I actually had the chance to try Babbel for free for a month in exchange for $50 to test out how effective the program is. To be quite honest with you, I wasn't very impressed with it. To me, it didn't focus enough on the basics and rushed into the hard stuff way too quickly. The results of the study were that the majority of people who tried the program for the whole month had the same problems with it as me. After a month of studying, here's what I was able to retain from it:
Guten Tag. My name ist Danielle. Und ver bist du?