Babbel.com, a Flex application built to help people learn a new language, just sent me an email saying they’ve raised their first round of funding. the size of the round wasn’t mentioned, but as part of the funding they’re also announcing some new features. One, they’ve converted fully from Flex 2 to Flex 3 (they have a Rails back end). They’ve also added some new types of tutorials.

We got to talk with the crew from Babbel at the on AIR Tour event in Berlin and I was really impressed. I’m a big fan of the application and I think it does a good job of showing how RIAs can be used for distance learning. They do a nice job of incorporating video and rich media aspects with the overall experience to make learning a new language interesting. Right now they support French, English, Spanish, Italian, and German.

If you get a chance, you should check Babbel.com out. It’s a fun app. I did an interview with the founder, Thomas Holl, earlier this year.