbel better than Rosetta Stone

The argument of Babbel vs Rosetta Stone mainly depends on what kind of language learner you are, what language you want to learn and how far you want to go with your language. First of all, let’s take a look of simple compression of these two language learning products.

PS: if you would like to know more language learning tools, read more about Babbel vs. Duolingo and the full Babbel Review.

Table of Contents

Overview of Babbel vs Rosetta Stone

	Babbel	Rosetta Stone
Price	$12.95/month to $83.40/year	$11.99/month to $ 249/Lifetime
Language options	14 languages available	30+ languages available
Focus	Helps with beginner conversation phrases	Grammar and vocabulary

Some features both programs have:

Speech recognition
Personalized review sessions
Mobile applications to study on-the-go
A variety of subscriptions/purchasing options

Babbel vs Rosetta Stone: What I Like About Each Platform

Babbel	Rosetta Stone
Conversational language that you’re likely to use in real life.	Tries to mimic how a child learns
10 to 15 minutes bite-sized lessons	Many languages available (more than 30)
Offline mode supported	Classroom modules are available

The methods of Babbel and Rosetta Stone are using is quite different.

The approach Babbel uses is aimed at creating “The shortest path to real-life conversation.” It does this through short 10-15 minutes lessons that are focused on material that will get you conversational.

However, Rosetta Stone aims to be a full immersion experience, where all skills are trained through listening and image-matching exercises, and their advanced TruAccent™ speech-recognition technology.

Babbel vs Rosetta Stone: What I Dislike About Each Platform

Babbel	Rosetta Stone
Only 14 languages are available	Repetitive exercises revolve around matching pictures to words
No serious spoken component	Lacks cultural information and translations
Repetitive exercises that aren’t very unique.	Only starts at a beginner level
Content quantity varies by language	High price

For the shortcomings, I really dislike that there are only 14 languages are available on Babbel: German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Turkish, Dutch, Polish, Norwegian, Indonesian, Russian, Danish and English. If the language you are going to learn is not in the list, you have to go away and look other choices.

As to Rosetta Stone, I must say that the immersion method may work for some people while it may not work for the majority. The platform forces the language learner to rely on their own intuition to comprehend the meaning of each word in the foreign language. If you are not an intuitive learner, it is very hard to start with Rosetta Stone.

Is Babbel better than Rosetta Stone?

It depends on what you’re looking for. Please think about if you want an immersion approach or explanations in your native language, what topics you would like to focus on, and what aspects of a language that are important to you.

Rosetta Stone seems to offer more languages. So, if the language you want to learn is not in the list of Babbel, you can choose Rosetta Stone, Duolingo or other language learning platforms.

However, if you are not an intuitive learner, starting with Babbel or Duolingo would be better.

Finally, please Keep in mind that neither apps are designed strictly to help you reach fluency in conversation, and investing in either applications expecting to become a fluent speaker in months is false. I think both Babbel and Rosetta Stone are the perfect addition to a real language teacher, while you should never expect an online learning software to replace a teacher.