football player and coach see markus babbel . lesson nine gmbh type privately held corporation industry e learning founded august 2007 ; 9 years ago 2007 08 headquarters berlin germany key people markus witte ceo thomas holl cto lorenz heine cino number of employees 110 permanent employees approx . 150 freelancers 1 website www.babbel.com babbel is an online language learning software and e learning platform available in various languages since january 2008 . fourteen languages are currently offered dutch danish english french german indonesian italian norwegian polish portuguese russian swedish spanish and turkish . according to babbel.com it has over 20 000 000 users from more than 190 countries . 2 contents 1 concept 2 recognitions and awards 3 development 4 the name 5 see also 6 references 7 external links concept edit babbel courses may be completed within the learner s web browser not through an installable program . there are beginner and grammar courses vocabulary lessons as well as courses with tongue twisters sayings and songs . courses for a given language may aimed at a specific audience for instance english may be learned as pr english or marketing english based on the learner s profession . babbel courses are also available as apps for mobile devices iphone and ipad apps are available in the app store 3 babbel android apps are available in google play store 4 windows phone apps are available through the windows phone store 5 while windows 8 and windows rt apps are available through the windows app store . 6 courses are multimedia focused to help with pronunciation . babbel users may communicate with each other through the software using the message boards profile pages and private messaging . recognitions and awards edit 2013 babbel has received the digita 2013 award and the innovative 4 society on the cebit . in 2011 babbel was awarded the comenius edumedia seal and the erasmus euromedia seal of approval 7 for babbel for companies 8 courses targeted at the business sector . among others babbel counts hotel.de ag as one of their business clients . babbel also received the european award for technology supported learning eurelea for best technical implementation . the language learning platform was one of the finalists for best web application or service emea in techcrunch s europe awards 2009 . development edit babbel is operated by lesson nine gmbh in berlin germany . the company was founded in august 2007 . in january 2008 the language learning platform went online with community features as a free beta version . by the first year babbel already had 180 000 members from 200 countries . in 2008 kizoo technology ventures and ibb beteiligungsgesellschaft mbh became babbel.com s first investors . then in 2009 babbel.com was granted about one million euros by the erdf european structural fund . the new product version babbel 2.0 went online in november 2009 . at that time lesson nine founders decided against an advertising and mixed finance freemium model and opted for paid content . babbel has around 90 full time employees and freelancers . the company is located in the berlin neighbourhood of kreuzberg . in march 2013 babbel acquired san francisco startup playsay inc. to strategically position themselves to expand into the u.s. market . 9 playsay was a 2011 techcrunch disrupt finalist that had a 1 ranked language learning ios application 10 and premium content deals with mcgraw hill professional and harpercollins . 11 as part of the acquisition playsay founder and ceo ryan meinzer joined babbel as a strategic advisor for its us operations . with an affordable price point and focus on mobile babbel.com is poised to usurp giants like rosetta stone who have neglected the majority of the users in the usa market that spend up to 100 each year on self study language learning products he says . the winner of the race in language learning software will be the one that does mobile the best and babbel.com will be well positioned in the principal usa market armed with the acquisition of playsay . 12 in march 2013 babbel secured 10 million in series b funding led by reed elsevier ventures . 13 the name edit the word babbel is the imperative mood of german babbeln to chat 14 it is also a pun on the biblical tower of babel a gigantic ziggurat whose construction was interrupted when the worker languages were made mutually unintelligible by god . the same motif was used in naming the babel fish from douglas adams s hitchhiker s guide to the galaxy a parasitic fish that serves as a universal translator . lastly babbeln means to speak in the hessian dialect of germany . see also edit smigin a similar language learning platform language education references edit lesson nine gmbh dasauge . dasauge.de . 2014 09 15 . retrieved 2015 12 22 . 1 archived january 5 2012 at the wayback machine . verbindung zum itunes store wird hergestellt . itunes.apple.com . retrieved 2015 12 22 . babbel learn languages android apps on google play . play.google.com . retrieved 2015 12 22 . windows phone apps microsoft store . windowsphone.com . retrieved 2015 12 22 . search results microsoft windows . windows.microsoft.com . microsoft . european society for education and communication . euromediaawards.eu . 2014 10 10 . retrieved 2015 12 22 . 2 archived january 5 2012 at the wayback machine . leach anna march 22 2013 . berlin e learning startup babbel buys out san francisco rival . wall street journal . meinzer ryan may 13 2012 . playsay is 1 . playsay . lunden ingrid march 21 2013 . german language learning startup babbel buys disrupt finalist playsay to target the u.s. market . techcrunch . sawers paul march 21 2013 . money talks language learning startup babbel acquires & shutters playsay as it eyes us and mobile growth . the next web . butcher mike march 26 2013 . language startup babbel closes 10m series b funding to expand globally build team . techcrunch . look up babbel in wiktionary the free dictionary . external links edit look up babbel in wiktionary the free dictionary . babbel.com crunchbase profil retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title babbel & oldid 741358078 categories multilingual websitessocial networking language education websiteswikishidden categories articles with wayback machine linksarticles with german language external linksarticles containing german language text navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschespa olportugu s edit links this page was last modified on 27 september 2016 at 00 32 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view