Babbel is an online language learning application with social networking and wiki elements, launched in January, 2008. The website is owned and operated by Lesson Nine, GmbH, a young company based in Berlin, Germany. The free-access website allows users to join and learn any of five languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish or German, and there are currently localized versions available in all of these languages except Italian. Originally created in response to a perceived lack of user-friendly language-learning software, and modeled after a video game console, Babbel incorporates images and spoken voices for an "intuitive" learning experience.