Babbel founder in an interview
“After the pandemic came the real rush”
October 27, 2023, 2:08 p.m
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Babbel has become one of the most important online platforms for learning languages. In the first Corona wave, the Berlin company’s user numbers rose rapidly. And surprisingly, the boom didn’t end after that. “After the Pande“It was only then that the real rush came,” says Markus Witte, one of the founders of Babbel and today’s chairman of the supervisory board, in the podcast “Zero Hour”.
During the pandemic, many people sat at home, and Babbel experienced a lot of popularity. How does it look now?
Markus Witte: The real rush came after the pandemic. People have realized that they can travel again. And other countries deal with other languages. And this has further increased the need to learn other languages. The number of customers and sales are increasing.
The economy in Germany is stagnating, and at the same time inflation is putting a strain on people. Aren’t people most likely to forego learning a language?
Of course there is. But there is also an opposite trend: whenever a situation is perceived as a crisis, we as humans often reorient ourselves. Then all forms of learning will be used more. We see this here, but it is also a general trend. If things get more difficult economically, then things tend to get better for us. We have seen this in other countries too.
Which languages are in particularly high demand in such a situation?
Of course, like everywhere else, English is number one, but for us the curve doesn’t drop off as much when French or Spanish follow. But it’s not so surprising what is learned.
Babbel works with different types of online learning – text-based courses and video lessons, for example. Is there a trend in which direction this is developing?
The trend is not so much influenced by demand, but rather by supply. Overall, this spreads out a bit. For us at Babbel, it’s not so important how often someone uses the app, but whether there is actual learning success after four months. With other products, daily use plays a much larger role; they are designed to be more playful. The market is becoming more differentiated and more mature.
In which direction is Babbel investing? In technology or in more language teachers?
Definitely in technology at the moment. There has been a huge leap in technology that has made new, artificial intelligence-driven products in the language sector possible. The direction is pretty clear: we have to offer people the learning method they need at the time. If you look back, you know that you always learn in very different ways. Our job is to guide people through it.
Won’t ChatGPT and other AI software soon make independent language learning obsolete?
If we’re honest, none of us know what this means for us yet. One thing is clear: Until ChatGPT 3, you could say that computers might do math well, but people are better at natural languages. It’s over. Computers now handle this just as well as humans. You can not only correct texts, but also generate them. Also translate live, even via video. So when I’m in a taxi in Hong Kong, I can use my cell phone to tell the taxi driver which hotel I want to go to.
Then I no longer need a foreign language.
Yes, but when I’m sitting in a bar in southern Italy and having a conversation with someone, it’s a total hindrance to be talking on my cell phone the whole time. And when people learn languages, there is relatively little about simply conveying information. I no longer need any language to ask how I get to the train station; the app tells me that directly. What is more important is human contact and the expansion of one’s own thinking. The business context is a great example of this.
In what way?
In a business meeting, for example, two people who neither speak English as their native language can communicate. But when I meet an Italian business partner, it’s really nice if I can have a little conversation with him in Italian outside of the negotiations. This has a different flavor. It’s not about information, but about a different relationship.
With Markus Witte said Nils Kreimeier. The conversation has been shortened and smoothed for better readability.
Listen in the new episode of “Zero Hour“
- Which techniques are changing language learning
- Why people still learn Latin
- How much Russian is still in demand
You can find all episodes directly here RTL+, Apple or Spotify or via Google.